Shortly after the May 12 raid of Agricproecessors, close to 400 arrested illegal workers are tried and pled guilty to criminal charges. One of the professional trnaslaters, Erik Camayd-Freixas, found the judicial process so unnervingly abusive of defendant rights that he wrote an 8,000 word account of it. The NY Times published an article on July 11th about his account. The Sanctuary posted a copy of the entire account, which I have coped below.
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.

Continue reading Mass convictions after the Postville raid – railroading the defendants

Thanks to Citizen Orange for following the Agriprocessors story emenating from Postville, IA. To bring us to this week recall that On May 12 ICE raided the Agriproccessors plant in Postville, IA, said to be with its 1,000 odd employees the largest kosher meat processing facility in the world. ICE arrested 389 workers for illegal status. This was heralded as the largest ICE raid ever.
Several newspapers reported that arrests have begun at the low managerial levelfor immigration fraud. None of the top executives, including the surrounding the Rubashkin family, from Brooklyn, has been arrested, but I expect that is in the cards, and for offenses which carry serious time in the slammer. The Wall Street Journal reports that one official described the working conditions in the plant as “medieval.”
The Wall Street Journal article:
U.S. Arrests 2 Supervisors at Agriprocessors
By MIRIAM JORDAN
July 5, 2008
Federal agents Thursday arrested two supervisors at Agriprocessors Inc., a large kosher meatpacking plant, on charges that they helped illegal immigrants secure fake documents and encouraged them to reside in the U.S.
The arrests marked the first by U.S. authorities of individuals in supervisory roles at the Postville, Iowa, plant. On May 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 389 workers at the facility, most of them undocumented immigrants from Latin America.

Continue reading More on Postville IA raid

The National Council of State Legislatures issued a report on 1,106 bills which have been filed in state legislatures to deal with illegal immigrants. Of the 44 states considering at least one bill, 26 have enacted at least one.
The leading topics are employment (sanctions against employers who hire illegal workers, and other provisions); driver’s licenses (tightening their distribution); and law enforcement (some calling for coordination with ICE). Other topics include education and healthcare.
Go here for a copy of the report.

Cameron O’Toole, a college student at Arizona State University with a major in journalism, wrote the following article about the implementation of that state’s Legal Arizona Workers Act, and with his permission I am posting it here. He says that as of the end of March, only 15% of employers were using the E-Verify system which is required to verify legal status of employees.
His article in full:
It was designed to curb the illegal immigration problem Arizona has. It was supposed to be an easy and quick way to check eligibility status for potential employees. The E-Verify system was supposed to be a requirement for all business owners to use. But as of March 31, 2008 only 15 percent of Arizona’s registered employers were using the system, according to immigrationbuzz.com.
Some employers like Red, White and Brew, a restaurant in Chandler, have not had any major issues with the legislation.
“I was dialing in social security numbers before anyways so it was a very easy transition for me,” said Greg Freed, general manager and owner of Red, White and Brew. “There was so much notice before it happened and we have made sure that our initial hiring practices help us deal with any problems.”
Effective Jan. 1, 2008 Arizona implemented the Legal Arizona Workers Act which aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the state’s workforce. The legislation penalizes businesses that knowingly hire undocumented workers by suspending or revoking their business license, according to azcentral.com.
This means that 10 percent of Arizona’s workforce will no longer be eligible for employment, as estimated by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Continue reading Article on status of Arizona’s Legal Arizona Workers Act

The Iowa House of Representatives passed last week a bill to hammer illegal immigrants by requiring employers to check their employees, employees to carry driver’s licenses or other state-issued identification, and for bail to be denied for illegal aliens who are arrested. Local police must notify ICE. The House majority leader called the bill a symbolic statement. Ah?
The article in full:
By CHARLOTTE EBY, Courier Des Moines Bureau
DES MOINES — Trying to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants, the Iowa House moved forward Wednesday with a measure meant to reduce the employment of undocumented workers.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said Democrats wanted to send a message to the federal government and try to deal with a problem Iowans have been concerned about.
“The symbolic statement is a plea to the federal government to start enforcing the law and have a comprehensive, logical immigration policy,” McCarthy said.
The measure, which cleared the House on an 84-16 vote, requires employers to check driver’s licenses or other state-issued photo identification from Iowa or the surrounding states and verify it within 10 business days of a hire. Employers or their designee must sign a form under penalty of perjury confirming they have examined the ID and “facially validated” the employee.

Continue reading Iowa House of Reps hammers illegal immigrants

What is interesting about this Chicago case, reported in the Wall Street Journal today, is that the police officer during a routine car stop could, through electronic search, instantly locate information that the driver had a deportation order issued to him in the mid 1990s. He, a Pole, was stopped in 2006 for driving while on his cell phone, which is banned there. Andrezj Derezinski came to the U.S in 1990 on a visa and overstayed, raising a family and starting businesses.
“State and local law-enforcement officers can in many instances determine with a quick computer search or phone call whether a person stopped for a traffic violation or arrested for a crime has violated immigration law. If a match is confirmed, ICE instructs the police officer to detain the person until an agent can take custody. In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2007, ICE’s Law Enforcement Support Center — which operates around the clock handling immigration queries — received a record 728,243 inquiries from local law enforcement, up from only 4,000 in fiscal 1996.”
According to the article, “About 580,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S. are individuals who failed to heed their deportation orders, according to ICE.”. This seems a ridiculously low figure given as there are about 13 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. About half of these are thought to be here, as Derezinski, on a once valid visa.
The article in full:
Visa Violators Swept Up In Widening Dragnet
By MIRIAM JORDAN
April 10, 2008
CHICAGO — Polish native Andrezj “Peter” Derezinski came to the U.S. 18 years ago and was soon living the American dream. The 41-year-old father of three owns two homes, some commercial property and a thriving heating and cooling business here.

