Boston, MA - The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) applauds the Supreme Court's unanimous decision yesterday in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, which rejected government attempts to stretch criminal law in prosecutions of immigrant workers. Federal authorities have been charging immigrant workers who use false documents to secure employment with aggravated identity theft, a charge that carries a mandatory 2 year prison sentence. The Supreme Court ruling means that immigrants cannot be convicted under the statute unless they knew that the documents in question belonged to another person.
The government has made heavy use of this law against immigrant workers in the past. Most notably, federal authorities charged hundreds of workers with aggravated identity theft in the aftermath of the May, 2008 Agriprocessors raid in Postville, IA. Those workers, wishing to avoid the mandatory prison sentence, plead guilty to lesser charges in expedited criminal proceedings. Most, if not all, of these workers had used documents that they believed to me made up, and not associated with any other person, meaning that the aggravated identity theft charges should not have applied.
Eva Millona, Executive Director of MIRA, said, "While this decision comes too late to help the hundreds of workers who were forced to take a plea deal in Postville, it does mean that in the future, immigrant workers will be treated with more respect. We hope that this decision is only the first step in restoring the rule of law to immigrant workers and ensuring that justice applies to everyone regardless of their race or national origin."
This ruling does not erase all criminal charges for undocumented immigrants who use fake identity documents. There are still provisions of federal criminal law that outlaw such actions. However, what this decision does is clarify the genuine purpose of the aggravated identity theft statute - to target true identity thieves.
No comments:
Post a Comment