Posted on 05/24/2008 7:20:20 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.
The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.
The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.
Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”
Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were “committed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system.”
The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.
The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Its the layoffs.
If there could be headlines like this every day for a few years it would solve so many problems.
Count on the Des Moines Register to kick into full weep mode Sunday.
So, are they going to be deported? Set free after time?
270 down, 19,999,730 to go.
One thing missing from the prosecution...the CEO of Agriprocessors.
He's hard to track down. The McCain Straight Talk Express bus is constantly on the move.
No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company. In pleading guilty, immigrants had to agree to cooperate with any investigation.
Ping!
Good - now these folks will have committed a felony the next time they cross the border.
That’ll show ‘em who’s boss.
prosecutors had denied them probation and insisted the immigrants serve prison time and agree to a rarely used judicial order for immediate deportation upon their release, signing away their rights to go to immigration court.
I sure hope they follow through. Start handing down steep fines and jail sentences to the employers and the illegals will find the job opportunity pool has dried up virtually overnight.
Not just the Register. Pretty much all the Iowa media coverage I’ve seen of this weeps enough to need sandbags. Everybody in town is reportedly scared the Feds are coming. What do they have to be scared about if they’re legal? There were a bunch of support meetings scheduled in the area. They easily could have picked up more illegals by raiding them, but then the press would really have gone ballistic. I don’t expect their editorial coverage to change until the Register, etc. imports some inexpensive illegals to take over some reporting jobs and they turn out to be conservatives.
270 down, 19,999,730 to go.
:::::::
Exactly. It is all tokenism. The border is not fixed. The mass of illegals is not fixed. The cost to the country’s REAL CITIZEN taxpayers is not fixed. The Border Patrol is not allowed to do its job properly. The list goes on.
Pure TOKENISM.
Does any US citizen doubt they’d be nailed to the wall for identity theft? The majority of illegals have been using fake docs or stolen ID’s for years with impugnity. It’s time they got what was coming to them.
No!...we would be left to rot in jail like Ramos and Campean.
Think about this...
..these illegals stole identities and lied to authorities....5 months in jail.
Ramos and Compean tried to protect & defend against lying, thieving, stealing, smuggling crooks...
..and they're left to rot in jail.
No 5 months for them.
This is only a spit in the bucket....it's not Bush getting tough at all.
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