Vol. 71/No. 20      May 21, 2007

Like her coworkers Lorena Andrade Rodríguez and Eloisa Núñez Galena, found guilty on similar charges in the last two months, González faces a possible jail sentence, followed by deportation to Mexico. Sentencing hearings have not yet been set.

Like Andrade and Núñez, González did not have a jury of her peers. Only one juror in the initial pool of 30 was a Latino, a former Swift worker. Under questioning by the judge, she indicated that she had strong “opinions” about immigration. Along with another juror who expressed sympathy for immigrants, she was excluded from the pool. Many of the jurors who made the final cut are supervisors in other companies or business owners. Others have relatives who are cops.

According to Michael Said, attorney for the three workers, Andrade, González, and Núñez were the only ones of 30 Swift workers from the Marshalltown plant charged with “identity theft” who refused to plead guilty and accept deals proposed by the prosecutor. Said stated that Andrade will appeal her conviction.

“There is no justice here,” said Renato González, 38, Norma González’s brother. “When I first came to this country I thought the laws, the constitution, were beautiful. But now I see they are just pieces of paper.”

The three women, meat packers at the Marshalltown Swift pork slaughterhouse, were arrested in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid December 12. ICE agents rounded up and threw in jail that day 97 workers in the Iowa plant, and nearly 1,300 in all six Swift plants raided—including in Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and Utah—of whom half have been deported and nearly 300 have been charged with felonies related to “identity theft.”

During the May 1 trial here, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lester Pott, called Swift managers as witnesses, who claimed they had no idea that any of the workers at Swift were undocumented; an ICE agent; and a Social Security criminal investigator. González’s “crime” was using documents with another person’s name to get a job. González said in her testimony that she needed the job to help support her ill mother.

Renato González said he and his mother are permanent residents and applied years ago to obtain a resident visa for his sister. Norma González was on a waiting list for a work permit and residency.

Renato also testified that Swift knew that many of its employees used different names and were not “documented.”

“How many Swift workers are using false identities?” Pott asked in his cross examination, demanding names. Renato González refused to provide that information. “That’s not my job,” he said.

Echoing the judges’ instructions, Pott told jurors in his closing statement to show no sympathy for González. It doesn’t matter she paid taxes and never received tax refunds. It doesn’t matter if she is a nice person or a hard worker. The only thing that matters, he said, is she used a false name and Social Security number for a job she is not “entitled” to.

Said explained that since December 12 Andrade, González, and Núñez have been held in jail. The courts have refused to allow them out on bail.

The first day of the trial Norma González had only three supporters in the courtroom, including this reporter. The second day, after her brother and others made some calls, 11 came to show their solidarity, including five meat packers at Swift and a rail worker.
 
 
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'We're workers, not criminals! Legalization, not deportation!'
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Jail L.A. cops for brutal attack
 
 
 
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