Thursday, June 12, 2008

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The Record of North Jersey has an article on Sen. Menendez’s floor speech against ICE raids that have targeted Latino US Citizens:

Another U.S. citizen named Gladis was at her home one day when eighteen vehicles drove into her front yard, and twenty agents jumped out.

Agents banged on the door and threatened to throw gas inside the house if they didn’t let them in. While the children in the house ran and hid in the bedroom, the agents broke down the door.

One of the agents grabbed Gladis and attempted to handcuff her. Gladis said she could prove her citizenship, and gave them her social security card. After interrogating Gladis and her family for twenty more minutes, the agents left as fast as they came—
they had no warrant, no probable cause, no reason for their actions besides suspicion about someone’s name, their accent, and the color of their skin.

And there’s one more detail I should mention: Gladis was six months pregnant at the time.

Audio of the speech.

It makes you wonder, about what the future holds for the immigration debate and for the country in general. The last eight years have shown us that respect for the guarantees of the Constitution are no longer an obstacle.

We all knew that the propaganda of groups like ALIPAC and NumbersUSA was distorting the immigration debate. We also knew that politicians saw value in scoring political points by pandering to the least common denominator. But did we ever thing it was actually going to lead to Latino US Citizens having to fear being deported from their own country?

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