May 24, 2008, 1:08AM
Feds give illegal workers prison time in major shift
Prosecutions of 297 in Iowa are seen as escalation of crackdown by the administration


By JULIA PRESTON
New York Times

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WATERLOO, IOWA — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, nearly 300 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration's crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Previously, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported from the country.

The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville, in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.

Matt M. Dummermuth, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an "astonishing success." Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were "committed to enforcing the nation's immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system."


5 months, then deportation
The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in speedy plea agreements.

The illegal immigrants, most of them from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents.

The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even harsher charges. The immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve the five months in prison.

The hearings took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, in mobile trailers and in a dance hall modified with black curtains, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing several nights until 10. On Wednesday alone, 94 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, the most sentences in a single day in this northern Iowa district, according to Robert L. Phelps, the clerk of court.

Arnold, the immigration agent, said the criticism of the proceedings was "the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors."


Sending a message
The large number of criminal cases was remarkable because immigration violations generally fall under civil statutes. Previously, relatively few immigrants have been charged with federal crimes like identity theft or document fraud.

"To my knowledge, the magnitude of these indictments is completely unprecedented," said Juliet Stumpf, an immigration law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., formerly a senior civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department. "It's the reliance on criminal process here as part of an immigration enforcement action that takes this out of the ordinary, a startling intensification of the criminalization of immigration law."

If the immigrants did not plead guilty, Dummermuth said he would try them on felony identity theft charges that carry a mandatory two-year minimum jail sentence. In many cases, court documents show, the immigrants were working under real Social Security numbers or immigration visas, known as green cards, that belonged to other people.

All but a handful of the workers here had no criminal record, court documents showed.

No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company.

Chaim Abrahams, a representative of Agriprocessors, said in a statement that he could not comment about specific allegations but that the company was cooperating with the government.

Christopher Clausen, a lawyer who represented 21 Guatemalans, said he was certain they all understood their rights.

"The government is not bashful about the fact that they are trying to send a message," he said.






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