DES MOINES, Iowa - State officials say they're shocked by the sheer number of child labor violations uncovered at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, where nearly 400 workers were arrested during an Immigration raid in May.

... The state's investigation found dozens of violations from "virtually every aspect of Iowa's child labor laws," said Dave Neil the Iowa Labor Commissioner. Officials also said the scope of the case -- with 57 children involved -- makes it unusually large.

"Typically, when we have child labor issues it's an issue of one or two individuals," said Kerry Koonce, a spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, which oversees the labor commissioner's office. "From our point of view, with this investigation, it's a large-scale violation of the law."

Labor officials said their investigation spanned several months and began before a May 12 federal Immigration raid at Agriprocessors. The raid resulted in 389 arrests and was the largest in U.S. history.

... Labor officials said the violations included minors working in prohibited occupations, exceeding allowable hours for youth to work, failure to obtain work permits, exposure to hazardous chemicals and working with prohibited tools. Under Iowa law, it is illegal for children under the age of 18 to work in a meatpacking plant.

Neil said he was recommending "that the attorney general's office prosecute these violations to the fullest extent of the law."

Officials say they are still investigating possible wage violations at the plant.

Juda Engelmayer, an Agriprocessors spokesman, declined immediate comment on the labor officials' announcement.

Chicago Tribune

While the announcement of these charges will provide little solace to those illegally charged with criminal activity and held in prison, the hundreds of children left behind to a life of uncertainty, or those at the forefront of the humanitarian effort to care for a community ravaged by the overzealous overreach of the Department of Homeland Security and a corrupted justice system, at least those who are the only true criminals in this sad case will finally be held accountable for some of their despicable actions.    
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Additionally, The ACLU has acquired a copy of a Government "manual" distributed to defense lawyers assigned to represent the immigrant workers arrested in the meat packing raids. The manual contians prepackaged scripts for plea and sentencing hearings as well as documents providing for guilty pleas and waivers of rights to be used by both the judges and attorneys in expediting procedures as quickly as possible with little regard for due process.

"This document provides further evidence of the government's disturbing pressure cooker tactics for mass guilty pleas that assumed guilt instead of protecting the constitutional presumption of innocence," said ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project Director Lucas Guttentag. "Along with the workers, fairness and due process were the victims of the Postville prosecutions."

The government "manual" provided for the workers to waive all their legal rights and in the overwhelming majority of cases, to plead guilty to charges of falsely using identity documents for employment. It was an important tool used to rush defendants through the criminal justice and immigration systems without a criminal trial or immigration proceedings. The plea forms in the "manual" included a requirement barring immigrants from pursuing any legal claims or procedures under the immigration laws.

.... The troubling system implemented by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Homeland Security appeared designed to undermine fairness and due process by criminally prosecuting the workers under circumstances that undermined their ability to understand or protect their rights.

link

View Government Manual (PDF)

When viewed together these two important pieces of evidence paint a vivid picture of the gross abuses of power and disrespect for basic constitutional protections that marked the aftermath of the Postville raid

What follows are the prepared remarks of Dr Camayd-Freixas from the congressional hearing:
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Our investigation found that Goodling improperly subjected candidates for certain career positions to the same politically based evaluation she used on candidates for political positions, in violation of federal law and Department policy. With regard to requests from interim U.S. Attorneys to hire [assisant U.S. attorneys], we determined that in two instances Goodling considered the candidate's political or ideological affiliations when she assessed the request. For example, in one instance when the interim U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia sought approval from Goodling to hire an AUSA for a vacant position, Goodling responded that the candidate gave her pause because judging from his résumé he appeared to be a "liberal Democrat."

In addition, we determined that Goodling often used political or ideological affiliations to select or reject career attorney candidates for temporary details to Department offices, including positions in EOUSA that had not been filled by political appointees. Goodling's use of political considerations in connection with these details was particularly damaging to the Department because it resulted in high-quality candidates for important details being rejected in favor of less-qualified candidates. For example, an experienced career terrorism prosecutor was rejected by Goodling for a detail to EOUSA to work on counterterrorism issues because of his wife's political affiliations. Instead, EOUSA had to select a much more junior attorney who lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues and who EOUSA officials believed was not qualified for the position.

This is the online video of the Netroots Nation "Our 'Dos Centavos': Strategies For Latino Bloggers" panel.

