U.S. Border Patrol and Racism.

March 2, 2008 · Filed Under Ideas & Thoughts

Immigration and border patrol’s have now been more focused on catching illegal immigrants at bus stops and at train stations. Yesterday I witness the way they treat people who don’t seem to have the write papers to prove they are legal in the country. When I got in an Amtrak train, border patrol was checking for people and asked a women who looked Hispanic for her papers. Apparently she didn’t have the papers they needed to prove if she was legal or not so they made her get out of the train with her baby (a couple of months old) and was denied to make any calls until they took her to the station. A friend of mine commented that he also was victim of the “random” checkups and went through the same thing but at a bus stop and it was the same officer. I understand that they must ensure that people don’t get into the country illegally. What I’m not so sure about is the way they “randomly” select the people to check on. If you are Puerto Rican they could tell right away, at least in Rochester, so they wouldn’t bug you. But if you seem to be Hispanic and not from P.R. then you will be asked questions and be treated like you are the scum of the world. The least they could do is treat you well until proven guilty and even then you deserve to be treated as a regular person. The story sounds “normal” so far but what most people forget that Hispanics/Latinos are not the only illegal immigrants in this country. What about the Europeans and Asians that are illegal in this country? How many times do they get targeted? Are they ever in the news? It would be a lot harder to inspect illegal Europeans because you would probably have to stop every other white person and that would take forever. So why single out only the Hispanics?

On another note I was just told by a friend today that she was victim of racism at her job. A old lady (50’s-60’s) came into her job and was complaining about having a Puerto Rican help her out. She was complaining that she had left the other store because of the same reason and she apparently couldn’t find someone that was “American” to attend her. I’m not sure of how stupid this women was because if she would know better being American means being part of the American Continent. She must be following the old Monroe Doctrine that made Americans be Americans only if they are from America (that is, United States of America). My friend was in shock when to women was saying these things so she helped her out and after the customer left she went and told her manager what happened. I on the other hand would of had a big argument and not helped out this client for being such an ignorant and racist person. This is further and contemporary proof that racism is not a thing from the past, it is the present. It still exists in this new world.

Yasser

Tags: Border Patrol, immigrants, racism