• Als Spam markieren
• Beitrag melden

• 
  Diese Gruppe Alles

• Archiv
• RSS-Feeds

• Kontakt
• Hilfe
• Impressum
• Datenschutz

NYT Editorial: "This country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers"

Editorial
The Shame of Postville, Iowa

Published: July 13, 2008

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.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13sun2.html?_r=2&ex=121661280
0&en=adec8658d135a473&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://tinyurl.com/5a95va

-RFH

Antworten