In a heartfelt speech before the Senate, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), denounced the abuse by federal immigration agents of U.S. citizens. Little did they know "their accent, their name, the color of their skin, the place where they lived would have put them at risk" concluded the senator.
For any Hispanic U.S. citizen, by birthright or naturalized, the risk of being subjected to a warrantless arrest, search or seizure is all too real.
Is racial profiling only a practice of a few rogue enforcement agents?  To believe that would be quite simplistic.  For decades there has existed a systematic way of identifying and tracking any citizen, immigrant or temporary resident of Hispanic origin that goes way beyond individual biases.
"Each of us in this country has to think, What if that happened to me? Why couldn't that happen to me?  What would happen to my children if I were taken away?" asked Senator Menendez in his speech on the Senate floor. Menendez provided specific examples of such abuses against Hispanic US citizens, namely when "under cover of darkness, a dozen immigration agents stormed into the Long Island home of Peggy Delrosa-Delgado", a mother of three, and six months pregnant at the time.
The U.S. Census classes "Hispanics" as one group of people regardless of their race, the defining common feature being their "Spanish origin".  That is why Senator Menendez accurately points out that any Hispanic is at risk by simply being Hispanic.   So thorough is the U.S. Census in grouping Hispanics that if parents of a U.S. citizen were born in Latin America, or whose mother's maiden name is "Hispanic" this suffices to help locate any individual or group of Hispanics even by street block.
A systematic roundup on immigrants, undocumented as well as legal "but Hispanic", is reflected in the fact that this year "criminal prosecutions on immigrants by federal authorities surged to a record high in March, as immigration cases accounted for the majority -57 percent- of all new federal criminal cases brought nationwide that month" according to a report published this week by the Syracuse group a nonpartisan research group.   The next largest category of criminal cases was narcotics with 13%.   From 2001 through to 2003 the number of immigration prosecutions remained stable, in 2004 they doubled, and now have quadrupled early in 2008.
In this context NJ Attorney General Anne Milgram issued a directive in August 2007 instructing local police to start inquiring about immigration status of the people they arrest.  Back then a local police chief quoted by the New York Times expressed that this directive "seemed a recipe for racial profiling".  And so it has been, despite Ms. Milgram's efforts to temper her already questionable directive, by ordering that victims and witnesses should not be questioned about their status, the case is that now even victims fear to report crimes such as domestic violence.   With a background of fighting against human trafficking, hate crime, and official misconduct New Jersey's Attorney General should readily answer our questions on how can she possibly ensure that the rights and protections that our Constitution grants are not trampled.
Hispanic immigrants today have become the greatest domestic threat to the United States, more than drug trafficking and gun violence.  To counter this travesty of justice Senator Menedez offered to introduce new legislation, we applaud his initiative but urge him to continue to hold the federal agencies accountable for a deliberate policy of preying on immigrant workers that cannot defend themselves against an affront that is altogether unconstitutional, inhuman, and, inmoral.