A big thanks has to go to Manny, a fellow Sanctuarian, who liveblogged the session. You can find the transcript of the session on his site.

The question has long ceased being whether or not, that under this administration, if the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE is turning this nation into an immigration police state - it already has, and we can take their word for it.

In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, Julie Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, told reporters that tougher immigration enforcement will continue through the end of 2008.

Julie Myers, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security for ICE .
(Source: ice.gov)

We only have to look at ICE's Fiscal Year 2009 budget factsheet to know their plans extend beyond this year.

Under the heading  Key Strategic Issues in FY 2009:, it's printed:

ICE will focus on border security and interior enforcement of immigration laws, transforming the way ICE finds and removes criminal aliens, and its other critical law enforcement responsibilities.

The key phrases are "interior enforcement" and "transforming the way ICE finds and removes criminal aliens."

That same 2009 budget calls for more funds to support the addition of 1,000 new detention beds, over 200 special agents for investigations, and expansion of the 287 (g) program.

In fact, the 287 (g) program, which empowers local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws, is one of the more popular programs of the federal government.
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Marc J. Moore, a San Antonio-based field director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Detention and Removal Operation, said the Port Isabel Detention Center has gone through various kinds of evacuation drills since February. None of the individual detainees were involved in the evacuation trials, Moore said.

Staff at the facility, which can house 1,200 adult men and women detainees, has been talking with detainees about the possible evacuation.

"We want to make sure the detainees know what's going on," Moore said. "Some haven't been in a hurricane or even an evacuation situation."

This is the same "detention center" (read high-security prison) that the Texas Civil Rights Review reported four female detainees suffering miscarriages due to lack of adequate medical care, in addition to a rat infestation.  With the possible evacuation of migrant workers being held there due to the storm, it's important to keep a close watch on the their condition and continue to call for full accountability when human rights are violated.
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In 23 years as a certified Spanish interpreter for federal courts, Erik Camayd-Freixas has spoken up in criminal trials many times, but the words he uttered were rarely his own.

Then he was summoned here by court officials to translate in the hearings for nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers arrested in a raid on May 12 at a meatpacking plant. Since then, Mr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, has taken the unusual step of breaking the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters about their work.

In a 14-page essay he circulated among two dozen other interpreters who worked here, Professor Camayd-Freixas wrote that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived.

In the essay and an interview, Professor Camayd-Freixas said he was taken aback by the rapid pace of the proceedings and the pressure prosecutors brought to bear on the defendants and their lawyers by pressing criminal charges instead of deporting the workers immediately for immigration violations.

He said defense lawyers had little time or privacy to meet with their court-assigned clients in the first hectic days after the raid. Most of the Guatemalans could not read or write, he said. Most did not understand that they were in criminal court.

"The questions they asked showed they did not understand what was going on," Professor Camayd-Freixas said in the interview. "The great majority were under the impression they were there because of being illegal in the country, not because of Social Security fraud."

NYT
(Article also contains a video interview with Dr Camayd-Freixas ..it's a must view)  

Last month I received a copy of the essay Dr Camayd-Freixas wrote detailing the raid.

It is published here in its entirety to document what went on behind closed doors at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo Iowa where 390 migrants were subjected to kangaroo court proceedings that resulted in guilty pleas and mandatory jail sentences.  

Dr Camayd-Freixas will be testifying before Congress later this month at the Immigration Sub-Committee of the House of Representatives in regards to the raid.

He has asked that anyone moved by his account help the relief effort in any way possible;

"Finally, my new friends from Postville involved in the relief effort inform me that they are still dealing with a very tough humanitarian crisis. So, please, if you have any opportunity for fundraising, this is the address where donations can be sent:

St. Bridget's Hispanic Ministry Fund
c/o Sister Mary McCauley
PO Box 369
Postville, Iowa 52162"

What follows is the complete story of what happened after the Postville raid:
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Teibel's article today deserves mentioning because he did not do the journalistic lazy move by juxtaposing drug bust incidents with this separate facet of border news.  It is solely about the human rights crisis that unfolds and grows year after year in the Sonoran Desert.  The fact is, the vast majority of crossers are economic refugees; but due to fork-tongued pundits like Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo, the Minutemen vigilantes, and lazy journalists, the perception of border crossers usually involves shading their identities with drug runners and terrorists.
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Activists on both sides of the debate are ratcheting up their respective PR machines in anticipation of the grand legislative dance that will take place.

