Sunday, July 13, 2008

A Line Was Crossed

My medical practice consists in large measure of immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala. Hardworking men and women who have left their families to perform jobs that are deemed undesirable by most people here. They contribute to the productivity of the US and a large chunk of their earnings are automatically directed towards funds (Medicare and Social Security) that they will never be able to benefit from.

We need to act less like the law-obsessed Pharisees and recognize the humanity that unites all of us.

An editorial from the New York Times:

The Shame of Postville, Iowa

Anyone who has doubts that this country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers should read an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Iowa.

The essay chillingly describes what Dr. Camayd-Freixas saw and heard as he translated for some of the nearly 400 undocumented workers who were seized by federal agents at the Agriprocessors kosher plant in Postville in May.

Under the old way of doing things, the workers, nearly all Guatemalans, would have been simply and swiftly deported. But in a twist of Dickensian cruelty, more than 260 were charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and most were sentenced to five months in prison.

What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them.

Dr. Camayd-Freixas’s essay describes “the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see” — because cameras were forbidden.

“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.“

He wrote that they had waived their rights in hopes of being quickly deported, “since they had families to support back home.” He said that they did not understand the charges they faced, adding, “and, frankly, neither could I.”

No one is denying that the workers were on the wrong side of the law. But there is a profound difference between stealing people’s identities to rob them of money and property, and using false papers to merely get a job. It is a distinction that the Bush administration, goaded by immigration extremists, has willfully ignored. Deporting unauthorized workers is one thing; sending desperate breadwinners to prison, and their families deeper into poverty, is another.

Court interpreters are normally impartial participants and keep their opinions to themselves. But Dr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, said he was so offended by the cruelty of the prosecutions that he felt compelled to break his silence. “A line was crossed at Postville,” he wrote.

4 comments:

ness said...

thank you for sharing this very informative post. i am thinking of our many countrymen, i hope they will not go through that kind of nightmare.

Anonymous said...

Very sad -

One of the results of being charged with felonies is that then they can never even apply for status or papers again in US.

very sad - and most Americans don't even know this travesty fo justice is ocurring

ron

Anonymous said...

Sad. The real culprits are the recruiters/employers.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely dehumanizing...A new sense of social ethics and protest for America has to emerge, akin to the emergence of bioethics after the dehumanizing Tuskegee experiment.