detail of photo from USA Today. For link click hereFrom NYT article covering an interview with Dr. Camayd-Freixas:
"Professor Camayd-Freixas said he was taken aback by the rapid pace of the proceedings and the pressure prosecutors brought to bear on the defendants and their lawyers by pressing criminal charges instead of deporting the workers immediately for immigration violations." -
'“Most of the clients we interviewed did not even know what a Social Security card was or what purpose it served,” he wrote.'
The article presents Camayl-Freixas as Mr. -- he is actually a Dr., a Harvard PhD and tenured professor at a respected university.
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for link to complete NYT article click here
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July 11, 2008
An Interpreter Speaking Up for Migrants
By JULIA PRESTON
New York Times
WATERLOO, Iowa — In 23 years as a certified Spanish interpreter for federal courts, Erik Camayd-Freixas has spoken up in criminal trials many times, but the words he uttered were rarely his own.
Then he was summoned here by court officials to translate in the hearings for nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers arrested in a raid on May 12 at a meatpacking plant. Since then, Mr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, has taken the unusual step of breaking the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters about their work.
In a 14-page essay he circulated among two dozen other interpreters who worked here, Professor Camayd-Freixas wrote that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived.
In the essay and an interview, Professor Camayd-Freixas said he was taken aback by the rapid pace of the proceedings and the pressure prosecutors brought to bear on the defendants and their lawyers by pressing criminal charges instead of deporting the workers immediately for immigration violations.
He said defense lawyers had little time or privacy to meet with their court-assigned clients in the first hectic days after the raid. Most of the Guatemalans could not read or write, he said. Most did not understand that they were in criminal court.
“The questions they asked showed they did not understand what was going on,” Professor Camayd-Freixas said in the interview. “The great majority were under the impression they were there because of being illegal in the country, not because of Social Security fraud.”
During fast-paced hearings in May, 262 of the illegal immigrants pleaded guilty in one week and were sentenced to prison — most for five months — for knowingly using false Social Security cards or legal residence documents to gain jobs at the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in nearby Postville. It was the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.
The essay has provoked new questions about the Agriprocessors proceedings, which had been criticized by criminal defense and immigration lawyers as failing to uphold the immigrants’ right to due process. Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said she would hold a hearing on the prosecutions and call Professor Camayd-Freixas as a witness.
“The essay raises questions about whether the charges brought were supported by the facts,” Ms. Lofgren said.
...He suggested many of the immigrants could not have knowingly committed the crimes in their pleas. “Most of the clients we interviewed did not even know what a Social Security card was or what purpose it served,” he wrote.
He said many immigrants could not distinguish between a Social Security card and a residence visa, known as a green card. They said they had purchased fake documents from smugglers in Postville, or obtained them directly from supervisors at the Agriprocessors plant. Most did not know that the original cards could belong to Americans and legal immigrants, Mr. Camayd-Freixas said...
for link to complete NYT article click here
for link to complete Camayd-Freixas essay at Sanctuary Soapbox, click here
2 comments:
I have three questions for the author of the essay:
1) Did the "immigrants" not suspect they were doing something illegal when they had to pay someone to bring them here and then sneak in while keeping a sharp eye out for men in uniforms that were trying to keep them out?
2) Did the "immigrants" not suspect they were doing something illegal when they paid someone to create what they knew to be false documents showing they can work in this country, even if they don't know what a "social security card" is? Besides, when is ignorance of a law a valid argument?
3) Did the "immigrants" not realize they were entering a different country than their own that speaks a different language (and thus if you get caught things get VERY complicated) and more than likely has different laws than they are used to?
Im fed up with people making excuses for these law breakers.
The professor does say they readily agreed they were illegal immigrants and subject to deportation. However, for conviction of Social Security fraud the prosecutor must prove that was "knowingly" done. However, the claim is being made here that many of them could not read or write or even knew what a Social Security card was, the employer filled out the papers for them.
Instead of being deported, the immigrants were first put in jail for 5 months (if they plead guilty) or 6 to 8 months (if they plead not guilty). If they plead not guilty they were also subject to identity theft charges with a minimum of two years jail. Once released from jail they are deported. In the meantime they cannot support their families.
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, however if you read the law it seems that the authorities must prove it was committed "knowingly." Certainly the immigrants knew that crossing the border was illegal and they would be subject to deportation, and in this case they wanted immediate immigration, however, the other charges were brought, why? To punish them? To deter identity theft? But part of their earnings were taken out to pay into the Social Security account of somebody else, which they could never collect. Where is the fraud here?
Thank you Dr Camayd-Feixas, I am proud America opened its arms and took you in from Cuba, and I apologize for what America has become since then.
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