World
Policies Hit
Ben Harris
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Washington
Photo courtesy Zoe Leven
Immigration raid on kosher plant
slammed at congressional hearings.
W
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A26
July 31 2008
itnesses at recent congres-
sional hearings described
the federal immigration
raid on the country's largest kosher
plant as a travesty of justice, a national
disgrace and an ambush.
But comparing the government
detention facilities where 300 illegal
workers arrested in the May 12 raid
were detained to concentration camps
was too much for one of the officials
involved.
"Personally and professionally, I
find that quite offensive,' said Marcy
Forman, the director of the Office of
Investigations at Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), the lead
agency in the raid.
Forman told a U.S. House of
Representatives subcommittee on July
24 that the arrested workers had food,
beds and televisions, as well as access to
competent legal counsel. "Most concen-
tration camps that I've become aware of
don't possess those items; she said.
The hearing, convened by the
chairwoman of the House Judiciary
Committee's immigration panel, Rep.
Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., shifted the focus
from Agriprocessors, the kosher meat
producer that has been under intense
scrutiny since the raid at its packing
plant in Postville, Iowa, to the conduct
of various federal agencies.
In a hearing room packed with
onlookers, it was Forman and a senior
Department of Justice official, Deborah
Rhodes, in the dock as the government
faced the first sustained examination of
its policy of bringing criminal charges
against illegal immigrants. In the past,
the immigrants typically were held on
administrative grounds and deported.
According to Forman and Rhodes, a
near-heroic feat of law enforcement was
performed in Postville. The government
arrested and processed more than 300
non-English-speaking illegal immi-
grants in a matter of days, all while
protecting their constitutional rights
and making allowances for humanitar-
ian concerns.
U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren convened
a hearing in Washington on July
24 to consider the government's
role in the May 12 raid on the
Agriprocessors plant.
But a broad range of critics — from
elected officials to legal experts to those
with firsthand knowledge of the legal
proceedings and the raid's aftermath
— painted a much different picture.
In their view, the government
employed heavy-handed tactics,
destroyed the economy and social
fabric of a tiny town, and left a small
Catholic church to care for hundreds of
people robbed of their primary bread-
winner.
Critics blasted the government's
so-called "fast tracking" of detainees,
alleging that defendants were provided
inadequate access to lawyers, some of
whom were assigned to represent more
than a dozen workers.
Perhaps most significant, the govern-
ment is accused of presenting detainees
with a near-impossible choice. Most
could either plead guilty to aggravated
identity theft or Social Security fraud,
which under the agreement offered by
prosecutors would send them to jail for
five months before they were deported,
or refuse the plea and go to trial.
With the latter option, the detainees
could wait up to six months in jail
without bail and face the possibility
of a two-year mandatory sentence.
Ultimately they still faced deportation,
whether they were found guilty or not.
"Needless to say, the scheme left little
room for the fundamental protections
offered by the Constitution" David
Leopold, the national vice president of