Reasons why you must read the Orincus blog

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

You get first class journalism and the kind of analysis of current events that needs a Pulitzer Prize, at the least. This blog is a gem of the Netroots, and I am NOT exaggerating.


(Please note: While you are reading about all of this stuff? For those who watched that Monsanto documentary I had up some time ago? Keep in mind that free trade destroyed local economies by allowing cheap foods from the US to flood Latin American markets and thereby fuck the farmers over quite royally. )

Crossing teh Liine at Postville

It seems there was good reason to be concerned about the unusual handling of the cases of illegal immigrants caught up in last month's massive raids at Postville, Iowa -- where, as we noted at the time, immigrants not only were treated like cattle, the prosecutors engaged in questionable tactics as they processed these cases: deploying the unusual tactic of threatening the immigrants with felony identity-theft charges and sending them to prison when they either plead guilty or were quickly found guilty.
Last week there was a New York Times editorial directing us to an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a Spanish-language court interpreter who was called in to help process detainees in the raid. It makes the devastating case that the Department of Homeland Security, in collusion with the Justice Department, is (in the words of one observer we heard from about this case) "basically gaming the Federal judiciary using existing law, rules and regulations to force the judiciary to act as a coerced agent of the executive to imprison undocumented workers, after which they are deported with a prison record."
As Camayd-Freixas makes clear, these workers were charged improperly with a crime of which they were innocent as the means of forcing them to plead guilty to a lesser charge, for which they then accepted five-month prison sentence.

As the NYT editorial says:

Under the old way of doing things, the workers, nearly all Guatemalans, would have been simply and swiftly deported. But in a twist of Dickensian cruelty, more than 260 were charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and most were sentenced to five months in prison.
What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them.

You really need to read the entire piece by Camayd-Freixas.

...

Are here are snippets, or at least a hefty chunk, of that piece

Interprting After the Largest ICE raid in History: A Personal Account by Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D.
Florida International University

To an impartial and informed layperson, the process resembled a lottery of justice: if the
Social Security number belonged to someone else, you were charged with identity theft and went
to jail; if by luck it was a vacant number, you would get only Social Security fraud and were
released for deportation. In this manner, out of 297 who were charged on time, 270 went to jail.
Bothered by the arbitrariness of that heavier charge, I went back to the ICE Search Warrant
Application (pp. 35-36), and what I found was astonishing. On February 20, 2008, ICE agents
received social security “no match” information for 737 employees, including 147 using
numbers confirmed by the SSA as invalid (never issued to a person) and 590 using valid SSNs,
“however the numbers did not match the name of the employee reported by Agriprocessors…”
“This analysis would not account for the possibility that a person may have falsely used the
identity of an actual person’s name and SSN.” “In my training and expertise, I know it is not
uncommon for aliens to purchase identity documents which include SSNs that match the name
assigned to the number.” Yet, ICE agents checked Accurint, the powerful identity database used
by law enforcement, and found that 983 employees that year had non-matching SSNs. Then they
conducted a search of the FTC Consumer Sentinel Network for reporting incidents of identity
theft. “The search revealed that a person who was assigned one of the social security numbers
used by an employee of Agriprocessors has reported his/her identity being stolen.” That is, out
of 983 only 1 number (0.1%) happened to coincide by chance with a reported identity theft. The
charge was clearly unfounded; and the raid, a fishing expedition. “On April 16, 2008, the US
filed criminal complaints against 697 employees, charging them with unlawfully using SSNs in
violation of Title 42 USC §408(a)(7)(B); aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 USC
§1028A(a)(1); and/or possession or use of false identity documents for purposes of employment
in violation of 18 USC §1546.”


Created by Congress in an Act of 1998, the new federal offense of identity theft, as
described by the DOJ (http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/websites/idtheft.html), bears no
relation to the Postville cases. It specifically states: “knowingly uses a means of identification of
another person with the intent to commit any unlawful activity or felony” [18 USC §1028(a)].
The offense clearly refers to harmful, felonious acts, such as obtaining credit under another
person’s identity. Obtaining work, however, is not an “unlawful activity.” No way would a
grand jury find probable cause of identity theft here. But with the promise of faster deportation,
their ignorance of the legal system, and the limited opportunity to consult with counsel before
arraignment, all the workers, without exception, were led to waive their 5th Amendment right to
grand jury indictment on felony charges. Waiting for a grand jury meant months in jail on an
immigration detainer, without the possibility of bail. So the attorneys could not recommend it as
a defense strategy. Similarly, defendants have the right to a status hearing before a judge, to
determine probable cause, within ten days of arraignment, but their Plea Agreement offer from
the government was only good for… seven days. Passing it up, meant risking 2 years in jail. As a
result, the frivolous charge of identity theft was assured never to undergo the judicial test of
probable cause. Not only were defendants and judges bound to accept the Plea Agreement, there
was also absolutely no defense strategy available to counsel. Once the inflated charge was
handed down, all the pieces fell into place like a row of dominoes. Even the court was banking
on it when it agreed to participate, because if a good number of defendants asked for a grand jury
or trial, the system would be overwhelmed. In short, “fast-tracking” had worked like a dream.


