Butchering Statutes: The Postville Raid and the Misinterpretation of Federal Criminal Law

• Main Author: Moyers, Peter R.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons 2009
• Subjects: Postville; Immigration Raid; Immigration Law; ICE; Sentencing Guidelines; Constitutional Law; Judges; Jurisprudence
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sulr/vol32/iss3/7; https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1947&context=sulr

This article argues that a federal district court misinterpreted several statutes after an immigration raid in Postville, Iowa. In Part II, I begin with an account of Agriprocessors' prior legal troubles, which explains how it became such a politically attractive target. Next, I describe how the investigation of Agriprocessors led to a raid seeking to execute nearly 700 criminal arrest warrants. In Part III, I describe the causes of the accelerated criminal process that resulted in nearly 300 guilty pleas and sentencings in the span of twelve days. In Part IV, I argue that the accelerated process was premised upon the flawed interpretations of § 1028A(a)(1), the aggravated identity theft statute, and § 1228(c)(5), the judicial removal statute. In Part V, I argue that these mistaken applications of federal law are prone to repetition. In Part VI, I argue that rectifications of these misinterpretations are likely to diminish the feasibility of future raids followed by imprisonment.