Ever since the dust settled in Postville, IA following the historic immigration raid at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant there in May, some have been wondering: "What was the cost?"

The Des Moines Register has been working for months to get the final bill from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and they now have the answer: $5.2 million.

[I]t has cost taxpayers an average of $13,396 for each of the 389 illegal immigrants taken into custody.

So far, about 50 of the people apprehended at Postville have been deported. About 50 other people are not in custody while undergoing proceedings to be removed from the United States.

The rest of the people are in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, serving sentences for criminal convictions, ICE spokesman Tim Counts said. Some of the most common convictions involve federal identity theft and misuse of a Social Security number.

To put that $13,396 figure in perspective, it's roughly the same amount that a full-time, minimum-wage Agriprocessors worker could earn in an entire year (which adds up to $14,248).

But beyond the question of cost, some civic leaders and activists have revived the question: "Why Postville?" 

The Iowa Independent reports growing suspicion among locals that ICE selected Postville in order to try out a new immigration enforcement technique without worrying about too much political fallout. It's a theory that Florida International University professor Erik Camayd-Freixas wrote about at length after working as a translator at the post-raid court hearings. Former Postville city councilman, Aaron Goldsmith now echoes the point:

“If they wanted to stop this problem, if they wanted to scare everybody away, all they had to do is go into Los Angeles and they could’ve taken out 1 million people in a day. But they don’t because there’s too much political clout.”

ICE spokesman Tim Counts discounts the allegations that Postville was targeted in the hopes that the raid would fly under the radar. "We go where there is a problem,” he told the Independent.

Now the small town is focused on rebuilding, local officials say. Still shaken by the May 12 military-style raid carried out by 900 ICE officers - not to mention the loss of hundreds of residents --residents and civic leaders tell CNN (in a new series on Postville) that they're still trying to figure out how their small town could become ground zero for the national immigration debate:

"It makes a person feel kind of angry," Mayor Bob Penrod says. "It's been nothing but a freaky nightmare since May."