All the uninformed have some combination of ‘spicy’ and Indian food in their nick.

Two points:

1) The line between a “legal” and an “illegal” immigrant is increasingly being blurred by creating laws that apply retroactively that put someone out of status. For example, the new legislation from Congress is likely to contain a provision to make DUIs a deportable offense, specifically to reverse a Supreme Court decision that said they weren’t. I’m not sure if it’s retroactive, but many provisions since the 1996 overhaul of immigration laws have been. Basically this is to say that although there are, broadly speaking, different statuses of documentation (green card, h-visa, overstay on a tourist visa, etc.), many people in these categories can be targeted with the implementation of laws on the books (e.g. Ashcroft a few years ago announced that the government would start enforcing a provision that mandated noncitizens to report any change of address within 10 days to the government).

2) The way that immigration law generally works, to the extent that I understand it, is that the courts give broad discretion to Congress as to how they want to treat people and will defer to it whenever possible. So, the same rights that apply to citizens don’t apply to noncitizens, though they do have some protections and the level is different from people who are documented vs. those who aren’t about some things. I tend to view the rights of people interacting with the U.S. government on a spectrum from U.S. citizen to documented and undocumented noncitizens to people who are not in the United States (who can often have a bomb dropped on them with few reperccussions).

Amen, Ennis! Profiling, once detected, can be easily circumvented, and detecting it is simple when you see all of the white officers in the subways only asking people of color to open their bags.

But back to Judge Gleeson’s statements. People not in NYC may be unaware of the Brooklyn Detention Center (second, third), that housed 1200 Middle Eastern immigrants post-9/11. I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect that the difference between the justification for the post-9/11 roundup and Judge Gleeson’s statements is that the clients are different; i.e., that the residents of the BDC were illegal immigrants and the new law justifies the roundup of legal immigrants. Is that right? Anyone? Buehler?

wow, that’s horrible. i lived in NYC for a few years and never ran into anything even close to what you described. if you don’t mind my asking, would you tell us where these incidents took place?

again, sorry to hear of your less than bad luck.

Just my 2 cents. I did see an article by some economist with some data to this effect but can’t find it now. In any case, I would say don’t feel as safe as you do in NY.

If it’s good enough for an Supreme Court aff. action decision it’s good enuff for us. It’s okay since race and ethnicity is just one of the factors.

It’s funny cuz Hikind is so hyper-protective of Jewish interests he squashed an article about Holocaust-deniers rather than try to refute it:

As part of his ongoing efforts to combat intolerance, Assemblyman Hikind blocked the publication of an article highlighting the activities of Holocaust-denier teenagers in the widely-read Teen People© magazine. He has also challenged the United States Coast Guard regarding its policies about wearing religious headgear during active service. Link