Conyers, Sánchez Condemn Assembly-Line Justice in U.S. Attorney Offices Across the Country

(Washington, DC)- Following an oversight hearing of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez (D-CA) and Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) expressed their concern about expedited court procedures used in "Operation Streamline” and recent immigration enforcement actions.

Commenting on the process used for recent raids in Postville, Iowa, in which almost 300 workers were arrested, pled guilty, and sentenced to federal prison within four days, Conyers stated “This country is based on the Constitution’s guarantee of due process. Allowing someone just from three to thirty minutes to meet with a lawyer and make life changing decisions through an interpreter is not due process, it is a kangaroo court."

“Our investigations in the past year have uncovered politicization of the U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration,” said Sánchez. “Today, we heard troubling revelations about how those offices are being managed. We heard of terrorism case statistics being inflated and how misdemeanor immigration cases are replacing complex federal investigations as the U.S. Attorneys’ workload. Such mismanagement is as unacceptable as was the Administration’s attempt to pack the prosecutors’ offices with their political cronies.”

Testifying at the hearing were Director Kenneth Melson of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Arizona Federal Public Defender Heather Williams, federal prosecutor Richard Delonis of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, and Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law School. Committee members raised questions on federal criminal law issues including mortgage fraud, immigration, public corruption, discrimination in hiring, and narcotics enforcement.

“The assembly-line justice that we heard about today denies people the opportunity to assert asylum claims or get help if they were subjected to human trafficking or other forms of abuse,” said Sánchez. “We will be watching to see if the U.S. Attorneys Office in Iowa will pursue the allegations of worker abuse and union-busting by Agriprocessers' management as vigorously as they did these immigrant workers.

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