Another example of the Bush torture regime's defiance of human rights is its vile anti-immigration raids that imprison entire families without due process while the employers who hired illegal immigrants get a slap of wrist, if that.

This is an immoral, unethical, criminal administration without a shred of decency whose imperialistic policies place it in the ranks of other evil totalitarian regimes in history.

However, there are many brave souls who stand up for justice and the Constitution.  One of these is profiled in a NY Times article.

"In 23 years as a certified Spanish interpreter for federal courts, Erik Camayd-Freixas has spoken up in criminal trials many times, but the words he uttered were rarely his own.

"Then he was summoned here by court officials to translate in the hearings for nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers arrested in a raid on May 12 at a meatpacking plant. Since then, Mr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, has taken the unusual step of breaking the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters about their work.

"In a 14-page essay he circulated among two dozen other interpreters who worked here, Professor Camayd-Freixas wrote that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived.

"In the essay and an interview, Professor Camayd-Freixas said he was taken aback by the rapid pace of the proceedings and the pressure prosecutors brought to bear on the defendants and their lawyers by pressing criminal charges instead of deporting the workers immediately for immigration violations.

"He said defense lawyers had little time or privacy to meet with their court-assigned clients in the first hectic days after the raid. Most of the Guatemalans could not read or write, he said. Most did not understand that they were in criminal court.

“ 'The questions they asked showed they did not understand what was going on,' Professor Camayd-Freixas said in the interview. 'The great majority were under the impression they were there because of being illegal in the country, not because of Social Security fraud.'

"The essay has provoked new questions about the Agriprocessors proceedings, which had been criticized by criminal defense and immigration lawyers as failing to uphold the immigrants’ right to due process. Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said she would hold a hearing on the prosecutions and call Professor Camayd-Freixas as a witness.

“ 'The essay raises questions about whether the charges brought were supported by the facts,' Ms. Lofgren said.

"Professor Camayd-Freixas said he had considered withdrawing from the assignment, but decided instead that he could play a valuable role by witnessing the proceedings and making them known.

"He suggested many of the immigrants could not have knowingly committed the crimes in their pleas. 'Most of the clients we interviewed did not even know what a Social Security card was or what purpose it served,' he wrote.

"Isabel Framer, a certified legal interpreter from Ohio who is chairwoman of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, said Professor Camayd-Freixas did not go public while the cases were still in court or reveal information that could not be discerned from the record. Ms. Framer said she was speaking for herself because her organization had not taken an official position on the essay.

“ 'Interpreters, just like judges and attorneys, have an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the process,' she said. 'But they don’t check their ethical standards at the door.' "

I have written often about the Bush administration's anti-human rights, anti-Constitution treatment of illlegal immigrants, for example, here, here, here and here.

This criminal Bushite regime is the worst administration ever.  And impeachment is still off the table.