Abstract
AbUSed tells the story of how an immigration raid frightened and economically devastated a small town in Iowa. The film is engaging and students learn not only about what happened on that day but also about the inner workings of immigration law. The film provides various perspectives on what happened in Postville on Friday, May 9, 2008. We hear from faith and community leaders, migration experts, lawyers, employees, shopkeepers, and community members. Sister Mary McCauley and other faith leaders provide a particularly poignant and heartbreaking account of the aftermath of the raid on the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant.
The documentary shows that the town of Postville was hit by surprise on a May morning in 2008. At 10:03 a.m., helicopters, county police, and federal agents descended on the Postville meatpacking plant. Teachers and students began to hear the noise, and everyone wondered what was going on. The film takes us inside the school where we meet a teacher and a student whose testimony renders the fear and trauma of that day evident.
The documentary film does not show the events of the raid itself, but accounts of the raid by workers and residents who were present bring it back to life. Workers describe federal agents entering the factory wielding weapons and calling them names. These workers tell us they worried about what would happen to them and especially to their children.
We learn next that the injustice did not end after the raid as the film takes us inside the courtroom. Although 300 immigrants were prosecuted, the state provided only a handful of defense attorneys and judges. The defense attorneys expected to have one client each. Instead, they were expected to serve at least 10. One public defender found the judicial process so unconscionable he left. For another, it was her first case ever. The testimony of the interpreter, Eric Camayd-Freixas, is powerful insofar as he has interpreted for hundreds of criminal cases. As an impartial observer, his biting criticism of the travesty of justice speaks volumes.
Although undocumented immigrants are usually presented only with civil immigration charges, the immigrants in this case were all charged with aggravated identity theft. Because the charges were criminal, the prosecutors had to charge everyone within 72 hours or else release them. The court appeared to be working at the pleasure of the prosecution—bending over backward to appease the prosecution. “I have never seen that,” said interpreter Eric Camayd-Freixas, referring to the fact that the court worked overtime in order to ensure that charges could be filed within the necessary window of time. Groups of 10 detainees came to court at a time. They were shackled. They were charged with identity theft, offered a plea bargain of five months, but threatened with five years in prison and heavy fines if they did not agree. By agreeing to plead guilty to identity theft, they gave up their right to ever apply for legalization. Unable to access immigration lawyers, they did not know this was the case, and thus many served time for identity fraud and were subsequently deported.
On the outside, community leaders scrambled to fill out forms that would allow immigration lawyers to visit the detainees. The immigration lawyers tried to get into the facility with these forms. The officials said the detainees did not need immigration lawyers as they were being presented with criminal charges. A federal judge tells us that 57 people were sentenced in one day. On a normal busy day, he sentences a half a dozen. None of them had a prior conviction. Although he did not want to impose the sentence, “my hands were tied” by the Department of Justice, he tells us. “The insistence that they spend five months in prison” was offensive. “It was a travesty. I was embarrassed to be a United States court judge that day,” he lamented. Later, a Supreme Court decision found that using a social security number to work is not identity theft. With the benefit of due process, the workers may have won their cases.
The film makes it clear that the workers felt mistreated during the proceedings. One worker describes saying to the judge at the hearing, “I know I am going to my country. I am willing to serve my time. But, I’d like you to remember that you have a family. . . . Just as you have a family, so do we. And, our family is waiting for us to send them their daily bread.”
Lawyer David Wolfe Leopold explains that there was very little evidence for the trumped-up charges. In addition to the compressed time frame, the Department of Justice exploited the fact that the workers did not understand the charges presented against them. These defendants were not told about the immigration consequences of their cases. In March 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Padilla v. Kentucky that a lawyer’s failure to advise of immigration consequences is inadequate counsel.
I show the film in my upper-division undergraduate immigration class every semester, and my students find it revealing and informative in terms of how immigration law is enforced in the United States. After watching AbUSed, I ask the students to write about the human rights violations involved in immigration law enforcement, the separation of powers, the difference between civil and criminal charges, and the resilience and solidarity of the people of Postville.
Before we watch the film, I give the students these questions to consider while watching: Do you think the dehumanization of undocumented immigrants contributed to the violence of the raid? What were the different roles of the criminal and immigration lawyers? What did the raid accomplish? How were U.S. citizens affected by the raid? What are the human and civil rights violations involved in the raid? How was the balance of powers between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches threatened? These questions then serve as discussion material after we watch the film together. I also have the students complete an essay response to these questions: Describe the events at the Postville raid. What human rights violations occurred during and after the raid? What does this raid tell us about the consequences of the shift from border to interior enforcement of U.S. immigration laws? What does it tell us about the separation of powers? I highly recommend this film for use in undergraduate courses, such as Immigration, Law and Society, Criminology, Social Problems, Rural Studies, and human rights classes in sociology and other disciplines.