Man deported after Postville raid pleads guilty to reentry

DECORAH — A Guatemalan man who was removed from the United States following the 2008 Agriprocessors immigration raid in Postville has pleaded guilty to returning to the country.

Edwin Junech-Pastor, 36, of Decorah, entered a plea Monday to one count of illegal reentry in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. Other charges of misuse of a Social Security number and unlawful use of an identification document likely will be dismissed at a later sentencing date.

Born in Guatemala City, Junech-Pastor was found at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant during the May 12, 2008, search. At the time, it was one of the largest immigration workplace raids in the country with hundreds of workers, mainly from Guatemala and Mexico, detained.

Authorities found Junech-Pastor had been working at the facility using an Alien Registration Number that was issued to another person. He pleaded to false use of an employment document, a felony, and was sentenced to five years of probation.

On June 13, 2008, he was deported from the United States. Authorities say Junech-Pastor returned to the United States at some point.

Decorah police ticketed him for driving a Chevrolet Uplander there without a license during an April 2, 2019, traffic stop, court records show.

On June 3, 2019, he used a forged Permanent Resident card — bearing a number registered to a man from Mexico — and a Social Security number registered to a dead man to apply for a job in Decorah, court records state.

Then in March, Winneshiek County sheriff’s deputies were contacted about an assault at the Waukon Feed Ranch hog confinement on County Road W40. Witnesses told deputies Junech-Pastor allegedly had punched a woman inside a hog barn. Deputies arrested him on a misdemeanor count of domestic assault causing injury. That case is pending in state court.