Mayor Gene Beach said resentment is building up against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who detained 99 people in the raid at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant on Dec. 12, 2006. It was one of six Swift plants raided across the country, resulting in 1,297 arrests.

The raid also has left Marshalltown residents concerned about the town's image.

"It's given us a bit of a black eye that we don't deserve," said Roger Chase, owner of Chase Insurance Services, an independent agency. "Marshalltown has a lot of positive things going for it."

Store owner Lanesa Webber said although she was upset by the raid, it hasn't changed how residents think of their town.

"I feel like we ought to be more welcoming of newcomers," said Webber, owner of Create-a-Keepsake, "but it hasn't hurt Marshalltown, not from the viewpoint of how Marshalltown people think of ourselves."

Marshalltown's Hispanic population is estimated to be 7,000, or about a quarter of the town's population, city officials say.

Tim Counts, spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Bloomington, Minn., said the raid resulted in the arrest of those who were taking jobs from people who had legal permission to work.

"The operation was a resounding success on a number of levels," Counts said. "These people were seriously affecting the lives of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants."

Many of the people detained in the Marshalltown raid were using stolen Social Security numbers, Counts said. Identity theft "is not a victimless crime. It can take years to untangle the mess if your identity is stolen," he said.

The sting of the raids still remains for many, however.

"I think the community reaction to the raid formed in a way that ICE hadn't anticipated," said Beach, the mayor. "A lot of people noted that the Swift workers were taxpayers and family people who were, after all, gainfully employed. Was that so wrong?"

Tom Lenze remembers Dec. 12, 2006, as "the longest day" of his 14-year career as principal of Woodbury Elementary School in Marshalltown.

"Word spread quickly, as early as 8 a.m., that something was happening at the Swift plant," Lenze said. "Immediately people started showing up at the schools to get the kids. Often they were friends of families affected by the raid, but we couldn't just release the kids to anyone. People were crying and nobody knew what was going on."

A year later, things look normal at Woodbury, located less than a mile down the street from the Swift plant on the northeast side. Enrollment is up slightly, from 324 a year ago on Dec. 12 to 336 this year. The school's student body is 75 percent Hispanic, and teaching is roughly half English, half Spanish in all subjects.

But Lenze said he can tell a difference.

"The fear is still there," he said. "We hear constantly of rumors that the agents will be coming back."

Tomasa Fonseca, a counselor at Woodbury, works with students and families. One of her jobs is to visit homes when students are absent from class without an excuse.

"I knock on the door and the lights are off, but you can see families huddled in the dark," she said. "They're afraid to answer the door."

Since the raid, some immigrants have left Marshalltown for jobs in other states while others have returned to Mexico or the Central American countries where they came from. Not everyone has left willingly.

Marcelo Merida's wife, Marta, was one of 99 workers who were handcuffed and put on buses by the ICE agents. Marta Merida was sent to Des Moines, Atlanta and then to Phoenix before being deported in February to her native Guatemala, where she now lives with a sister, Marcelo Merida said.

Although he has a valid work permit, Merida said, his wife was working under another name with a borrowed birth certificate.

Their children, Jessica and Johnny, are students at Marshalltown High School and live with their father.

"We're doing poorly, but what else can we do except continue ahead?" Merida said in Spanish. "I have to keep working. Who else will take care of my kids?"

Hispanics who remain in Marshalltown have lost business.

Martha Garcia, 50, a real estate sales agent with Five Star Real Estate Group, said the number of home sales she's closed this year is half of what it was in previous years, before the raid.

About 95 percent of her real estate clients are Hispanic. A poor real estate market is partly to blame for the downturn, Garcia said, but an exodus of Hispanic families also plays a role.

"I know at least 10 families that left and didn't come back because they were afraid they'd be caught" by immigration agents, said Garcia, a bilingual Mexican native who became a U.S. citizen in 2005.

Jose Angel Regalado, part-owner of Abarrotes Villachuato, a grocery store and meat market one block northeast of the town square, said business is down 40 percent since the raid.

Marcelina Hernandez, who works at La Guadalupana bakery across the street from Abarrotes Villachuato, said the exodus of Hispanics has had a widespread impact on Marshalltown businesses.

"It's affected the restaurants, the stores and other businesses," she said in Spanish. "People keep leaving, even a year later. ... People have fear because they don't know what will happen. They don't have any security. Every day, they hear about more raids in other states and they are reminded of the raid last year."

The Swift plant, however, remains at full strength, with about 1,940 employees, according to Jim Olesen, president of local 1149 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents workers at the plant.

"They don't seem to have a problem hiring people," Olesen said.

Since the raid, Swift was purchased for $1.4 billion in cash by JBS, a Brazil-based company that is one of the largest exporters of beef in the world. Chad Hamilton, general counsel for JBS Swift and Co., said the company wouldn't comment on the raid.

The fear that has spread among many Hispanics presents a problem for Marshalltown Police Chief Lon Walker, a veteran of Desert Storm and the Waco standoff in Texas and, for 13 years, chief of Marshalltown's 43-person police force.

"The raid hurt us because it renewed the fears Hispanic people have in dealing with our police force," Walker said. "They're afraid that we're out to grab them off the streets and deport them. And we still have problems trying to recruit a Hispanic officer."

Contrary to a widespread rumor, Marshalltown police don't routinely check for citizenship or immigration status of Hispanics they encounter, Walker said.

"Only if there is an obvious reason to be suspicious, such as a driver's license that isn't properly laminated or some other identification that is obviously fraudulent, do we report people to ICE," he said.

A lack of federal and local funding has prevented the city from joining an ICE program that allows local law enforcement to automatically access immigration databases, Walker said.

"If there is anything suspicious, we have to call ICE in Des Moines and we may get a reply instantly, or we may have to wait three, four days," he said. "In any case, we can't detain somebody on immigration charges beyond what the other infraction might be."

Counts, the ICE spokesman, said the agency's Law Enforcement Support Center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If the local police question someone's immigration status, he said, ICE can put a detainer on the suspect.

"That says, 'Don't let them go. We'll pick them up,' " Counts said.

Despite all the anguish, Lenze, the school principal, looks back on the weeks and months after the Swift raid with what he said is a "sense of pride" in Marshalltown.

"I went to at least two community meetings where I heard a lot of anger and frustration directed not at the workers or Hispanics, but at the government for the raids and the disruptions that it caused," Lenze said. "And I hear some of the same things when I go around the community."

Beach said the Hispanic presence in Marshalltown did not spark any debate when he ran for mayor two years ago. He isn't sure if the issue will surface when he runs for re-election in 2009.

"Oh, sure, there's still some people who will say, 'Ship 'em back to Mexico,' " Beach said. "But I take the attitude that I'm a salesman for Marshalltown and my job is to make everybody welcome here. I don't know what the reaction will be, but I'm not worried."