"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Monday, April 26, 2010

We're All Ilegal Now

And please note, this happened before the new Arizona law was signed:

A Valley man says he was pulled over Wednesday morning and questioned when he arrived at a weigh station for his commercial vehicle along Val Vista and the 202 freeway.

Abdon, who did not want to use his last name, says he provided several key pieces of information but what he provided apparently was not what was needed.


Do you suppose he would have been handcuffed and grilled if he were a big burly blond?

A representative at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) returned 3TV’s calls after researching the incident and she said this was standard operating procedure.

The agents needed to verify Abdon was in the country legally and it is not uncommon to ask for someone's birth certificate. She also said this has nothing to do with the proposed bill or racial profiling.


Y'know, even if this is credible I still find it revolting. In fact, if it's standard procedure, it's worse than revolting.

If fact, you know it's unconstitutional, because Bill Kristol says it's not, and Bill Kristol is wrong about everything.

3 comments:

Piet said...

Apparently, anyone with dark hair will have to carry a certified copy of his/her birth certificate or naturalization papers all the time from now on. A friend who grew up in Arizona was trying to tell me yesterday that the new stop & interrogate law wasn't meant to be racist. I'm afraid I laughed in his face.

Hunter said...

Let's face it, the law is targeted specifically at Chicanos. There's no getting around that, because that's the reality on the ground in Arizona -- they aren't being swamped by illegal Polish cleaning ladies.

And even if it were not, there's no way to guarantee that abuses aren't going to occur. In fact, given the increasingly bizarre behavior of police across the country in recent years, you can count on it.

Just wait until someone gets tased to death reaching for his papers.

Piet said...

I don't think it's going to take a taser death. Arizona has Hispanic citizens whose families lived there before the United States even existed. And if the male lawmakers are too afraid of their crazed ultra-right supporters, I'm willing to bet that the rich bleached blondes in and around Phoenix will start to make life hot for them when the supply of cheap house labor dries up.