Faces in the Fields

Individual states are catching up with volunteer groups like The Minutemen and are taking matters into their own hands. All because the government isn’t doing enough about immigrants coming to this country.

Not only is the government not doing enough. They aren’t doing IT FAST enough.

Currently, there are 25 states that have either passed or introduced a law similar to the Arizona law, SB1070. In response to the bill recently signed into law in Alabama, Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, condemned what she called a very radical law and it is “mean-spirited, racist, unconstitutional, and it is going to be costly.”

“It makes it a crime for U.S. citizens to give people a ride if they turn out to be undocumented. It doesn’t even have an exception for churches that are providing shelter or food or rides,” she said. The state could also lose “millions more in lost tax revenue from Alabama businesses that will bear the brunt of boycotts of Alabama goods and services and lost sales to documented and undocumented immigrants who flee the state rather than deal with racial profiling and the state’s anti-immigrant climate.”

Is it my imagination or is this country becoming more bitter and withdrawn? Americans aren’t asking how they can help their neighbors because they’ve become too suspicious of them.

Americans have always tended to think of immigrants as less than them. These days some of us consider them less than human.

Case in point:

The owner of a local gas station in Racine, Wisconsin began selling a bumper sticker that read: “Illegal Immigrant Hunting Permit.” Apparently he didn’t find it the least bit offensive.

Luckily a local immigrant activist was offended and planned a protest at the gas station. The owner backed down and took the bumper stickers off the shelf. You didn’t think that would be the end of it did you?

Someone in the community sent the activist a threatening letter accusing her of violating the First Amendment and attacking her crusade to ban the bumper sticker. The letter was signed, “Uncle Freaking Sammy.” A few days later someone started a fire outside of her bedroom window.

Some of you might be saying “Well that’s in Wisconsin. It’s not like that in MY city.” You may want to sit down for this next story.

According to an internal federal report (dated January 2010), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at the Newark Liberty International Airport has been improperly hunting immigrants. Their specific job title is: Behavior Detection Officers. These “officers” are trained to detect suspicious behavior and they have the authority to pull travelers aside for additional questioning. They’re supposed to use that training and extra authority to look for terrorists who might appear nervous or jittery.

Instead, according to TSA officials who blew the whistle, some of these behavior detection officers would single out passengers who were Mexican or Dominican in order to check their visas and passports. According to one whistle-blower, TSA supervisors knew about and condoned the practice; in fact, the officers were jokingly called “the great Mexican hunters.”

The TSA said in a statement that it does not profile passengers based on race, ethnicity or religion and that, in this case, “TSA’s policies were overstepped.” No attempt was made to single out passengers with invalid paperwork who might have been Irish, Swedish, Russian or Belgian. Light skin has its privileges. All over the country, law enforcement agencies are being empowered to profile Latinos as a shortcut way of looking for illegal immigrants.

The immigration debate has brought out the worst in Americans. Some will believe, say and do the most outrageous and inhumane things when it comes to immigrants. Both legal and illegal and especially to those with dark skin who speak Spanish.

Are we becoming a country with no conscious?

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