Thursday, March 13, 2008

Earlier this month, Prince William County began enforcing a law, which was approved by the all-white Prince William County Board of Supervisors in October 2007, that codifies racial profiling of Latinos as being not only legally acceptable, but encouraged, as officers are directed to "investigate the citizenship status of people who are detained for breaking the law if officers have probable cause to believe they are violating federal immigration policy." Additionally, people suspected of being undocumented will be denied county services under the new policy.

Of course, you can guess how officers are going to determine "probable cause."
As Brownfemipower said, "this is not about legal versus illegal. This is about rolling R’s and brown skin and age old hate."

The police department says that "officers have been trained to investigate only suspected criminals" and "are strictly prohibited from racial profiling while enforcing the new law."
Right.
I'm curious as to when the phrase "suspected criminals" began including violators of traffic laws, who the Chief of Police, Charlie Deane, says "will be screened if the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect is in the country illegally." Again, I wonder what he means by "probable cause?"

Since the policy started being enforced, over six-hundred-bilingual students have dropped out of school. Many Latino immigrants "feel they are being forced to walk away from their homes because they cannot risk waiting until they sell. Families have been separated as fathers and mothers have been detained leaving citizen children behind to be cared for by family members or friends." The enforcement of the racist law "calls for spending $6.4 million next year and $26 million over the next five years." That is (and probably falls far short of) how much white people in Prince William value their hate.