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Letter from the Editor: The state we’re in

Posted on June 26, 2008June 26, 2008 by Staff

I was in the Triad the other day visiting with some fellow media types including blogger Jon Lowder, who related an incident he’d happened upon while returning from a recent visit to Pittsboro.

Lowder encountered a traffic stop on N.C. 87 just inside the Alamance County line. After watching the sheriff deputies and highway patrol checking licenses and looking over the cars, Lowder said it was apparent that the law was interested in vehicles with Hispanic occupants and not much interested in anyone else.

Alamance, as many of you know, is one of a handful of counties in North Carolina that receives federal funds for participating in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, which allows them to identify and deport those in the country illegally.

Roughly $750,000 went out to North Carolina sheriffs last year. This year, the amount’s been upped to $1 million even though agencies weren’t able to spend all of the previous allocation.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but shortly after passage, Sen. Elizabeth Dole appeared in a campaign commercial with some of those sheriffs.

This week, Rep. David Price said he supported expanding the program, but took flack from anti-immigrant activists because he’s said the program should focus on those in jail and not those gainfully employed. Too soft, they said, pushing for more workplace raids.

While on paper the 287(g) program is intended to apprehend those committing crimes within the community, the techniques used and the results are dubious. It is proving to be a popular program because the people identified and deported are already in jail. But the question not being asked is ‘how did they get there?’

Since implementing the program, Alamance, which has both a swelling Latino population and a long history of anti-immigrant sentiment, has arrested, jailed and deported more than 400 individuals. Most of the offenses that result in the arrest and deportation of those individuals are for “traffic violations.” The sheriff has proudly reported a drop in crime and a reduction in gang activity. What cannot be proudly reported is that within the Hispanic community there is a growing mistrust of law enforcement and a reluctance for victims of crimes to come forward.

I ran Lowder’s story past a friend who is a civil rights attorney and learned that the traffic stop has become a key method nationwide for nabbing people under ICE. One technique used has officers set up down the road from churches around the time Spanish-language services are letting out.

While to the vehemently anti-immigrant crowd that may sound wonderfully efficient, it is pure and simple racial profiling, and on the taxpayers’ dime at that.

There’s no question that as a result of various immigration crackdowns racial profiling is growing in North Carolina. As appalling as that is, the muted reaction is more so.

It used to be that if a law-enforcement organization was engaged in racial profiling it was a bad thing. Now, it might get you featured in a campaign commercial with a politician seeking to show how tough they are.

This year’s election is shaping up to be one in which fear of “illegals” is played up to the extreme. There seem to be few politicians of any stripe willing to stand up and say it’s demagoguery. Come fall, we’ll see a variety of Democrats falling all over themselves to “me, too” the GOP on cracking down.

This is the state we’re in. Where life is a gamble if you dare to cross into Alamance, Wake or Johnston counties with brown skin and improper papers.

6 thoughts on “Letter from the Editor: The state we’re in”

  1. Pingback: Vie de Malchance - C’est la guerre. » Illegals in Stenchville
  2. Sam says:
    June 30, 2008 at 11:49 am

    I’d like to know why the letter writer puts illegals in quotations marks. Being in the US without going the legal route is breaking the law, which is by definition illegal. To cry racism is in fact a complete straw man – what the law enforcement officials are doing is enforcing the law.

  3. Jose says:
    July 2, 2008 at 4:52 am

    Interesting: you are going to base an entire article on an “observation” that one person made and his “speculation” that law enforcement are “targeting” Latinos, but you never bother to call the Sheriff’s Dept OR the Highway Patrol and inquire. Here’s a “gamble” for you: DON’T BREAK THE LAW AND YOU WON’T HAVE TO WORRY…

  4. Ruby Sinreich says:
    July 3, 2008 at 10:52 am

    If the police had this attitude 100 years ago, they’d be picking up my relatives on the way out of the synagogue. 500 years ago, no-one asked the Native Americans if it was OK to stay here in their country.

    I’m really saddened by the actions in Alamance and even more disappointed to see the ignorant comments here.

    We are a nation of immigrants, and what’s “legal” changes with the wind.

  5. John Kramer says:
    July 3, 2008 at 4:27 pm

    Were your parents illegal immigrants?

    How many of the illegal immigrants from Wake, Alamance and other surrounding counties are you going to welcome into your own home?

    Poser.

  6. John Avery says:
    July 5, 2008 at 6:34 am

    “Lowder said it was apparent that the law was interested in vehicles with Hispanic occupants and not much interested in anyone else.”

    That’s all you have, a third person account of a checkpoint? If your friend saw cars that were pulled over to the side, it’s because the officers saw a violation. They can’t pull someone out of the line of cars just for the heck of it.

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