Pictures /Photos de Postville

 

                                       joven con transmitor de ICE/ Youth with ankle bracelet

Staff from Prensa Libre de Guatemala meet with staff and volunteers from St. Bridget’s Catholic Church

Personal de prensa Libre se reune con personal y voluntarios de la iglesia Catolica St. Bridget

Letter to the Editor: Protecting the Rights of Immigrant Defendants

June 3, 2008

Protecting the Rights of Immigrant Defendants

To the Editor:
Re “270 Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push” (front page, May 24):
Among the many outrages involved in the mass prosecution of undocumented workers for document fraud in Iowa, the greatest may be the statement by Linda R. Reade, the chief judge who approved the emergency court. You quote her as saying that immigration lawyers, concerned about the mass prosecutions, “do not understand the federal criminal process as it relates to immigration charges.”
As public defenders, we know that the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction are usually the single most important consideration for noncitizen clients: time in jail pales in comparison with the prospect of lifetime separation from family.
That is why we, and an increasing number of public defenders’ offices, employ full-time immigration lawyers to advise clients and educate prosecutors and judges about the consequences of pleading guilty.
The federal court in Iowa approved a process in which defendants who may have had valid claims to relief from deportation were railroaded through the criminal system with inadequate time to find or consult with counsel with immigration expertise to help them consider the true choices they faced.
If the federal criminal process aspires to any form of justice, then clearly it is the chief judge and prosecutors who do not understand it.
Robin G. Steinberg
Bronx, May 28, 2008
The writer is executive director of the Bronx Defenders.