Continue reading Case of instant local police – ICE data link.

I have posted often on the tight association of hiring illegal workers with failure to take out workers comp insurance. Now WorkCompCentral, a leading source of information about workers compensation (subscription required) reports how Connecticut regulators are using stop work orders on uninsured job sites in part to crack down on hiring of undocumented workers. “The Connecticut Department of Labor’s use of a six-month-old law that allows investigators to stop work at job sites where workers aren’t covered by workers’ compensation insurance has proven a key tool in running unscrupulous subcontractors out of the state and cracking down on the use of undocumented crews, a top regulator said Thursday…. In some cases, investigators found undocumented workers being paid “off the books” without workers’ compensation insurance. In others, construction companies bought coverage but grossly underestimated the size of their payrolls, he said.”
According to WorkCompCentral, the state legislature decided to use this strategy to crack down on use of illegal labor when other strategies were deemed to be in conflict with federal law.
The report in full:
Gary Pechie, director of Wage and Workplace Standards for the labor agency, said legislation that took effect last Oct. 1 gave his investigators their first role in enforcing insurance laws, and has prompted 10 stop-work orders so far.

Continue reading CT’s strategy to cut down on illegal workers

Do immigrants have higher criminal rates than non-immigrants? Those critical of immigration, in particular the presence of illegal immigrants, often allege that crime rates are higher. Here are some articles which report that if anything the reverse may be truer.
“Incarceration rate lower for immigrants” ran in the San Francisco Chronicle this week. Its two leading sentences are: “Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released Monday. Foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of the state’s overall population, but only 17 percent of the adult prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the research.” I post the entire article below to hyperlinks for other related articles.
Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released Monday.
Foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of the state’s overall population, but only 17 percent of the adult prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the research.
Noncitizen men from Mexico between the ages of 18 and 40, which the study indicated were more likely to be in the country illegally, were eight times less likely to be in a ‘correctional setting,’ the study found.
The study did not address the visa status of those included among the foreign-born, which would include citizens and noncitizens, including those in the country legally and illegally.
Nonetheless, these results have implications for the current debates over immigration policy, said Kristin Butcher, co-author of the report.
‘Our research indicates that limiting immigration, requiring higher educational levels to obtain visas or spending more money to increase penalties against criminal immigrants will have little impact on public safety,’ Butcher said in a statement.
While immigrants often have lower levels of education and higher poverty rates, which are normally associated with higher crimes rates, other factors are probably contributing to the underrepresentation among the foreign-born in state prisons.
Current immigration laws, for example, screen legal immigrants for criminal activity. Also, all noncitizens – including those in the country legally – face deportation for crimes that carry a prison sentence of a year or more.
And those here illegally have incentive to avoid contact with the law, which could lead to detection of their immigration status.
The study acknowledged several factors that could affect the incarceration rates among foreign- and U.S.-born residents, including the possibility that one group might receive more lenient treatment within the criminal justice system or have greater resources to mount a defense.
Also, the deportation of foreign-born criminals also could affect the rates, the study said.
The PPIC report is available online at: http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=776
+++
Study finds immigrants commit less California crime
Reuters, February 26, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN246261520080226?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
Report says immigrants commit fewer crimes
The Associated Press, February 25, 2008
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080225-1503-ca-immigrantcrime.html
California: Study of Immigrants and Crime
By Julia Preston
The New York Times, February 26, 2008

Late last year, Arizona Republic reporter Ronald J. Hansen has compiled the basics on Arizona’s new employer-sanctions law, which went into effect Jan. 1. The sanctions law, known as the Legal Arizona Workers Act, is intended to ensure that no businesses in Arizona knowingly or intentionally hire or employ illegal immigrants.
The article – Everything you need to know about the new employer-sanctions law:

Continue reading Analysis of the Legal Arizona Workers Act

An insurance newswire reported that the state’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the claimant, Mario Curiel. The court cited prior decisions by North Carolina,
Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Minnesota.
The article:
COLUMBIA, S.C. 01/03/2008 (BestWire)-Illegal immigrants injured at work are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, the South Carolina Supreme Court said in a ruling.
The court unanimously upheld a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission and a lower court ruling that held the worker, Mario B. Curiel, was eligible for benefits because of an eye injury suffered while working on a demolition site.
The employer, Environmental Management Services, argued that because Curiel is a Mexican national who used false documentation to get the job, he was not eligible for benefits under the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
Although South Carolina law specifies workers’ compensation eligibility for any injured worker “including aliens … whether lawfully or unlawfully employed,” the company claimed IRCA’s prohibitions on the use of fraudulent documents to obtain employment superseded the state law.
“To the contrary,” wrote Justice James E. Moore for the court, “disallowing benefits would mean unscrupulous employers could hire undocumented workers without the burden of insuring them, a consequence that would encourage rather than discourage the hiring of illegal workers. We find IRCA does not pre-empt state law and claimant is not precluded from benefits under our Workers’ Compensation Act.”
Moore wrote that the decision was in line with those in other states, and specifically cited a 2002 North Carolina ruling in a similar case because, he said, the states’ workers’ compensation laws are the same. That decision, Ruiz vs. Belk Masonry Co., quoted from the original congressional hearings that IRCA is not intended “to undermine or diminish in any way labor protections in existing law.”
Moore also referenced similar decisions by courts in Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Minnesota.
The appeal also dealt with questions concerning the degree of damage to Curiel’s vision, and ordered the Workers’ Compensation Commission to make a determination.