Right-wing groups like FAIR and its astroturf surrogates have taken out splashy adds in big time "liberal media" publications trying to reframe the issue as an environmental one. NumbersUSA will spend probably close to a million dollars to train 500 new "volunteer activist experts" to flood the press with fake, 'non-partisan' viewpoints on everything from healthcare to education...all of course with an anti-immigrant bend.

On the other side, pro-immigrant groups are actively courting newly-minted "pro-migrant bloggers" from the previously uninterested progressive blogosphere in hopes of effecting positive electoral change. Business centered think tanks and "grassroots" advocacy groups made up of the likes of the American Meat Institute and the American Hotel & Lodging Association are beginning lobbying efforts to make sure they get the kind of immigration reform that will be best for their economic interests.

Of course lost in all this politics as usual are the people at the heart of the issue. Those who have been effected by increased raids that have destroyed families all in the name of some cynical political theater to sway public opinion. Those who have died in detention camps for lack of basic medical care in order to prove that some "get tough" policy is an effective replacement for meaningful reform. Those who have been denied basic constitution protections in order that Micheal Chertoff can claim victory in his personal war on the undocumented.

But this is a nightmare for migrants that need not exist.

If we had been vigilant from the start, and more importantly, shrewd enough not to allow this entire issue to be framed from the start by the far-right, a different dynamic might exist today and reform might have been accomplished.

I am still not jaded enough to believe that the current paradigm was inevitable.

I don't want to believe that pro-immigrant avdocacy groups compromise the very people they are supposed to represent out of nefarious political intent. I don't want to believe that corporate and business interests are welcomed into the pro-migrant world for any other reason than the current constraints of political realities.

But at the same time I must question why those political realities exist, and why supposed immigrant advocates work so half-heartedly to change them.
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will be attending and doing an "Ask the Speaker" session with participants.  I just submitted the following question for consideration by the moderators:

Madame Speaker:

Thirty miles to the north of Austin, in Taylor, Texas, is the T. Don Hutto prison facility that is serving as one of many holding tanks for migrant worker families in the U.S., including children. Is Congress preparing any action that would immediately halt the violation of human rights of the children and other prisoners at these sites, such as blocking of habeas corpus protections, access to medical care, and family unification? Will the Democrats on a national-party level be endorsing the recently passed resolution by the Texas Democratic Party, calling on the end to family detentions at sites like T. Don Hutto?

The text of the resolution is listed below:

RESOLUTION FOR ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION OF IMMIGRANT AND ASYLUM-SEEKING CHILDREN

WHEREAS border protection is important to the security of the nation as a whole;

WHEREAS immigration affects the economic and social well-being of both the United States and Mexico;

WHEREAS a private firm re-opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, for the purpose of detaining immigrant and asylum-seeking families who are awaiting immigration proceedings,

WHEREAS it is not appropriate to convert a medium-security prison and rename it as a family detention center where children are detained with their families and some children are separated from their families;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Texas Democratic Party add to its platform that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should consider all alternatives to the detention of immigrant and asylum-seeking families with children, and must reunite children with their families; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a child who is brought into this country by a family member shall not be subject to criminal sanctions, and the child's presence in the U.S. shall not be defined as unlawful.

linkage to vote for the topic

What would you ask the Speaker of the House if you had the opportunity?
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The email reads: "With a little planning they easily could have transplanted it to the Rio Grande River. Now that should have cut down on the illegal migration just a tad!!"

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In the wake of numerous press reports detailing the deaths of 83 people in ICE custody since its inception five years ago, countless cases of sick or mentally ill detainees denied even the most basic care they require, the illegal detention of legal residents and citizens, expedited criminal hearings of those apprehended in raids without providing basic legal representation or judicial review, and the illegal drugging of both detainees and  deportees, there have been growing calls for the reform of the immigration detention system.  

Last week Sen. Robert Menendez(D-FL) took to the Senate floor to deliver a scathing indictment of ICE, the DHS, and the entire immigration detention system, promising to introduce legislation to protect legal residents and citizens from unlawful detention. This comes on the heels of legislation to guarantee basic heath care for all detainees introduced early this month in both the House and Senate.

