One year after a federal immigration raid at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse exposed deep flaws in the kosher meat industry, much has changed, but too many injustices remain. In this first year, much of the focus has rightly been on the legal and ethical issues raised by the treatment of animals and workers in the plants that supply meat and poultry to the Jewish community and beyond. But this story has also has exposed egregious behaviors on the part of government prosecutors that ought not go unnoticed or unrestrained.
Fortunately, the United States Supreme Court agrees on one matter that sounds technical but actually goes to the heart of the prosecutorial misconduct. On May 4, all nine high court justices concurred that the government had improperly used a legal tool as a threat in its prosecution of an immigrant worker in a situation similar to that faced by the employees of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa. The fact that all nine justices of this often-divided court sided with an undocumented Mexican immigrant who used forged papers to secure work — hardly a sympathetic defendant — gives an indication of how far the government overreached.
Ignacio Flores-Figueroa did what many undocumented workers do — he bought a bogus Social Security number to gain employment in a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. Unbeknownst to him, the number belonged to someone else and the government charged him with identity theft, which carries a minimum two-year prison sentence. The threat of significant prison time is often used by prosecutors to persuade immigrants to plead guilty to lesser charges. It happened in East Moline, and it happened in Postville.
But the federal statute imposing the mandatory minimum sentence says clearly that the offender must “knowingly” have stolen an identity belonging to someone else. In a ruling that reads like a grammar lesson, Justice Stephen Breyer castigated the government for misusing the English language. Even Justice Antonin Scalia agreed.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito pointed out the capriciousness of it all, noting that only luck will determine whether an immigrant will be called a thief and suffer the consequences.
And that just about characterizes the way the more than 300 Agriprocessors workers were treated — with a capriciousness that discredits the American judicial system. After their arrest, they were subject to legal proceedings at a fairgrounds in nearby Waterloo, where they were stampeded in a mass rush to judgment. Court-appointed lawyers suddenly found themselves with 20 clients, and fear prevailed.
Then, as the Forward’s Nathaniel Popper reported with infuriating detail last fall, 18 of the workers were not allowed to return to Guatemala after their five-month prison terms but told to go back to Postville so that they could testify against Agriprocessors management. They were released from prison with only the clothes they wore when they were arrested, and on their own had to get from Cedar Rapids to Postville, where they had no place to live, no jobs and no help other than the generous support of the local Catholic Church.
Meantime, one low-level Agriprocessors supervisor was arrested and reached a deal with prosecutors, but the owners and executives of the plant have so far not come to trial. And meat and poultry from Agriprocessors is appearing again in butcher shops and supermarkets.
In the last year, members of the Jewish community have done a noble job of using this sorry tale to shore up the ethical foundations of the practice of kashrut. The Conservative movement promoted its Hekhsher Tzedek initiative; some Orthodox Jews developed their own version of new ethical guidelines; rabbis spoke out against the mistreatment of workers and animals; rallies were held and alliances forged with immigrants’ rights groups, and consumers began to alter their buying habits.
But a congressional hearing into the immigration raid ended in stalemate, its members split along party lines over whether the government acted properly. It has taken a decision by the Supreme Court to highlight the issue again.
The Obama administration has signaled that it will focus less than its predecessor did on massive raids like the one in Postville and more on the violations incurred by owners who ought to know better and ought to be held accountable. That is a welcome change. With all the care that many Jews take to examine and purify what we eat, we should be equally insistent that our government behaves in a way that respects the law and the rights of those who produce that sustenance.
It is not the ignorant immigrant worker who is to blame for not knowing our laws. Often they are illiterate in their own language as well.
Rather it is the misuse of the justice system and the skirting of ethical behaviour for the almighty dollar that is the biggest ahvera in this and other issue not only in consumerism but in immigrant issues.
It is not they but we who are the villians. It is not kashrut that is to be questioned but rather how the niave Jewish consumer is fooled.
This atrocity with Rubashkins has gone on since 2003 and even before. When does it end?
Immigrant workers kept us fed and alive during World War II in the Los Brazos program. When do we honor them?
It is not the ignorant immigrant worker who is to blame for not knowing our laws. Often they are illiterate in their own language as well.
Rather it is the misuse of the justice system and the skirting of ethical behaviour for the almighty dollar that is the biggest ahvera in this and other issue not only in consumerism but in immigrant issues.
It is not they but we who are the villians. It is not kashrut that is to be questioned but rather how the niave Jewish consumer is fooled.
This atrocity with Rubashkins has gone on since 2003 and even before. When does it end?
Immigrant workers kept us fed and alive during World War II in the Los Brazos program. When do we honor them?
One must take care to remain on-issue.
If I see a purse sitting in a shopping cart, I may not know whose it is ... but I certainly know it is not mine. Therefor, it is wrong for me to take it as mine - arguing that I 'didn't steal' is in itself deceitful.
Likewise, the above example has nothing to do with gifts I may receive, goods I may purchase, etc ..... unless circumstances suggest something out of the ordinary is going on; in that case, I have a duty to make sure I am not abetting something improper.
Thus, we must not confuse illegal immigration with legal immigration - or jump to the conclusion that laws ought not be enforved simply because 'someone else got away with it.'
In the case cited, our illegal may not have known WHOSE identity he was using, but he certainly knew it was not his. He knew he was cheating. Likewise, the entire process of illegally crossing the border, obtaining false papers, etc., certainly drove home to him that what he was doing was illegal. He didn't just hop on a buss, sleep past his stop, and accidentally fall off a thousand miles away.
That the employer was more than willing to tolerate the charade does not excuse the workers' criminal activity. That the employer ought to be prosecuted is a separate issue.
I agree that the entire dispute can be prevented, simply by our exercising our right ... nay, duty .... to secure our borders. Then legal immigrants would not have to suffer either suspicion as to their status - or illegal competition from those who refuse to follow the rules. Securing the borders ought to be a 'no brainer' of an issue.
As over-reaching as the government may be, two wrongs do not make a right. Our Service Academies teach "I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor shall I tolerate those who do." The community ought to censure those who cheat - be they prince or pauper. If boycotts were an effective tool against (for example) firms that once had interests in South Africa, there is no reason that the same tactic cannot be effective against those who are, in effect, discriminating against the law abiding.
Alas, in my earlier post, I forgot the one party that always seems to be forgotten: the completely innocent victim, the person whose identity was stolen and used for the false papers.
Think about it ... every illegal immigrant is screwing up someone else's credit, their taxes, their lives. Years from now, those victims will STILL be trying to explain that they didn't work or live or buy things where their identity was used.
A local business here had some 'corporate' people mining job applications for the information. That little operation resulted in the arrest of more than 50 folks using someone else's identity. The 'immigration' raid was prompted not by an immigration complaint, but by an IRS investigation into dudpected tax and welfare fraud into one person whose only 'sin' had been to work for a week at that firm. His ID information was used by several others, for several years. That week he worked at that minimum wage job will haunt him forever.
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