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.)