House Bill,   H.R. 5950, the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008, introduced by  California Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren, and its Senate counter-part, S. 3005, introduced by Menendez, are both simple, straight-forward, one page bills, that guarantee that those held on immigration charges receive the most basic medical care everyone held in government custody deserves as a matter of human rights.

But that hasn't stopped anti-immigrant zealots from complaining that detainees should not receive the basic medical care that all civilized nations provide prisoners no mater what the charge.
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Those of us who live in the border region in its bi-cultural society understand that the human condition is lived very differently due to the current configuration of the international border.  This book explores the economic impact of the maquilas - factories - that have risen on the other side of the line in response to so-called free trade agreements as well as several intimate stories of those who live in Ambos Nogales.
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We've heard that statement in various forms a millions times, repeated ad infinitum by various politicians and talking heads since Frank Luntz first advised anti-immigrant Republicans to stress that ""A country that can't control its own borders can't control its own destiny" to sell an anti-immigrant agenda to the American public.

But it has always gone without saying that the border that needed to be controlled has been the one to the south.  Rarely, if ever, has the northern border been mentioned in most border security screeds.

Congress has appropriated funds for vast amounts of added security on the southern border, and walls are being constructed as we speak to further limit access across the 1900 mile stretch.

Of course the need to stem the flow of "illegal immigration" is always given as the chief cause for such expenditures. But additionally, the need for general "border security" is often cited.

Anti-immigrant politicians and talking heads are always quick to conflate the flow of economic refugees with the flow of drugs and the threat of international terrorism to pepper their anti-immigrant rants with even higher levels of fear and trepidation.

Trancredo famously brought up the specter of terrorists crossing the southern border in this ad:

And the boyz at Fox Noise have turned up the fear meter on more than one occasion:

But a new report from the General Accounting Office sheds new light on exactly where the nation's greatest border security threats exist ....and they aren't along the much patrolled southern border...but our remote and unmonitored northern one.  
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In the mid-nineties US policy towards Mexico changed in two significant ways that eventually set the stage for the current "immigration crisis." In January 1994, NAFTA went into effect and a new era of prosperity and progress was to begin in Mexico. At the same time, a new strategy was enacted along the southern border intended to stem the flow of unauthorized migrants. The policy of "prevention through deterrence" involved quintupling border-enforcement expenditures, building new fortified checkpoints, high-tech surveillance, and deploying thousands of additional Border Patrol Agents. Additionally, border barriers were built along portions of the California and Texas border to prevent migrants from entering through the most highly trafficked urban areas.

More than a decade later it's become evident that the promises of these two policies, rather than bringing economic change to Mexico and decreasing unauthorized migration to the US, have led to conditions that more than doubled the flow of migration....and brought added death to the border.

NAFTA, while bringing trade and investment to Mexico, has had unintended negative consequences on both sides of the border for working people and the poor. Whole segments of the US manufacturing sector have been relocated to Mexico resulting in job loss for US workers. At the same time, the lifting for trade restrictions in Mexico have allowed cheaper US commodities to enter the country, decimating Mexican agricultural markets and throwing millions of small farmers out of business. Additionally, the availability of even cheaper labor sources in places like China has forced manufacturing wages to go down.

As for the policy of "prevention through deterrence", all it has really accomplished in the past fourteen years is a movement of the routes of migration from relatively safe urban areas like San Diego and El Paso to the hostile desert and mountainous regions where enforcement is difficult. This "funneling effect" of forcing migrants into least hospitable areas has had devastating effects for those on both sides of the border. A study released by the University Of Arizona examined the consequences of shifting migration patterns from California and Texas to Arizona and found it had increased migrants deaths by 20-fold.

The failures of NAFTA to bring prosperity to Mexico are well documented. It's moved 19 million more Mexicans into poverty, forced more than a million small farmers off the land due to the lifting of restrictions on cheaper US subsidized agricultural products, lowered  real wages, and in the end forced "millions ...to abandon their native homelands. Entire indigenous nations -- the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs, the Tzotzil Maya -- have moved by the tens of thousands, creating the largest migration of Native American peoples in North America since the Trail of Tears in the late 19th century."

While trade policies have brought suffering to the poor of Mexico, border policies have brought death.  
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