The Pottsville, IA immigration raid and the further destruction of Due Process

[arendt]

I heard this on Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" radio show on NPR yesterday. I would guess you can download the entire show. The most important part for me was not the horrible labor law violations or the immigration issues. It was the DELIBERATE and MASSIVE machinery put in place OUT OF PUBLIC VIEW to take away the Due Process rights of these lowly private people. Folks, this is exactly how the fascists did business. Round em up, lock em up, and deport them.

July 14, 2008

INTERPRETING AFTER THE LARGEST ICE RAID IN US HISTORY

A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D.
Florida International University
June 13, 2008

On Monday, May 12, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., in an operation involving some 900 agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a raid of Agriprocessors Inc, the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant located in the town of Postville, Iowa. The raid ...officials boasted... was "the largest single-site operation of its kind in American history." At that same hour, 26 federally certified interpreters from all over the country were en route to the small neighboring city of Waterloo, Iowa, having no idea what their mission was about. The investigation had started more than a year earlier. Raid preparations had begun in December. The Clerk's Office of the U.S. District Court had contracted the interpreters a month ahead, but was not at liberty to tell us the whole truth, lest the impending raid be compromised. The operation was led by ICE, which belongs to the executive branch, whereas the U.S. District Court, belonging to the judicial branch, had to formulate its own official reason for participating. Accordingly, the Court had to move for two weeks to a remote location as part of a "Continuity of Operation Exercise" in case they were ever disrupted by an emergency, which in Iowa is likely to be a tornado or flood. That is what we were told, but, frankly, I was not prepared for a disaster of such a different kind, one which was entirely man-made. I arrived late that Monday night and missed the 8pm interpreters briefing. I was instructed by phone to meet at 7am in the hotel lobby and carpool to the National Cattle Congress (NCC) where we would begin our work. We arrived at the heavily guarded compound, went through security, and gathered inside the retro "Electric Park Ballroom" where a makeshift court had been set up. The Clerk of Court, who coordinated the interpreters, said: "Have you seen the news? There was an immigration raid yesterday at 10am. They have some 400 detainees here. We'll be working late conducting initial appearances for the next few days." He then gave us a cursory tour of the compound. The NCC is a 60-acre cattle fairground that had been transformed into a sort of concentration camp or detention center. Fenced in behind the ballroom / courtroom were 23 trailers from federal authorities, including two set up as sentencing courts; various Homeland Security buses and an "incident response" truck; scores of ICE agents and U.S. Marshals; and in the background two large buildings: a pavilion where agents and prosecutors had established a command center; and a gymnasium filled with tight rows of cots where some 300 male detainees were kept, the women being housed in county jails. Later the NCC board complained to the local newspaper that they had been "misled" by the government when they leased the grounds purportedly for Homeland Security training.

Echoing what I think was the general feeling, one of my fellow interpreters would later exclaim: "When I saw what it was really about, my heart sank..." Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the following days, notepad in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, 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 row of 10. They appeared to be uniformly no more than 5 ft. tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names, some being relatives (various Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí...), some in tears; others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment. They all spoke Spanish, a few rather laboriously. It dawned on me that, aside from their nationality, which was imposed on their people in the 19th/20century, they too were Native Americans, in shackles. They stood out in stark racial contrast with the rest of us as they started their slow penguin march across the makeshift court. "Sad spectacle" I heard a colleague say, reading my mind. They had all waived their right to be indicted by a grand jury and accepted instead an information or simple charging document by the U.S. Attorney, hoping to be quickly deported since they had families to support back home. But it was not to be. They were criminally charged with "aggravated identity theft" and "Social Security fraud" ...charges they did not understand... and, frankly , neither could I. Everyone wondered how it would all play out.

<more>

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2008/07/interpreting-af.html#more

The historian Niall Ferguson, in his "War of the World", says that pro-war sentiments always begin in ethnic hatred. Immigration has been allowed to become a festering, RACIAL sore on this country. Now, they pull a legal maneuver worthy of a Stalinist show trial - in secret, of course. Only because of this brave interpreter do we have a clear idea of the entire process. Trumped-up federal charges; jurisdictional irregularities; massive punishments; and, of course, deportation.

This story is more important than any of the BS that passes for campaign news. This story is about another pound of flesh being torn off our Constitutional rights. (Yeah, don't tell me that they won't try something like this on citizens. This is nothing but a trial run, something to get the bugs out of the program of mass incarceration they will need when they suspend the Constitution for some "emergency", whether financial, military, or terrorism.)

The night comes in a rush now. Time to wake up before it tears your throat out in the darkness.

arendt