There’s a new twist this week in the continuing saga of worksite actions: the unions and local police are working hand in hand.

It happens as follows: A non-unionized construction crew is working one day and along comes a representative from the union who scouts out the site. He starts talking to employees, sometimes even asking what their legal status is. Note that he does not even bother to talk to, as one company spokesperson stated, “the white guys”. Instead, he zeros in on the “non-white guys”. Before you know it, the local police appear, ask questions regarding the legal status of the “non-white” guys and all those who are Latino and cannot produce documents demonstrating their legal status are taken into custody. The “white guys” go home to their wives and children while those taken into custody are transported to a prison in York if they are lucky and much further away, far from their wives and families, if they are not.

Years ago the work of the union representatives would have been much harder for in the 1970s and 1980s construction sites were filled with unauthorized workers from Ireland who looked just like their bosses and the union representatives. Now, however, due to the large amount of Latino immigrants involved in the construction industry we’ve made it a lot easier for those who think that a non-white face equals an illegal immigrant to prey on an already anxious population, many of whom are legally in the U.S.

There’s a huge irony in the union representative’s actions: just who do they think comprises their membership? Who have they actively recruited to help swell their ranks? Immigrants, many of whom are just as illegally present as those that their fellow members are targeting. Someone wise once said: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. The stones have been cast and they must stop flying. If they don’t the ugliness we have witnessed this past week in the senseless racially motivated murder of Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah will continue and multiply.

Please: enough is enough. Let’s put a stop to the destruction of human lives, both physically and emotionally, and put the fight back where it belongs: In the halls of our Congress, in the laps of the officials we elected to humanely resolve our immigration disaster. If we don’t, our message to the world will be that America truly is the home of barbarians—those who fear and kill strangers.