Judge Getting Rich Jailing Immigrants

A judge used her husband’s position at a private prison corporation to profit off of the detainment of undocumented workers. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, the hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

“It was almost lunchtime inside the country’s largest kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, on May 12, 2008. The meatpackers, mostly migrants from Guatemala and Mexico, wore earplugs to block out the noise of the machinery and couldn’t hear the two black helicopters hovering overhead or the hundreds of armed federal immigration agents closing in around them until the production line stopped. One worker tried to flee with his knives, stabbing himself in the leg when he was pushed to the ground. “They rounded us up toward the middle like a bunch of chickens,” a 42-year-old Guatemalan worker later recalled. “Those who were hiding were beaten and shackled.”

Nearly 400 workers were arrested in the bust, which cost $5 million and was then the biggest workplace immigration raid in US history. They were driven to the National Cattle Congress, a fairground in Waterloo, where several federal judges would handle their cases over nine business days. Hearings were held in trailers and a dance hall. Cots were set up for the defendants in a nearby gymnasium. At the time, undocumented immigrants caught in raids like this were usually charged with civil violations and then deported. But most of these defendants, shackled and dragging chains behind them, were charged with criminal fraud for using falsified work documents or Social Security numbers. About 270 people were sentenced to five months in federal prison, in a process that one witness described as a “judicial assembly line.”

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Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian

Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian

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Young Turk (n), 1. Young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party. 2. A young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations.(American Heritage Dictionary)