Immigration Raids Lead U.S. to a Moral, Legal Crisis

New America Media ^ | 06.19.2008 | Raquel Aldana

[Coffee200am]

Postville, Iowa has been turned into a ghost town. Nearly a third of its residents, mostly undocumented workers from Guatemala and Mexico, sit in jail convicted of identity crimes or awaiting deportation. Hundreds more hide in fear. Their children, too scared to go to school, have left the town’s classrooms nearly empty. For this, Postville should thank their local police, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), and a failed immigration policy.

Aided by local law enforcement, ICE arrested 389 workers during the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history at the Postville meatpacking plant, the area’s major employer. In an unprecedented move, ICE criminally charged 302 of these workers with aggravated ID theft and/or using false social security numbers. Within days, ICE resolved their fate: 297 men and women pled guilty and were sentenced to prison and subsequent deportation. Only a few await criminal trials or immigration hearings.

Postville is one of the latest in a series of immigration raids that have intensified in the past three years. These raids are leading our nation to a moral, legal and humanitarian crisis.

ICE’s heavy-handed enforcement against undocumented workers in the wake of failed immigration reform is shameful. Under current immigration laws, no more than 10,000 of the backlogged visas for unskilled workers and 66,000 temporary visas for seasonal workers are available each year. In contrast, an estimated 2,000 persons cross the Southwest border into the U.S. daily and an estimated 12 million undocumented persons live in the United States.

Global economic realities push willing workers out of their nations, where they have no means to earn even a subsistence living and pull them into low-wage jobs in the United States, where the lack of labor protection leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. U.S. employers and we as consumers benefit from their cheap labor, but these workers and their families bear the brunt of a broken immigration system.

Few employers face civil and criminal sanctions for violating immigration and labor laws. So far, no one from Postville plant has been charged despite overwhelming evidence that the company helped workers procure false documents, paid substandard wages, failed to pay overtime, and seriously mistreated its workers. All the while, Congress continues to kill proposals granting even temporary legal status to agricultural workers, while doling out large subsidies to U.S. farmers without regard to their effect on future migration of rural workers from developing nations into the United States.

Legally speaking, ICE and federal prosecutors overstepped their powers when they criminally charged the workers. Congress specifically exempted from prosecution workers who use false Social Security numbers to engage in otherwise lawful conduct, such as to procure jobs.

This unprecedented criminalization of undocumented workers also has not been accompanied by a comparable infusion of constitutional guarantees in the handling of these cases. ICE conducted the investigation leading to the Postville raid with easy access to immigration databases and employee documents. ICE then executed the raid with easily-procured administrative, not criminal, warrants.

Thus, the protection of stricter Fourth Amendment search and seizure, Fifth Amendment due process, and Sixth Amendment right to counsel constitutional guarantees available to most criminal defendants were unavailable to these workers. Nearly all waived any rights they might have had under extreme prosecutorial pressure. The uncharacteristic speed and efficiency of the Postville raid left workers without adequate opportunity to consult with defense counsel, and none or few had access to immigration lawyers to learn about the immigration consequences of their pleas.

The involvement of local law enforcement in these raids is also worrisome. Distrust of police keeps many immigrants from reporting crime. This increases their vulnerability as victims. Moreover, the drain on limited resources from these additional responsibilities on local police takes away from their primary duties as community caretakers.

The courts must be vigilant in protecting the rights of workers and their families and insist on stricter constitutional guarantees when criminal charges are involved.

These raids should be halted immediately. The prospect of future raids should certainly create a sense of urgency for the United States to adopt immigration policies that allows employers to hire migrant workers, and include strong labor protections that offer a path to legalization for workers and their families. If workers are legal, we are all better off.

Aldana is a board member of the Society of American Law Teachers and a professor of law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Law.

[Tspud1]

Wouldn’t most of the schools be empty any way for summer?

[gubamyster]

ping

[pierrem15]

Yeah— I especially like the ‘humanitarian’ release to care for family members. Can I try that one if I get arrested for a DUI? We treat criminal aliens better than citizens.

[raybbr]

Oh, goody! Another immigration lawyer telling us how to feel about this invasion

Raquel Aldana
Professor of Law
Email: raquel.aldana@unlv.edu

Professor Aldana earned her J.D. degree in 1997 from Harvard Law School, where she served as articles editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Prior to coming to the Boyd School of Law, Professor Aldana worked for the Center for Justice and International Law representing victims of gross human rights violations in the Inter-American System on Human Rights. She also taught a seminar in human rights at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Prior to that, she was an associate at the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington, D.C. Professor Aldana teaches Immigration Law, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, International Human Rights, and International Public Law. She also co-teaches experiential learning courses, including a course in Nicaragua on domestic violence in a post-conflict society and a course on the criminalization of immigrants. She spent the Spring of 2006 as a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala, where she taught courses on economic rights and conducted research on femicide.

[Ron H.]

The title for this hit piece deserves a big BARF ALERT.

[Ajnin]

ICE agents rock! They sure do more than the BP.

No they don't.

[Old Flat Toad]

According to the article it is. I would like to see the actual bill myself(and who was pushing it).

[Roy Tucker]

Too often, both the illegal immigrant supporters and various government officials are focused on the illegal immigrants themselves rather than the impact it has on American citizens. Immigration should work in favor of Americans. Clearly, the current policy and lack of controls do not work this way.

[DGHoodini]

(Jaw dropped) I just saw an interview with a member of the family that owns the processing plant...The one where there are allegations of puny wages, abuse, and even beatings of illegal immigrant workers....He was a orthodox Jew...??!!??!!

Hat, beard, and all.

[meadsjn]

U.S. employers and we as consumers [government employees and non-profit orgs] benefit from their cheap labor, but these workers and their families [tax-paying citizens] bear the brunt of a broken immigration system.

Raquel Aldana, you ignorant sl....