Great. Big Brother is definitely watching you, especially if you’re an immigrant.
I had heard that undocumented immigrants were now sometimes arrested when they came to police attention for other reasons, but I didn’t realize that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was utilizing a giant criminal database to make this happen systematically! (See Database is Tool in Deporting Fugitives, today's Washington Post) What kind of country do I live in when burglary victims are afraid to go to the police because they fear deportation? What kind of country do I live in when a person gets pulled over for speeding and ends up deported, away from his wife and small children? What kind of country do I live in when single mother goes in to her police station for a street vendor permit, and ends up arrested and detained for three months, while her daughter arrives home from school, wondering what happened to her mother? What kind of country do I live in when Immigration conducts raids designed to punish communities which welcome immigrants? (See: "Immigrants raided days after ID card OK," New York Daily Star)
It’s a country in which “Immigration and Naturalization Services” changes its name to “Immigration and Customs Enforcement” because, clearly, we’re no longer interested in naturalizing people, just deporting them. It's a country in which I wonder how welcome my great-grandparents would be if they were immigrating today instead of 90 years ago, and it's a country in which I am increasingly, desperately disappointed.
