A newly-released video of immigrant rights activists Daniel Alfaro and Angel Navarrete contesting the legitimacy of DUI checkpoints in Escondido should serve as a caution to us all.
When Mr. Navarrete is stopped by Escondido Police, he demonstrates that he is sober, clearly meeting the purported "test." But when police ask him to produce a drivers license, he refuses to do so, asking instead a series of quintessentially American questions:
These checkpoints are just one of the reasons Escondido has earned the reputation as a hotbed of local anti-immigration sentiment and enforcement. Local police erect random and mandatory stops for all vehicles, obstensibly to check sobriety, but along the way identifying immigrants suspected of being in the country without documents. (In 2010 Escondido entered into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement which leaves local officers largely unaccountable to immigration enforcement measures being pursued elsewhere around the country.)
But is this the kind of country we want to live in?
Sadly, most of us already do, the federal government having asserted extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within 100 miles of the nation's land and martime borders. The ACLU has noted that over 2/3 of the residents of the United States live within these boundaries.
Of course there is an alternative to all this: some meaningful form of comprehensive immigration reform which would acknowledge that the vast majority of people living in this country without authorization came to the United States for precisely the same reason as earlier generations of immigrants. But, as I have written elsewhere, the chances of such reform appear slim in light of the American public's apparently insatiable appetite for ever-increasing border and immigration enforcement.
We are living through dark times, indeeed, analogous to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the eviction of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression, and the anti-Chinese hysteria of the late 19th century.
Not all of us would endorse the confrontational tactics employed by Mr. Alfaro and Mr. Navarrete. But we owe them a debt of gratitude for reminding us that we are all being detained by our disfunctional system of immigration enforcement, and being prevented from creating a future in which we can all live and work productively together.
When Mr. Navarrete is stopped by Escondido Police, he demonstrates that he is sober, clearly meeting the purported "test." But when police ask him to produce a drivers license, he refuses to do so, asking instead a series of quintessentially American questions:
- "On what grounds are you asking me to produce identification?"
- "Am I being detained?"
- "Am I free to go?"
These checkpoints are just one of the reasons Escondido has earned the reputation as a hotbed of local anti-immigration sentiment and enforcement. Local police erect random and mandatory stops for all vehicles, obstensibly to check sobriety, but along the way identifying immigrants suspected of being in the country without documents. (In 2010 Escondido entered into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement which leaves local officers largely unaccountable to immigration enforcement measures being pursued elsewhere around the country.)
Some people appear to believe that the solution to the problem of illegal immigration is to repeat this scene millions and millions of times over. (According to the Pew Hispanic Center, some 11 million people are believed to be living in the United States without documentation.) Nevermind that to pursue this course would require the detention of millions of U.S. citizens like Mr. Navarrete along the way.
But is this the kind of country we want to live in?
Sadly, most of us already do, the federal government having asserted extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within 100 miles of the nation's land and martime borders. The ACLU has noted that over 2/3 of the residents of the United States live within these boundaries.
Of course there is an alternative to all this: some meaningful form of comprehensive immigration reform which would acknowledge that the vast majority of people living in this country without authorization came to the United States for precisely the same reason as earlier generations of immigrants. But, as I have written elsewhere, the chances of such reform appear slim in light of the American public's apparently insatiable appetite for ever-increasing border and immigration enforcement.
We are living through dark times, indeeed, analogous to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the eviction of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression, and the anti-Chinese hysteria of the late 19th century.
Not all of us would endorse the confrontational tactics employed by Mr. Alfaro and Mr. Navarrete. But we owe them a debt of gratitude for reminding us that we are all being detained by our disfunctional system of immigration enforcement, and being prevented from creating a future in which we can all live and work productively together.
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