MT. PLEASANT, IOWA—Isabel discovered she was pregnant May 14. She and her husband, Jack (names changed because of his undocumented status), had been trying to start a family for years. They had a miscarriage in 2015. In 2016, their baby girl died an hour and a half after being born premature. Given the past complications, this new pregnancy was a huge deal. But Isabel wasn’t able to tell Jack in person.
He was one of 32 workers seized during a May 9 raid at the Midwest Precast Concrete facility (MPC) in Mt. Pleasant. It was the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in the state since 2008, when 900 agents blitzed a meatpacking plant in Postville and put a tenth of the small town’s population in jail.
