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How much longer before we face total immigration chaos?

Francisco Miraval

The more stories I read and write about immigration, the more I speak with people about this issue, and the more I listen to experts and to “so-called experts,” the more I realize we may soon face a total meltdown of all immigration laws, both locally and globally.

Let’s share a few examples to illustrate the fact that we are at the verge of total immigration chaos.

Recently, Department of Wildlife officers in southern Colorado arrested four alleged undocumented Hispanic immigrants because those immigrants were fishing without a license. You can say there were “undocumented fishermen.” Because they had caught some fish, they were charged with “illegal possession of wildlife” and transferred to federal authorities to be deported.

That story is nothing in comparison with the pain and tragedy of what happened last week in Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, where three White teenagers are considered to be the main suspects in the killing of a 25-year old Mexican, because they saw the Mexican with his girlfriend, a White woman.

According to police reports, the three teens, allegedly using racist insults, kicked and killed the Mexican in the presence of his girlfriend. However, defense lawyers say those insults were “part of a street fight,” but not “racism.”

What those lawyers didn’t say is that the Mexican man and his girlfriend were just sitting at a bench at a local park when they were attacked. And what could have happened – God forbid! - if the aggressors would have been Latino immigrants? I am sure by now they would have been already sentenced.

Also last week, in Alamance County, North Carolina, a police officer arrested a Latina mother at 2 a.m. for driving without a license. The woman was taken to jail and his three children, ages 14, 10, and 6, left alone in the middle of the night near the highway. The children, hungry and scared, waited more than eight hours until their father drove from Maryland.

The absurdity of blind immigration enforcement was shown in Nashville, Tennessee, when a police officer stopped a Mexican woman for a traffic violation when she was on her way to a doctor because she was about to give birth. The woman gave birth at a local hospital cuffed to her bed and in the presence of a police officer. Her family was not allowed near her and her baby was immediately taken away from her.

Where is the common sense? Where is the respect to the dignity and the rights of any human being? Who is next in the list of repression? How soon before having or not having papers becomes irrelevant?

The truth is it will be soon. For example, in Fremont, Nebraska, local authorities will vote this week to ban renting homes to any person without “legal presence” in the country. According to media reports, the initiative was presented because “we don’t want Hispanics in our city.”

Meanwhile, we, Latinos, are just watching soccer and soap operas on TV, as if nothing were happening.

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