I went to the lecture about the Postville Immigration Raid by Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas tonight. It started off with an Introduction by Pastor David Vasquez. Then Dr. Camayd-Freixas first gave an introduction, directed towards the Spanish speakers in the audience. He said "Gracias por sevirme en su pueblo". Dr. Camayd-Freixas was one of the 16 interpreters involved with the two week trial in Waterloo, IA. He said that 3/4 people in the raid were Guatemalan. Then he started talking about the build up to the raid, and everything that has had some part in it. It started with the United Fruit Company or "Banana Fruit Republic" and how they, with the help of the CIA overthrew the pres in 1951. Then there was a Civil War which turned into a genocide against Mayans from 1960-1996. The worst of this took place in the 1980s during the Iran-Contra affairs where some 250,000 people were killed and another 1.5 peasants displaced. So, most of the people that are working here as undocumented hands, were actually orphans objected to a life of poverty. Then in the 1990s, we issued the Free Trade Acts which pressed families to immigrate North because they couldn't make a living off of what they were growing. With the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Act) and CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Act) the market was supposed to become more open. However, the United States has no need for tariffs- Dr. Camayd-Freixas called this "built in protectionism", where products from other countries undergo 9 different inspections and drive the price up and the producers loose money in freight costs and their perishable items. Then he talked about how 9/11 sent an urgency to do anything through the nation and caused a demand for retribution. We ended up going to war abroad, in Iraq, and at home, with immigrants labeled as potential terrorists. He talked about End-Game which is the 10yr plan to rid immigrants out of the U.S. Dr. Camayd-Freixas called this a recipe for ethnic cleansing. He said that this would attribute to the downfall of our economy since virtually everything we eat from produce, dairy, and meat has been touched by undocumented hands. Then he talked about some of the problems facing the system which handles immigration. There is a severe shortage of immigration judges and ICE is arresting people faster than they can try them. There is a shortage of prison space, and they are asking millions of our dollars to build more jails. Typically, they accuse them of identity theft, put them in jail for 5 mo, and then deport them. The problem that has been occurring though, is that the civil society has been revolting against this. In the Postville trials though, the defendants were not allowed to give their personal circumstances, and were bullied into signing a grand jury waiver. In some circumstances, their children's survival was on the line for signing the piece of paper saying they were guilty of something they were not guilty of. It gets worse though, because they are taking it so far that they are trying to deport children who were born in the country and are U.S. citizens.
I just think it is horrible that we can tear apart people's countries, basically forcing them to have to choice but to try and live here, and then when they get here, we give them worst jobs that no one else wants to have. Then, we go and try them, and deport them, with their children's survival on the line? I don't know about the way our country is handling this immigration thing.
I feel that this is going to greatly affect us all, especially the way this is continuing. As a Spanish teacher, I feel that I need to really be on top of what is going on in our country as far as immigration goes. I mean, this is one of the reasons why the need to teach Spanish has really come into play in the last few years. We have a lot of Spanish speaking people in our country and there aren't that many people who can effectively communicate with them. This is the obstacle we have to overcome.
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