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This photo shows Yarrabee Farms, a cattle operation in Brooklyn, Iowa, on Thursday, September 6, 2018. Investigators from local, state and federal agencies were on the farm. (AP Photo / Ryan J. Foley)
BROOKLYN, Iowa – Immigration enforcement officers and state criminal investigators visited the Iowa Dairy Farm on Thursday, which employed and accommodated the man charged with the murder of a collegiate student, Mollie Tibbetts.
Officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iowa's Criminal Investigations Division, and the County Sheriff's Office spent two hours Thursday at Yarrabee Farms in Brooklyn, Iowa. They seemed to look around the property and talk to the workers.
Yarrabee Farms said it was cooperating with the federal authorities who had asked to visit the farm. The company confirmed in a statement that the investigators met with the employees and owners for two hours, but she said she could not provide any additional details due to an ongoing investigation.
Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Mitch Mortvedt said his agency's agents were on the scene to help the Department of Homeland Security and ICE investigators, who took the lead. Mortvedt said that this means that the activity was focused on federal law and not on the case of homicides, which his agency conducts. A spokesman for the ICE declined to comment.
The visit took place a day after the Associated Press reported that Tibbetts' death suspect, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, was working on the farm for years under a false identity, John Budd.
Mr. Rivera was arrested and charged with first degree murder last month because of the shooting death of 20-year-old Tibbetts, who disappeared in Brooklyn on July 18th. Investigators say that Rivera, 24 years old as a teenager, the United States was illegally in the United States and is the subject of an eviction proceeding.
The farm said that at least a dozen of its employees had left the area after the arrest of Rivera, which had sparked fear across the immigrant community. The dairy, which has about 800 cows and belongs to a prominent family with links to the Republican Party, claims to have received dozens of angry phone calls and death threats.
Rivera, 24, worked there for about four years and lived in one of his trailers for free. The farm said that about half of its workers live in furnished housing.
Farm officials said Rivera had presented an identification number and a Social Security number outside the country when hired in 2014 and that they were not aware of his identity until 21 August. The company did not use the government's voluntary E-Verify system to verify its identity and eligibility for work, although it is unclear whether this would have made a difference.
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