Postville: Voices from the Shadows

Pictures /Photos de Postville

postville — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:53:07 +0000

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

postville — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:03:30 +0000

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.

POSTVILLE: VOICES from the SHADOWS

postville — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:41:32 +0000

Tuesday, May. 27, 2008

After Immigrant Raid, Iowans Ask Why

By Betsy Rubiner/Postville

In this small northeastern Iowan town surrounded by newly planted cornfields, a middle-aged white woman walks into the local Guatemalan restaurant with her arm around a Hispanic child who is sobbing because she can’t find her mother. After conferring with a restaurant worker, the woman takes the child nearby to St. Bridget’s, a small 1970s-era brick Catholic church on a quiet tree-lined street that has become command central for what people in this community of 2,273 describe as a “disaster relief response.”

In the aftermath of the nation’s largest single-site immigration raid — a May 12 raid of a Postville-based meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors Inc. that took 389 workers into custody — Hispanic children and adults here remain fearful. And many white residents remain hard at work helping the people left behind — mostly women from Guatemala and Mexico and their children.

To date, 270 illegal immigrant workers have pleaded guilty to unusually tough federal criminal charges of working with false documents and have received five-month prison sentences followed by deportation. About 40 female workers have been released temporarily to care for children. Suddenly without income, job prospects or spouses, they await court dates.

Many Hispanics, legal or not, fear that the immigration agents will return. (The original goal had been to arrest 697 of the plant’s 968 workers.) On the first chaotic day of the raid, about 400 people fled to the church seeking safety, food, shelter, medical care and the whereabouts of family members. Now, Postville residents led by religious leaders have spontaneously stitched together a safety net. Their argument: if this were a natural disaster, FEMA would be here but instead it’s a man-made tragedy and the government is providing little help. “It is my privilege to serve the needs of these people,” says Sister Mary McCauley, a petite, white-haired woman with a kind smile who is St. Bridget’s pastoral administrator. “[but] I don’t know why they have left it to the faith community alone.”

Responding with an outpouring of donated goods, money, time and caring, the volunteers are fueled by compassion, duty, and, increasingly, frustration and fury. They know too that immigrants have helped make Agriprocessors the nation’s largest kosher meat processor and, in turn, helped Postville prosper while many small Iowa towns struggle. “They’re being preyed upon,” says John Schlee, 71, a volunteer wearing overalls and a farm implement company cap. “They’re doing work that the American workers don’t want to do. They’re searching for a better life and now their families are being torn apart.”

Anti-immigrant sentiment and ethnic tensions are not unknown in this unusually diverse Iowa small town, whose residents include descendants of German and Norwegian Lutherans and Irish Catholics as well as more recent arrivals — Latin Americans, Ukrainians and Hasidic Jews drawn here by the plant. A few angry people have called the church, complaining about its care of “criminals.” But volunteers like Ardie Kuhse, 60, shrug this off. “Yes, they were illegal. But they were working. Is that a crime? They’re a part of our community,” says Kuhse, near tears as she recalls trying to calm children after the raid.

On the weekend before Memorial Day, St. Bridget’s social hall bustled with Hispanic families seeking financial and legal advice, including Sylvia Ruiz, 40, and Marta Veronica, 32, Guatemalans who wore electronic ankle bracelets. “We can’t work. We can’t provide for our kids. God bless the church,” says Veronica, speaking through a Spanish interpreter. She is looking after a daughter and two teen-age nephews, who were among several minors detained and later released. Cooking meals, making beds, unloading trucks and running errands, the volunteers include people from Postville, other Iowa communities and beyond — lawyers, religious leaders, staff from a nonprofit Latino aid center in Waterloo and students and faculty from Iowa colleges.

At one card table, a Cornell College student helped people locate family and friends. Above them hung an Iowa map pocked with post-it notes showing the locations of detention centers. Nearby, a Lutheran minister conferred with a Hasidic man who runs the local kosher grocery store. At another card table, two nuns filled out a raid “registration and care” form for two Hispanic men, assisted by two Luther College students acting as interpreters.

Donations are being used to help pay for necessities like rent and utilities. In the church rectory, lawyers met individually with immigrants struggling to understand criminal and immigration law. The unusually rapid court proceedings have raised concerns about violations of due process. There have been allegations that workers have been exploited. Some immigrants fear eviction as replacement workers arrive and need lodging. They have other questions: Where are the men and women serving their sentences? When will the temporarily released mothers face charges? How do they get and pay for passports for children who are U.S. citizens?

