The U Turn

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Contributed by Megan Fountain

A movie poster features the title “The U Turn” in large bold letters, with the central “U” filled with an outdoor scene of a group of people sitting together in a natural setting. Above the title, the poster reads “A Film by Luis Argueta,” and below it appears the tagline “A Transformational Journey.” The background is dark, highlighting the bright imagery inside the letter “U.”

On May 12, 2008, the U.S. government sent 900 heavily armed immigration agents to the tiny town of Postville, Iowa, to arrest 389 undocumented immigrant workers in the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant. This event forms the backdrop for Luis Argueta’s documentary film, The U Turn. Argueta visited UConn in September to screen his film and answer questions.

Argueta flew to Iowa immediately after the raid and began documenting the stories of the Guatemalan-American families who were torn apart. The result was AbUSed: The Postville Raid (2010). Now, Argueta has produced a sequel, The U Turn (2016), exploring the raid’s aftermath. In this long story, we meet everyday heroes from small-town America and the Iowa government who “refused to give up” on their immigrant neighbors. According to census data, there are less than 800 households in the entire town, so the arrest of 389 people left an indelible mark. At the town’s entrance, a sign greets visitors, “Postville: Hometown to the World.” Argueta shows how the town lived up to its motto, in defiance of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At the center of the story of The U Turn is the struggle of about 70 women and youth victims of the raid eventually to win permanent legal status (green cards) through the U visa program. Congress created the U visa in 2000 to encourage victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other violent crimes to cooperate with the police without fear of deportation. An immigrant victim of one of these crimes who helps the state prosecute it can apply for a U visa. Women and youth at Agriprocessors who had endured sexual violence from managers, threats of retribution for non-compliance, and child labor violations, ended up winning U visas. They were allowed to petition for visas for their spouses, parents, children, and siblings. In total, 179 workers and family members got green cards.

In Trump’s America, The U Turn’s happy ending seems almost from another era. (Argueta finished the film before Trump took office.) And one cannot help but think about the other 300 immigrant workers who were deported from Postville and never benefitted from U visas. Although the Attorney General for Iowa attempted to convict the factory owners on 9,311 counts of child labor violations, a jury found them not guilty. The AG could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the owners had knowingly hired 32 child workers. Spurred by this injustice, the Iowa legislature later amended its criminal statutes to make it easier to convict employers for child labor violations; and to increase the penalty from $100 to $10,000 per violation.

The film dramatizes how vastly out of proportion the resources commanded by ICE are when compared to what state governments have for enforcing workplace standards and punishing abusive employers. Whereas ICE mobilized hundreds of agents and circled helicopters around Agriprocessors, spending millions of taxpayer dollars just on the day of the raid, Iowa could afford just one child labor inspector for the whole state. The U Turn shows how states and localities can–and must–invest in workers’ rights enforcement as an alternative to deportations.