Democrats blast Bush administration for targeting workers, not employers, in immigration raids

San Francisco Chronicle

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, blasted the Bush administration today for conducting what Democrats described as harsh and punitive immigration raids, calling special attention to a raid at a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa last May where nearly 400 illegal workers, mainly Guatemalans, were arrested in the largest worksite immigration raid in U.S. history.

Lofgren, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee's immigration panel, said at a hearing on the raid that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounded up workers at the Agriprocessors meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, and then they were "herded into a cattle arena and prodded down a cattle chute, coerced into guilty pleas and then to federal prison."

In all, 306 illegal immigrants ultimately were charged with Social Security fraud for using illegal Social Security numbers, and also a higher offense, aggravated identity theft, which carried two-year mandatory minimum sentence. The government offered a plea bargain to dismiss the identity theft charge in return for their admission to the lesser offense, which gave them a five-month sentence and order of removal.

Lofgren and other Democrats on the panel accused the administration of targeting workers instead of employers in what has become a major enforcement crackdown on illegal immigration since the collapse last year of a comprehensive immigration overhaul that would have eased legalization requirements. The overhaul was backed by President Bush and most Democrats, and opposed by most Republicans. It died in the Senate in June 2007.