Sylvia Ruiz, who is preparing for a likely return to Guatemala, has four children ages 18, 16, 7 and 2. “The little ones don’t understand what’s happening,” she says. “The older ones do.” At Postville’s K-8 school, where about half of the 387 students are Hispanic and some have been at the school for years, Principal Chad Wahls predicts 70 to 120 children won’t return next fall, possibly including the best friends of his third-grade daughter, who “cried and cried for days” after the raid. When school breaks for summer this week, he predicts more tears — from teachers.

Braced for months of waiting and uncertainty, many Postville residents are certain about one thing: “We have to have comprehensive immigration reform so these people who desire to work can. We have to have a way to welcome them,” says Sister McCauley. “When people are so hurt, we have to take a look at the law.”

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5/20/08 – Main Street Project Condemns Postville, Iowa ICE Raid

Calls for enforcement of constitutional and human rights – regardless of immigration status

As an organization committed to giving residents of all ages, cultures, economic and immigration status the opportunity to more fully participate in all aspects of community life, Main Street Project strongly condemns the May 12 Postville, Iowa ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raid and its aftermath.

In the largest single-site enforcement operation in the country nearly 390 hard-working immigrants, already exploited in deplorable working conditions, now find their lives upturned by a massive quasi-military operation. Read Des Moines Register coverage of the Postville raid.

According to the U.S. Constitution, all people residing in the United States, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to due process of law. The United States is committed to principles of democracy and fairness, yet hundreds of people are being detained – many without access to counsel and without contact with their families. Many are terrified at the possibility of being returned to a home they may no longer know, or where they won’t be able to earn a living wage. Because 300 of the detained immigrants are from Guatemala, they face the additional challenge of returning to a country devastated by decades of civil war. The U.S. policy of detaining and deporting people does not address these realities. Read Guatemalan Solidarity Statement (PDF) to learn more.

An injury to one is an injury to all.

We know that raids affect not only the families who were a part of the raid, but the whole community. Join us in a call for transparent, fair and humane treatment for all detainees in accordance with our U.S. constitutional norms of due process and equal protection. We believe that all human beings in this country have a right to be treated with dignity and respect, even in situations of detention and arrest.

Approved May 21, 2008

Main Street Project Board of Directors

What you can do

Donate

Send cash donations to:

St. Bridget’s Hispanic Ministry

Attention: Sister Mary McCauley

P.O Box 369

Postville, IA 52162

Voces desde Postville

postville — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:39:18 +0000

Declaración de Solidaridad con los Guatemaltecos Detenidos en la Redada de
ICE en Postville, Iowa

14 de mayo, 2008

La siguiente declaración puede atribuirse a: Amalia Anderson, Carlos
Ariel, Axel Fuentes, Ana Nájera Mendoza, Reginaldo Haslett Marroquín,
Pedro Sosa

“Nadie merece ser sometido a arrestos, detención o exilio de manera
arbitraria”.
Artículo 9, Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos

Como Guatemaltecos (por nacimiento y por origen de nuestros ancestros) y
ahora viviendo en los Estados Unidos, condenamos muy enfáticamente la
redada que se llevó a cabo en Postville, Iowa, y que ha sido
históricamente la más grande que se haya visto en un solo lugar de los
Estados Unidos. De los 390 trabajadores detenidos, según nos informan,
cerca de 300 son de Guatemala.

De acuerdo con las estadísticas de las Naciones Unidas, más de 125
millones de personas en muchas partes del mundo viven y trabajan fuera de
sus países de origen. La migración humana es un fenómeno mundial empeorado
por la guerra, la persecución, la desigualdad económica y social, los
desastres ecológicos y la pobreza. La migración internacional continuará
hasta que se eliminen las causas subyacentes que han forzado a la gente a
abandonar sus países de origen.

Como Guatemaltecos, estamos muy familiarizados con las violaciones a los
derechos humanos y el impacto tan duradero que tienen. Durante los 36 años
de guerra civil en Guatemala 200,000 personas han muerto o desaparecido y
un millón y medio de personas se vieron forzadas a desplazarse a otras
partes del país o a salir del país. Con financiamiento y entrenamiento de
los Estados Unidos se sostuvo la guerra civil – dejando al país en una
situación caótica y forzando a muchos guatemaltecos a huir. Tanto los que
podemos firmar públicamente esta carta, como nuestros hermanos y hermanas
que están en los centros de detención y no la pueden firmar, venimos a los
Estados Unidos huyendo de los efectos de la guerra civil de décadas,
financiada por los Estados Unidos. Ahora que más de 300 guatemaltecos
esperan en una cárcel de Iowa, te queremos pedir que nos acompañes en
nuestra pena y aflicción, y que protestes por esta ironía tan obvia.

