Less than ten years ago, the Department of Justice decided to treat undocumented immigrants who were captured trying to cross into the United States as felons. So desperate to keep them OUT, we decided to lock them IN our country. So eager to prove to voters that we wouldn’t allow them to enter the United States illegally and become a drain on tax payers’ money through “inevitably” ending up in the welfare system, we shoved them into federal prisons for months and sometimes years. Once JUSTICE is being served, we don’t actually care about the tax money it takes to implement that so-called justice. Punishment is certainly more important to our society than acting in a fiscally rational way.

Operation Streamline

Operation Streamline is a federal program in the southwestern United States that fast tracks undocumented immigrants through the federal criminal justice system. Prior to the 2005 implementation of this policy, undocumented immigrants were almost exclusively sent through the civil immigration system. Now, prosecutors and judges are left with no discretion, and even first-time offenders are “charged” with a federal felony under the zero tolerance policy of the program.

My Trial Experience: Barnyard Justice

I sat through one of Operation Streamline’s “trials” in Tucson, AZ in 2009. Though judges can opt to try each offender separately, I witnessed groups of ten men sentenced at a time, taking a few hours to get through over 60 men. Sentencing varied depending on whether this was a first-time offender, though I did not see any one individual sentenced separately. Rather, the judge chose to group together first, second, and third-time offenders. As described by another viewer: “The only words the defendants uttered were "presente," "si," "no," and "culpable" or “guilty." After being sentenced, one defendant, while being escorted out, shot a volley of questions to his court-appointed lawyer. His lawyer patted him on the back and told him everything would be all right. These 10 seconds are what seem to pass for legal counsel.” Herding is the only word that comes to mind when trying to describe this program.

Attorneys’ Roles in Illegitimate Systems

Attorneys representing these men and women generally meet with their clients an hour or so before the trial. No background legal work is performed (there’s simply not enough time), and the attorney’s one job is to explain the charges to their client. There is no negotiation; no opportunity to even do “Popeye’s dance”. These attorneys are stand-ins so that when the media attends these trials and publish photos and stories, the offenders always have “representation”, or someone to tell them when to say yes or no. It’s a farce. These are sham trials in which felony charges are summarily dismissed so that we can lock non-violent men and women up on the lesser charges. Though I had already decided to attend law school, I decided that day that that was the type of attorney I didn’t want to be.

The female attorney I met with after the trial broke into tears when discussing the her role in Operation Streamline. She felt like a peon of a dehumanizing, cruel system that arrested undocumented immigrants in droves to then release them with the comfortable knowledge that they would once again try to enter the United States illegally. This knowledge was particularly comfortable for CCA, a private prison company paid millions of dollars every month by the government to facilitate needless imprisonment. Yet, she felt that her “clients” took comfort in her presence during trials. And maybe there is something to be said for offering pure human companionship when your client is being treated as a stockyard animal, sentenced to hundreds of days in a language they don’t understand. I wonder, however, if those she represents know that, or if they harbor hopes that her presence is more than a mere performance.

I happened to attend a trial while fears about swine flu were at their highest. Not only were the men shackled at their hands and feet, they were forced to wear face masks. We were afraid of these men’s poverty, afraid even of their health, but somehow had decided that the solution was locking them into the United States.

Legitimized Dehumanization

The dehumanizing aspects of Operation Streamline have significance for the American justice system in general. Legitimacy in our legal system begets legitimacy, just as illegitimacy, and acceptance of a system that functions in illegitimate ways, leads to increased, similar policies. Though I believe many of the attorneys representing clients who were being “Streamlined” were working within the system in the only way they knew how, as opposed to leaving their clients wholly without representation, the ability to treat these men and women as sub-human contributed to an environment in Arizona that led to the passage of xenophobic laws that cemented the idea of sub-human classes of persons in a legal structure.

Where to Go Now?

SB 1070 is the ultimate recognition of objectifying people in the law. I believe that it is at least partially the result of allowing programs like Operation Streamline to succeed. As an attorney, I have decided to never work within a system that I think it not only flawed, but hostile to justice. This is especially scary for a risk adverse control freak, a phrase that I think captures the way I have confronted my education and career from a very young age. The tricky and confusing part is finding a way to combat programs and policies like Operation Streamline when all that I have ever known is working and learning in pre-existing, structured environments. This is something that I hope to explore in this class; namely, how to direct my own career, or even, how to feel that that is a possibility.

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