Postville

Three months ago, the little town of Postville, Iowa, got hit by the largest immigration raid in US history. Nearly 400 workers were arrested in the raid—more than a quarter of the town’s population.

For those left behind, namely the wives and children of the men taken away, the town has been turned into what some have described as an open-air prison. Dozens of immigrant women remain in Postville without status or a means of support. Many of them are even forbidden from leaving and have been made to wear electronic monitoring bracelets (story covered by Democracy Now!)

Meanwhile, one of the court-appointed interpreters who was flown into Iowa for the trial broke the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters to describe the workers’ predicament. The interpreter, Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, has written a scathing account of the trial, called “Interpreting After the Largest ICE Raid in US History: A Personal Account.”

Dr. Camayd-Freixas talked with Democracy Now! about his experience:

• “Well, it was a unique experience for me in my 23 years as a federal interpreter. It started with waiting around in the courtroom until they started bringing in the defendants, and they were shackled at the waist, wrists and feet and coming in in rows of ten. Then they sat down to be arraigned. And one of the first things that struck me is that there didn’t seem to be a presumption of innocence. The presumption of innocence became kind of like empty words, because they were shackled. They were on an immigration detainer, so they didn’t have any right to bail, like normally defendants would. And so, that’s how it started.” (more)

In a related story, the ACLU has uncovered a government “manual” on how to expedite guilty pleas from the undocumented immigrant workers. The manual was issued to their defense lawyers and contained:

• “prepackaged scripts for plea and sentencing hearings as well as documents providing for guilty pleas and waivers of rights that were used to push the more than 300 Postville workers through mass criminal proceedings as quickly as possible.” (more)