No, no, no! You got it all wrong, the moral is to tattoo serial numbers on those who are undesirables. This is to keep them safe from mistaken misclassification, of course.

zazou, a resounding, “thank you!” I should qualify, though, and say that I don’t think the Central Valley or Bay is dramatically better on how it treats Latinos and Latino immigrants, save for possibly the western side of the east Bay + SF. While ICE probably won’t stop you on the BART, they’ve raiding Latino homes and neighborhoods for months now — they show up in the middle of the night, and if you cannot produce papers on demand (or do not let them enter your house), they arrest you and keep you in holding. And, from what I’ve heard (and this may not be legally correct), the onus is on the arrested to prove they’re a citizen. Honestly, it sounds like a police-state, to me.

I forgot to mention, in my long explanation, that California is also unique in that it has a large indigenous Latino population — i.e. the Californios, people who’ve been around since pre-/post-Mexican American War and California’s induction into the union. All our big cities are named in Spanish, and yet there is this vicious, anti-Latino sentiment that lumps all Latinos together as “Mexicans” (used at best as an ignorant generalization, and at worst as a slur).

Absolutely… and not just the police, but neighbors as well. In Hazleton there are lots of reports of white neighbors calling police or ICE on their brown neighbors, assuming that brown = illegal. Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re legal, and sometimes annoyed Puerto Ricans have to explain once again that they are US citizens. The point is that anyone with brown skin or a perceived Latino identity gets harassed by the authorities and by their neighbors. I think it’s less about punishing landlords than it is about creating an atmosphere so hostile to Latinos of any kind that people just move out rather than deal with it– and then Hazleton gets to be lily-white again just like the ‘good old days’.

But we aren’t a progressive blog in the least. We’re a motley crew (unfortunately not a motley crue), a random assortment of people most of whom are far from ideologically consistent themselves. We don’t try to stick to one ideological line or another. Pass The Roti is a progressive blog, we are a mutiny.

There is something else that has been bothering me;this is a commendably progressive blog which has disappointingly been ambivalent about comrehensive immigration reform.

It’s pretty clear – this is a story that shows how easily mentally disabled immigrants (first or second gen) can get deported. ANNA told the story of Pedro, and then talked about how easily this could have happened to Mona.

I’ve had my eye on this story ever since he was first deported but never got around to blogging it. It’s firmly within our ambit.