De acuerdo con la constitución de los Estados Unidos, todas las personas
que residan en este país, independientemente del estado migratorio, tienen
derecho al debido proceso legal. A pesar de que en los Estados Unidos nos
hemos comprometido a acatar los principios de democracia y justicia,
cientos de personas están siendo detenidas, y a menudo no se les da acceso
a abogados ni se les permite comunicarse con sus familias. Muchos temen
la terrible posibilidad de ser regresados a un lugar que quizá ya no
reconocen como su hogar, o a un lugar en el que no podrán ganar lo
suficiente para sobrevivir. En el caso de Guatemala, no debemos olvidar
los desafíos adicionales de volver a un país que ha sido devastado por las
décadas de guerra civil. En la política de Estados Unidos de detener y
deportar a la gente no se toman en cuenta estas realidades.

Las recientes redadas de Postville hacen surgir de nuevo estas preguntas
sobre el papel que juega constantemente el gobierno de los Estados Unidos
en las vidas de los guatemaltecos. Sin embargo, a diferencia de lo que
pasaba en los años de guerra, ¡Ahora tenemos la oportunidad de hacer
prevalecer los valores fundamentales de democracia y justicia en los
Estados Unidos! A nombre de nuestros hermanos y hermanas que están
detenidos, queremos hacer un llamado para que su trato sea transparente,
justo y humano, de acuerdo con nuestras normas constitucionales de un
debido proceso legal e igualdad de protección. Creemos que todos los seres
humanos en este país tienen derecho a que se les trate con dignidad y
respeto, aun en situaciones de detención o arresto. Aunque nada puede
subsanar la destrucción causada por décadas de guerra civil en Guatemala,
se nos presenta ahora un momento para que nos mantengamos firmes y no
permitamos que continúe el legado de nuestro gobierno, ni en el presente
ni en el futuro. ¡Compañeros Guatemaltecos, únanse a nosotros!

Words from Postville

postville — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:36:40 +0000

“No one should be subjected to arbitrary arrests, detention or exile”.

Article 9, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“ Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall
be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of
his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure
as are established by law.”

Article 9, International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

As Guatemalans (by birth and by family origin) living in the United States
we strongly condemn the Postville, Iowa raid–the largest single-site
enforcement operation of its kind in the history of the United States. Of
the 390 workers reportedly detained, nearly three hundred are from
Guatemala.

According to statistics from the United Nations, over 125 million people
throughout the world live and work outside their countries of origin.
Human migration is a global phenomenon fueled by war, persecution,
economic and social inequality, environmental disaster, and poverty.
International migration will continue until the underlying causes forcing
people from their homelands are eliminated.

As Guatemalans, we are too familiar with Human Rights violations and their
lasting effects. During our country’s 36-year long civil war: 200,000
people were killed or disappeared and as many as 1.5 million people were
displaced internally or forced to flee the country. U.S. funding and
training underwrote the war – leaving the country in shambles and forcing
many to leave. Those of us able to publicly sign this letter and our
brothers and sisters sitting now in detention centers and unable to sign
this letter, came to this country fleeing the effects of the U.S. funded,
civil war. As over three hundred Guatemalans now sit in detention in
Iowa, we ask you to grieve with us and protest the obvious irony.

According to the U.S. Constitution, all people residing in the United
States, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to due
process of law. The United States is committed to principles of democracy
and fairness, yet hundreds of people are detained–frequently without
access to counsel and without contact from their families. Many are
terrified at the possibility of being returned to a home they may no
longer know, or where they will be unable to earn a living wage. In the
case of Guatemala, we mustn’t forget the additional challenges of
returning to a country devastated by decades of civil war. The U.S.
policy of detaining and deporting people does not address these realities.

The recent Postville Raids raises questions about the continued role the
United States government plays in the lives of Guatemalans. Unlike the war
years, however, we now have the opportunity to ensure that core U.S.
values of democracy and fairness prevail! On behalf of our brothers and
sisters in detention—we call for transparent, fair and humane treatment in
accordance with our U.S. constitutional norms of due process and equal
protection. We believe that all human beings in this country have a right
to be treated with dignity and respect, even in situations of detention
and arrest. Though nothing can undo the destruction caused by the civil
war in Guatemala, we are currently presented with an opportunity to stand
up and not allow the legacy of our government’s past to continue in the
present and the future. Fellow Guatemalans, join us!