The Stark Geography of U.S. Immigration Raids

The largest immigration raid in U.S. history happened in Postville, Iowa. Over a couple of days in May 2008, teams of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents flooded the tiny meatpacking town, arresting over 389 people as helicopters swirled overhead. A decade later, memories of the incident remain fresh; some residents who were children during the raid are still in therapy, one local advocate told the Des Moines Register.

Community arrests like this, in which undocumented people are rounded up in workplaces and homes, can tear the fabric of an entire town: Homes are left empty, jobs undone, families uprooted, and neighbors divided. “Large-scale raids are experienced locally as disasters, even by those not directly affected,” Elizabeth Oglesby, a professor of Latin American Studies and Geography at the University of Arizona, wrote in June.