District Court nominee Rose’s dark connection to Postville raid

By Rockne Cole

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On May 12, 2008, prosecutor Stephanie Rose and her colleagues in the Northern District of Iowa brutally removed a large ethnic group from Postville through the infamous immigration raid. President Obama has now nominated Rose to be a federal judge for the Southern District of Iowa.

While Rose is about to ascend to lifetime employment upon the huddled masses' backs, a raid victim, Rosana Mejia, struggles to survive in the streets of Guatemala, bearing the scars of what Rose and her colleagues did to her on that tragic day.

Rosana was one of the “cattle” who was rounded up and brought to the Cattle Congress. Released on “humanitarian grounds,” Rosana was forced to wear a painful ankle bracelet, and quickly deported back to Guatemala without any consideration for her U.S. citizen child's well-being.

Rosana thrived in Postville, living a happy and healthy life. Today, she lives a life of quiet desperation. She is thin and forced to feed her daughter, Jessica, watered-down coffee to sooth her hunger. Her little girl has not grown in almost three years and is severely malnourished.

Neither Rose nor any of her colleagues have ever acknowledged the slightest injustice arising from their brutal tactics. To the contrary, she has celebrated the operation. In her June 22, 2010, Des Moines Register guest opinion “Setting the record straight on the Postville prosecution,” Rose claims that “some detractors have made false claims about ... imagined abuses,” and that these same people have “have hijacked the facts of this case for their own purposes.”

Who are these detractors? Sister Mary McCauley, who provided care and comfort to those huddling in fear at St. Bridget's Church? Or the interpreter, Erik Camayd-Freixas, who has been widely praised by humanitarian groups for speaking out against the abuse that he witnessed? What “false claims” have been made?

Does Rose deny that she and her colleagues have rejected every request for a humanitarian U-Visa from Sonia Parras Konrad, the lawyer who obtained more than 140 U-Visa's for child labor and domestic abuse victims? Does she care that those released upon supposedly “humanitarian” grounds were forced to rely upon churches in Northeast Iowa (including 20 miles away in my hometown of Decorah) for food, shelter and clothing?

Since the raid, I have wondered why so many of the legal elite have walked in lock-step supporting Rose and her colleagues while turning their backs on women like Rosana and her daughter. Perhaps, I will never have that question answered. But I do know one thing for sure: I will never forget what happened to Rosana, her daughter, and every person who was stripped of dignity. I will never endorse any person who, after four years of reflection, cannot recognize the basic inhumanity that was shown on that day of infamy.

President Obama, shame on you for validating this injustice by nominating Stephanie Rose to be a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of Iowa.

Rockne Cole is a lawyer in Iowa City. Comments: rocknecole@gmail.com