After Agriprocessors opened its plant in 1989, an array of exotic establishments followed. Old Postville was heavily Protestant—mostly Lutherans—but for more than two decades the town has supported an Orthodox synagogue, a kosher supermarket, and a Judaica shop, which serve a Jewish population now estimated at 250. And these days, Sabor Latino, a Mexican eatery, is around the corner from a Guatemalan restaurant and grocery, whose business dried up since the raid. Soon, locals tell me, these will be joined by a Somali deli, since documented workers from Somalia have been among those replacing the large numbers of deported Mexicans and Guatemalans as the Agriprocessors operation struggles to return to full strength.

The town moves to the rhythms of the plant. On Saturday, while Agriprocessors is idle during the Jewish Sabbath, Postville hums with an odd mixture of traffic—farmers sipping coffee at the diner, ranchers running errands at the hardware store, and newly arrived immigrant workers lining up in front of the town’s two main rental agencies (one of which is owned by the Rubashkins), jostling for places to live.

One person who knows these rhythms well is “Manuel,” a 15-year-old Guatemalan I talk with in the spare, second-floor downtown apartment he shares with his family. Manuel, his mother, and his sister were among the undocumented workers arrested in the May raid but released by I.C.E. on “humanitarian grounds.” The government forbids them to work until they obtain legal documentation (which they must qualify for first), and they are living on savings and assistance offered by local churches, while awaiting word from immigration authorities as to whether they will face a trial. Manuel agrees to tell me his family’s story as long as I don’t use their names. His tale proves to be typical, as my conversations with numerous current and former Agriprocessors employees later confirm.

Speaking through an interpreter, he tells me that he and his family came here in 2006 via Mexico with the help of a coyote—a smuggler who spirits undocumented aliens across the border for a fee. Manuel and his family members would have to pay $7,000 apiece, some of it in cash and the rest to come from their earnings. A typical 14-year-old would be in eighth grade, but Manuel says he had no choice but to quit school and go to work. Manuel applied to Agriprocessors with phony documents showing he was of legal working age for the plant, which in Iowa is 18; he says a manager told him it would be preferable if his paperwork made him 21. So he came back again later, with new papers. (Most workers I spoke with said fake I.D.’s were readily available locally for $150.) Manuel was hired on the spot and reported to work the next evening. His training, he tells me, consisted of being told by supervisors to “check on what the other guy was doing and just do what he does.” He says he worked five days a week, 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. His job was dismembering chickens. His starting pay was $7.50 per hour.

Manuel says he wasn’t at Agriprocessors long before he understood what a pressure cooker it was. Floor supervisors, most of them also Hispanic, “were always insulting people and telling them go quicker, hurry up,” he says. As for underage workers, Manuel says that he knew of a dozen in his section alone and that their presence was so well known that supervisors often referred to them as the niños (children).

Manuel tells me about one of his strangest days at the plant, when he was approached by a supervisor. Buy a car from me, the man told him, and I’ll make it easier for you and your mother. “They were firing people at the factory, and he told me that they would fire my mother if I didn’t buy it,” Manuel recalls. Although he didn’t have a driver’s license, he plunked down $3,500 for a 2000 Ford Focus, which he sold right after the raid. At least the supervisor kept his word: Manuel’s mother was moved from the night shift to the day shift. (According to reports, the supervisor fled the country after the raid.)

Listening to Manuel tell his story, it’s hard to mistake him for an adult. He’s of medium height and build, with spiky black hair. He wears baggy jeans and has the demeanor of an awkward teen, with the smooth face of someone who doesn’t yet shave. He becomes even more awkward when he tells the story of his sister, who began working at the company at 16, earning $6.25 an hour. Her supervisor began making sexual advances toward her, demanding that she become his girlfriend. When she refused, “he began giving her more work, more difficult jobs,” Manuel says.

Such stories pile up. Another underage worker who asked not to be identified tells me about how a supervisor screamed at her and pressured her to keep working after she suffered an on-the-job injury, even though she presented a note from a doctor saying she should take time off. She quit shortly thereafter.

It’s impossible to miss the Agriprocessors plant, marked as it is by a tall silver water tower bearing the company’s name in imposing black letters, visible from miles away. A large metallic Star of David decorates the lawn in front of the plant, and a gigantic golden menorah adorns the roof of the administrative building. The site is surrounded by a tall, barbed-wire-topped fence. The Rubashkins, who contend that much of the press coverage they have received is fueled by anti-Semitism, are eager to tell their side of the story. They offer me a tour. I enter the plant accompanied by Sholom Rubashkin’s 24-year-old son, Getzel, hoping to learn, among other things, what makes a kosher slaughterhouse kosher.