Welcome to The Postville Project

On May 12, 2008, agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) conducted an immigration raid at the Agriprocessors, Inc. plant in the small northeast Iowa community of Postville. While the 2008 raid focused national and international attention on Postville, the raid is part of a much larger story: the rapid demographic change and transition of a small rural community since the 1980s due to an influx of people of many nationalities and cultures.

The Postville Project archives and makes accessible an interdisciplinary collection of primary and secondary source material from a wide array of humanities and social science disciplines. Comprised of material about individuals, institutions, and the community of Postville, the archive provides social, cultural, and economic context to the 2008 immigration raid and the story of Postville in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Read more »

How to Use this Site

  • View the Collections

    Collections are groups of related items that we've put together by topic.

  • Browse the Archives

    Look at the archives to see all of the items in our collection. Filter by item type or tag.

  • Search the Site

    Use simple or advanced search to look for specific item types, categories, or tags.