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On Monday, 12 May 2008, at 10:00 a.m. in an operation involving some 900 agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a raid of Agriprocessors Inc, the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant, located in the town of Postville, Iowa. The raid - officials boasted - was "the largest single-site operation of its kind in American history". At that same hour, 26 federally certified interpreters from all over the country were en route to the small neighboring city of Waterloo, Iowa, having no idea what their mission was about. The investigation had started more than a year earlier. Raid preparations had begun in December. The Clerk's Office of the US District Court had contracted the interpreters a month ahead, but was not at liberty to tell us the whole truth, lest the impending raid be compromised. The operation was led by ICE, which belongs to the executive branch, whereas the US District Court, belonging to the judicial branch, had to formulate its own official reason for participating. Accordingly, the Court had to move for two weeks to a remote location as part of a "Continuity of Operations Exercise" in case they were ever disrupted by an emergency, which in Iowa is likely to be a tornado or flood. That is what we were told but, frankly, I was not prepared for a disaster of such a different kind, one that was entirely man-made.
I arrived late that Monday night and missed the 8:00 p.m. interpreters' briefing. I was instructed over phone to meet at 7:00 a.m. in the hotel lobby and carpool to the National Cattle Congress (NCC) where we would begin our work. We arrived at the heavily guarded compound, went through security and gathered inside the retro "Electric Park Ballroom", where a makeshift court had been set up. The Clerk of Court, who coordinated the interpreters, said, "Have you seen the news? There was an immigration raid yesterday at 10:00 a.m. They have some 400 detainees here. We'll be working late conducting initial appearances for the next few days." He then gave us a cursory tour of the compound. The NCC is a 60-acre cattle fairground that had been transformed into a sort of concentration camp or detention center. Fenced in behind...