How the Government Created ‘Stop-and-Frisk for Latinos’

*Again, immigration used as an excuse to violate people’s civil rights. VL

By Zoë Carpenter, Mother Jones

President Obama said in 2011 that he wanted to focus the government’s resources  on undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions, rather than (as he put it at the time) “folks who were just here because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.”

The Criminal Alien Removal Initiative, which began in the Spring of 2012, was one of the formal programs inside ICE designated to carry our this goal. But in New Orleans, CARI morphed into an aggressive initiative characterized by coordination between ICE and local police, and the use of mobile fingerprinting devices wielded against seemingly random groups of Latino residents. Critics in Louisiana have dubbed ICE’s practices “stop-and-frisk-for-Latinos.” Immigrants report being detained at checkpoint-style operations at apartment complexes, grocery stores, soccer fields and laundromats.

Click HERE to read the full story.

[Photo courtesy of Democracy Now]

 

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