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)

'Virtual fence' work is halted
"Work on 'virtual fences' planned for Arizona's stretch of the US-Mexican border has been brought to a halt. The Interior Department has not granted the Homeland Security Department permission to use the land for constructing the surveillance towers that form the backbone of the virtual fences," said Barry Morrissey, spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection in Washington, DC. "Without authorization to use the land, no work could begin, which prompted agency officials to instruct the lead contractor on the project, Boeing Co., to suspend activities until further notice," Morrissey said. No date has been set to resume work. [Arizona Daily Star, Aug. 19, 2008]

Cancer-Stricken 34-Year-Old Chinese Computer Engineer Dies After Being Denied Care in Private US Immigration Prison
Coverage by Democracy Now! of the case of Mr. Hiu Lui Ng, the thirty-four-year-old Chinese computer engineer who died earlier this month in a Rhode Island immigration detention center. For this story, which aired yesterday, Democracy Now! interviewed Joshua Bardavid, an immigration attorney in New York, who is representing Hiu Lui Ng’s family; Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Democratic Congress member from California, who serves as Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law; and Renee Feltz, investigative journalist based in NYC. Click on the link to watch or listen to the interviews online, or read the transcript.

Immigrant son lives American dream

"Henry Cejudo, the son of illegal immigrants from Mexico, completed his American dream by crushing Japan's hopes of their first Olympic men's wrestling gold medal in two decades." (found on Bender’s Immigration Bulletin)

Advocacy office says small firms deserve break on E-Verify

"The Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy is urging federal acquisition councils to consider exempting small firms from a regulation that would force contractors to verify workers' employment eligibility using a Homeland Security database." (found on Bender's Immigration Bulletin)

ICE Raids at Dulles Airport

Yesterday, ICE arrested 42 workers at Dulles Airport under the auspices of guarding our nation’s airports.

“There’s no indication that any of the aliens were involved in any terrorist activity at all,” said Mark McGraw, deputy special agent in charge with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

So, thanks guys, sounds like you really saved us from something potentially dangerous. What would we have done if those hard-working people continued to dry-wall and weld to maintain our airport?

To make matters worse, ICE refused to allow attorneys to speak with the detainees. (more)

Are Cities Warming Up to 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' Immigration Policies?

Hartford, CT is joining cities across the country who are taking steps to integrate their undocumented immigrants. (more)

Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands

Mr. Ng’s death follows a succession of cases that have drawn Congressional scrutiny to complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention, a rapidly growing network of publicly and privately run jails where the government held more than 300,000 people in the last year while deciding whether to deport them. (more)

Visual Resistance

A series of posters created by artists of Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative for use by international immigrant rights organizations. These 5 posters illustrate very beautifully and powerfully how immigrant rights are really nothing more than just human rights.

Lowell rally rails against raids
by Jack Minch in The Lowell Sun online 8/09/08

As thunder and lightning crackled overhead last night, Linda Pream broke down into tears as she spoke about her boyfriend, Sokon Cheurem, who is being detained on a federal warrant and facing possible deportation. Pream spoke at a rally sponsored by Deported Diaspora and other community groups at Clemente Park on Middlesex Street in the Lower Highlands neighborhood last night. The groups protested the roundup of about 16 immigrants in the city, including Cheurem, on Monday and Tuesday. (more)

Dream for immigrant teens

The Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network (MIFN) is a nonprofit advocacy group with the mission of improving educational opportunities for immigrant youths, changing the language used in the news media to describe immigrants, and lobbying for reform at the state Legislature. (story by Bill ward in the Star Tribune) (more)

Ensuring Due Process: The National Immigrant Bond Fund

Today, in Silver Spring, Maryland, the National Immigrant Bond Fund kicked off its fundraising campaign. The fund assists immigrants swept up in ICE raids to post bond quickly in order to secure a fair hearing in America’s courts.

No More I.C.E.!
Massachusetts Jobs with Justice announces a standout in Boston.
Wednesday August 13, 2008

We reject the presence of ICE in our communities.
Urgent Action in solidarity with the immigrant
community and respect the humanity and dignity of immigrants.
Join us Outside the JFK Building, at Government Center Plaza
starting at 10:30 a.m. Sponsored by: La Colaborativa de Chelsea,
Centro Presente and Jobs with Justice. If your group or
organization wants to support this action please contact
Patricia Montes pmontes@cpresente.org Edwin Argueta
edwin@massjwj.net or Gladys Vega gladysv@chelseacollab.org.

Hometown Associations: An Untapped Resource for Immigrant Integration?

WASHINGTON – With global migration rates at historic highs, the informal associations that immigrants create for social, economic development and political empowerment purposes are becoming more numerous and better networked. Though much of the policy and research focus on the immigrant organizations, known as hometown associations, is on their development potential for their home countries, a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report concludes that the groups play an important – and underexamined – role in immigrant integration.

As Valley border fence work begins, questions resurface
"You may find that there could be an individual on the job site that is not legal even though you went through various processes to check," Vaughan said. Vaughan also said that E-Verify, the government's electronic system for checking Social Security numbers, can't be trusted to weed out illegal workers." Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 11, 2008.

Nebraska: Grassroots Leaders in Training

(posted 8/8/08 on FIRM

On August 2nd and 3rd, a group of 15 Nebraska grassroots leaders participated in their first-ever Democracy School program. Democracy Schools, which are a project of FIRM, aim to develop basic leadership skills among new grassroots immigrant leaders across the nation....(more)

No volunteers yet in San Diego for self-deportation
There were no takers in San Diego Tuesday for a trial self-deportation program initiated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 5, 2008.

Both of My Grandfathers Were Illegal Immigrants (and Lou Dobbs' Would Be Today)
by Steven Wishnia, AlterNet

My grandfathers, like many other illegal immigrants, helped usher in the world's greatest period of working class prosperity.

Unauthorized Immigrants Getting Railroad Justice in Flashy ICE Raids
by Kathleen Walker, New American Media, AlterNet

Federal immigration officials swept into Postville, Iowa on May 12 and detained nearly 400 workers at a meat processing plant. This new high-speed judicial railroad required extensive planning and coordination between the U.S. Attorneys' office in Iowa, the Department of Homeland security, and the Federal Judiciary. The tracks laid down to carry this new enforcement train were designed to force rapid guilty pleas under the threat of serious jail time, avoid the inconvenience of trials, limit access to immigration counsel, eliminate the prospect of all future relief, and impose criminal sentences and removal orders simultaneously. (This op-ed piece, written by a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association expresses the group's deep concerns with the process.)

No Human Being Is Illegal
Peter Rachleff, July 26, 2008. Peter Rachleff is a Professor of History at Macalester College in St. Paul, and a specialist in labor and immigration history.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18264