Thread: IA-Language aide slams raid in Postville

Language aide slams raid in Postville
By JANE NORMAN • jnorman@dmreg.com • July 25, 2008


Washington, D.C. - The judicial proceedings following the Postville immigration raid were "a grave distortion in the legal structure of government" in which immigrant workers' rights were denied, a court interpreter told a congressional subcommittee Thursday.

Erik Camayd-Freixas, a certified Spanish interpreter who served in Iowa for two weeks, stepped outside of his usual role as an impartial officer of the court to criticize the treatment of immigrants who were arrested May 12 at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant.


Camayd-Freixas said guilty pleas were obtained under duress, the defendants did not know what a Social Security number was and were not guilty of "intent" crimes, and there was inadequate access to lawyers. He said it was his opinion as an educator that the literacy level among most of the immigrants was poor.

"I saw the Bill of Rights denied and democratic values threatened by the breakdown of checks and balances," said Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University who wrote a 15-page essay on his experiences and was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

But a Department of Justice official defended the process and said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for years had been gathering information that showed the majority of the kosher meat-processing facility's employees were in the country illegally.

More than 70 percent of people detained were using fraudulent Social Security documents, said Deborah Rhodes, senior associate deputy attorney general.

In booking, "the atmosphere was calm and orderly," Rhodes said, and no constitutional rights were violated in the courtroom. The detainees had access to phones, hot meals were served by a local caterer and public health officials were on site, she said.

Marcy Foreman, director of the Office of Investigations for ICE, said workplace actions target employers who "adopt a business model of employing and exploiting undocumented workers."

The agency used a humanitarian approach at Postville, said Foreman, adding that as a Jewish person she strongly objected to the term "concentration camp" used by one critic to describe the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo where detainees were held. "I equate that to the murder of millions of individuals," she said.

Some 389 workers were detained in the raid.

The nearly all-day hearing Thursday was before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration. The chairwoman, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said there were 17 defendants for each lawyer, group hearings and scripts that instructed lawyers what to say in court.

Rep. Steve King of Kiron, the top Republican member on the subcommittee, said those who had obtained false documents to work at Agriprocessors had committed a crime that affected real people.

"ICE work site enforcement actions like the one in Postville put those employers, and the illegal workers themselves, on notice that if they choose to violate the law, they are subject to prosecution," King said.


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/p ... /807250378

This is nothing more than an illegal-immigrant sympathizer being allowed to open his stupid mouth and get his name on the cover of the New York Times (a questionable publication at that).

Somebody should tell Erik Camayd-Freixas to shut the hell up and stay in Florida where he belongs before he gets hurt. Nobody needs him sticking his nose in their business, especially when that business is cleansing this country of a flood of illegal immigrants who are taking jobs, housing and services needed by Americans, not to mention stealing our identities.

"I saw the Bill of Rights denied and democratic values threatened by the breakdown of checks and balances," said Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University who wrote a 15-page essay on his experiences and was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

Ooo! Democratic values were threatened? Oh, my! We can't allow that in America!

Why do the Bill Of Rights even apply to illegal immigrants? They are not citizens and should NOT receive ANY of the benefits of a citizen, and that includes every damned one of those busted in Postville, IA

ICE should remove every illegal being illegally-harbored by the Catholic churches in the U.S., too, including St.Bridgets in Postville. The government should confiscate the properties (which are being used in the commission of a crime) and sell them at auction to fund even more ICE raids.

Instead of standing up for illegal immigrants, Erik Camayd-Freixas should get on the right side of this war and stand up for the rights of Americans.

Camayd - Freixas was testifying by emotions instead of facts.OUR congress members should be hearing from citizens who have had their ID's stolen and should have been at that hearing to dispute the claim ID theft is a harmless victimless crime.