Federal Interpreter Discusses Postville Aftermath

One of the most insightful analysts of the current state of U.S. immigration policy seems to have been thrown into the role at least in part by circumstance.  A professor and interpreter in the federal courts for 23 years, Dr. Erik Camayd Freixas was called to Postville, Iowa, last year to interpret in the criminal prosecutions following the immigration raid there.  What he saw there changed his life and gave the public a bird's eye view of the injustice of immigration enforcement circa 2008.

After much soul-searching, Camayd Freixas felt compelled to speak out about what he saw, publishing a 14-page essay in the NY Times and in the blogosphere describing in detail the railroad justice in which he had participated.  Now ColorLines has interviewed Dr. Camayd Freixas six months after the essay was published.

ColorLines: After that experience you wrote a widely circulated essay that was noted for the thoroughness and candor with which you described the ICE raid and legal processes associated with it. What prompted you to write it?

Erik Camayd-Freixas: Aside from the obvious injustice of it all, it was quite outrageous, because I've been associated with the federal court for twenty-three years. And I'm very protective of the federal court. I've always seen it as a bastion of justice. I felt in this situation the federal court was co-opted and manipulated into a situation. I felt like the court was being manipulated into the situation by immigration enforcement.

The other thing that prompted me to write the piece was the fact that it was getting little to no national coverage. I thought that was very disturbing because what I was witnessing I saw as an attack on the Constitution and an attack on democracy.

When the lawyers and interpreters went to the jail interviews, to meet one on one, we spent hours and hours interviewing people and getting their whole story. I told one of those stories in my essay. There was a man who walked for forty days from Guatemala to the United States. That was just one story in my essay, imagine the other 269 stories of people sitting in jail. I don't think the national conscience could handle it. The only way to do this is to turn a blind eye to these things. Immigrants become numbers.

The final reason was that when I got home, I felt a certain amount of guilt for having participated in such a procedure. I felt dirty. I wrote it with that intention and circulated it to the other twenty-five interpreters who were there with me and to a federal judge who was there. But in the next few days I started receiving hundreds of e-mails from people across the country, thanking me, sharing their own testimonials. All together I've received a couple thousand e-mails and postcards and handwritten mail, from all over the country and from all over the world, including several from Postville who said, "This is not who we are. I am ashamed about what is happening."

It's been a moving and encouraging experience. Within two weeks of giving my approval to distribute the essay, thousands of people had read it, and it had made it to Congress. I got a call from Congress. An aide said, "I've read your essay and been totally blown away. This is not the way we do business. Would you come to testify?" My essay had prompted a congressional investigation.

The whole interview is worth reading.

Also, I've had my eye on Tom Barry's series on comprehensive immigration reform over at Border Lines for awhile.  Now he seems to be finished and I've got to figure out what to do with it.  Watch this space ... or read the series yourself and let me know what you think.

[Via ImmigrationProf Blog.  Image: Alex Quesada for The New York Times]