May 07, 2009
If last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling had come a year earlier, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin believes the federal prosecutions that followed May 2008 immigration enforcement action in Postville would have been quite different.
'I am glad that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week that undocumented immigrants who use false IDs can't face charges of aggravated identity theft without proof that they knew they were using people's real numbers,' the Iowa Democrat said by phone today. 'Of course that would have changed a lot of what happened in Postville. At least now we've got clarity for prosecutors on a question of law that has divided the lower courts.'
Within 10 days of the immigration raid at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant, 76 percent of the 389 workers taken into custody by the government had been convicted of criminal wrongdoing. The swift and publicly maligned prosecutions came at the hands of mass-produced plea deals. The immigrants, most of whom spoke little English, were given the option of drawn out court battles on the initial aggravated identity theft charges, which carried a two-year federal prison term, or entering guilty pleas to lesser offenses and being sentenced to five months in prison.
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