Rachel Browning’s Legal Blog

Anyone out there concerned about the current state of our immigration system or who is curious about just what goes on in the employer “raids” by officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should read the brilliant essay written by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and (federally certified) Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.  In the essay, he describes in unsettling detail how approximately 400 workers, mostly Guatemalan peasants, were arrested, detained and later brought before judges in make-shift “courtrooms”—trailers set up in a 60-acre cattle fairground-turned-government compound in a remote part of Iowa—and summarily charged as criminals for using false social security numbers.   Preparations for the raid and subsequent detention of the workers had taken months of planning and were shrouded in secrecy, such that the interpreters recruited to assist ICE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) did not know until their arrival in Postville at their “orientation” exactly what their task would entail.  Camayd-Freixas humbly recounts how then for the first time in his long and distinguished career as an interpreter entrusted to follow a strict code of objectivity, his forced involvement in the detainees’ judicial proceedings left him feeling conflicted and “blindsided into an assignment of which I wanted no part.” 

Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles…the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next group of 10.  They appeared to be uniformly no more than 5 feet tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names, some being relatives…some in tears; others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment…It dawned on me that, aside from their Guatemalan or Mexican nationality, which was imposed on their people after Independence, they too were Native Americans, in shackles.

Dr. Camayd-Freixas does not take issue with the fact that these were illegal workers who had broken our country’s immigration laws.  But he questions the drastic measures taken by ICE and the DOJ –the group arraignments, lack of access to informed counsel—and the charges themselves:  “aggravated identity theft,” and “social security fraud,” both of which require establishing the elements of “knowingly” and “intent.”  Virtually none of the workers arrested were even aware that a social security number had been “stolen” for them – the “representative” of their employer had simply prepared “papers” on their behalf so that they could work in the United States.  Most had only intended to be in the U.S. for a short period of time, just long enough to make money for their families back home – school for their children, medical care for a sick family member, and other expenses they’re unable to meet given the extreme poverty and lack of resources available in their home countries.  (To date, no criminal charges have been leveled against the employer, Agriprocessors, Inc, which will likely only face administrative charges and a fine.  Agriprocessors, by the way, is the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant.)

But the DOJ, undeterred, gave each defendant one Plea Agreement with no room for exceptions or alterations, counting on the fact that when faced with the possibility of spending two years in jail on a conviction for “aggravated identity theft,”  the defendants would plead to the lesser charge of social security fraud.  Obviously this was not much of a choice, and given the workers lack of education and knowledge regarding their rights, few even understood the charges against them.  As Camayd-Freixas points out, “by handing down the inflated charge of aggravated identity theft…the government forced the defendants into pleading guilty to the lesser charge and accepting 5 months in jail.”  Without the higher charge, the government would have no control over the actual sentencing, because the lesser, more appropriate crime of using a false social security number carried only a discretionary sentence of 0 to 6 months – discretionary meaning the judges themselves could decide the appropriate sentence based on the individual facts of each case.  Instead, the DOJ wanted to ensure a “swifter” form of justice.

Finally, Dr. Camayd-Freixas describes how the ICE mandate post-9/11 has conflated immigration enforcement with the ongoing “War on Terror,” where, he writes, “the Postville charges—document fraud and identity theft—treat every illegal alien as a potential terrorist, and with the same rigor.” 

So what exactly is the result of all this?  Do we all feel safer knowing that a few hundred poor, illiterate and desperate workers are now securely tucked away in prison?  Is everything better now that a community has been torn apart, that children (some U.S. born) have been separated from their families, and could face immediate deportation without their parents who now languish in jail?

 I know, I know, I’ve posted my feelings about this issue many times on this blog.  There’s really nothing left for me to say about it.  But if you have time, read the essay, and then send it to your friends, family, people in your life who you believe would be affected by it.  Then send it to your elected representatives and urge them to read it, and hope that it maybe has an influence on the decisions they make in the future about how we reform a broken system and humanely deal with those who have found themselves caught in the middle of an unwinnable situation.