It is no secret that the Postville ICE raid was a pilot operation, to be replicated elsewhere,
with kinks ironed out after lessons learned. Next time, “fast-tracking” will be even more
relentless. Never before has illegal immigration been criminalized in this fashion. It is no longer
enough to deport them: we first have to put them in chains. At first sight it may seem absurd to
take productive workers and keep them in jail at taxpayers’ expense. But the economics and
politics of the matter are quite different from such rational assumptions. A quick look at the ICE
Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report (www.ice.gov) shows an agency that has grown to 16,500
employees and a $5 billion annual budget, since it was formed under Homeland Security in
March 2003, “as a law enforcement agency for the post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcement
authorities against criminal and terrorist activities, including the fights against human trafficking
and smuggling, violent transnational gangs and sexual predators who prey on children” (17). No
doubt, ICE fulfills an extremely important and noble duty. The question is why tarnish its stellar
reputation by targeting harmless illegal workers. The answer is economics and politics.

After 9/11 we had to create a massive force with readiness “to prevent, prepare for and respond to a
wide range of catastrophic incidents, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics and
other such significant events that require large-scale government and law enforcement response”
(23). The problem is that disasters, criminality, and terrorism do not provide enough daily
business to maintain the readiness and muscle tone of this expensive force. For example, “In
FY07, ICE human trafficking investigations resulted in 164 arrests and 91 convictions” (17).
Terrorism related arrests were not any more substantial. The real numbers are in immigration:
“In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens” (4). ICE is under enormous pressure to turn out
statistical figures that might justify a fair utilization of its capabilities, resources, and ballooning
budget. For example, the Report boasts 102,777 cases “eliminated” from the fugitive alien
population in FY07, “quadrupling” the previous year’s number, only to admit a page later that
73,284 were “resolved” by simply “taking those cases off the books” after determining that they
“no longer met the definition of an ICE fugitive” (4-5).
De facto, the rationale is: we have the excess capability; we are already paying for it;
ergo, use it we must.


Furthermore, by virtue of its magnitude and methods, ICE’s New War is unabashedly the
aggressive deployment of its own brand of immigration reform, without congressional approval.
“In FY07, as the debate over comprehensive immigration reform moved to the forefront of the
national stage, ICE expanded upon the ongoing effort to re-invent immigration enforcement for
the 21st century” (3). In recent years, DHS has repeatedly been accused of overstepping its
authority. The reply is always the same: if we limit what DHS/ICE can do, we have to accept a
greater risk of terrorism. Thus, by painting the war on immigration as inseparable from the war
on terror, the same expediency would supposedly apply to both. Yet, only for ICE are these
agendas codependent: the war on immigration depends politically on the war on terror, which, as
we saw earlier, depends economically on the war on immigration. This type of no-exit circular
thinking is commonly known as a “doctrine.” In this case, it is an undemocratic doctrine of
expediency, at the core of a police agency, whose power hinges on its ability to capitalize on
public fear. Opportunistically raised by DHS, the sad specter of 9/11 has come back to haunt
illegal workers and their local communities across the USA.
A line was crossed at Postville.

GO READ THE REST.

Snort! No wonder the Mccain is losing Latinos to Obama

Anti-Immigrant Politics Push Latinos Away From the GOP

As with most Americans, Latinos view the Republican Party as being on the "wrong side" of key issues such as immigration, health care, the war, and the economy. In addition, the Republican Party's embrace of harsh anti-immigrant campaign tactics and policies has clearly undermined its ability to attract and retain Latino voters.

George W. Bush received approximately 40% support from Latinos in 2004. This number could become the high-water mark of Latino support for a Republican presidential candidate unless the GOP undergoes a major realignment on their immigration stance.

Since 2004, Republican opposition to immigration reform legislation and support of harsh, anti-immigrant policies has pushed Latinos into the Democratic fold.

* Partisan Gap Grows: 57% of Hispanic registered voters "now call themselves Democrats or say they lean to the Democratic Party, while 23 percent align with the Republican Party-a 34 percentage point gap in partisan affiliation among Latinos. In July, 2006, the same gap was just 21 percent. In 1999, it had been 33 percent." [Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanics and the 2008 Election: A Swing Vote?, 12/6/07]

* Nearly Half of Latino Voters Say Democrats Are More Supportive of Latinos than Republicans. By a 44% to 8% margin, Latinos say the Democratic Party has more concern for them than the GOP [Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanics and the 2008 Election: A Swing Vote?, 12/6/07]

* Nearly Half of Latino Voters Believe Democrats Do a Better Job Handling Illegal Immigration. By 41% to 14% margin, Latino voters say the Democrats are doing the better job of dealing with illegal immigration than the Republicans. Approximately 26% say neither Party is better, nor 12% say they don't know. [Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanics and the 2008 Election: A Swing Vote?, 12/6/07]

More