When we talk about keeping municipal police forces out of immigration enforcement, I suspect that conservatives imagine a scenario in which a perpetrator slips through the net because no one checked his status. Remember the Mt. Vernon School murders?
that tore our hearts in Newark, New Jersey this summer?
Others may imagine a scenario where immigrants are witnesses, or victims of crime, and police need cooperation in order to investigate and prosecute the crime.
But, America, can you imagine that you, or your loved one has been murdered? The body stuffed in a plastic bag and dumped on a pile of garbage? That someone comes along and discovers the mangled body and wants to do the right thing? That that person reports the crime to the police, and the police ask the Good Samaritan "Are you legal?" and handcuff him and his editor?
Because that's what the Newark Star-Ledger reports has happened in the East Ward of Newark this week... only a short bus ride on the Number 1 bus from the Mount Vernon School.
On Sept. 6, freelance photographer Geraldo Carlos was taking photos of a garbage-strewn Newark alley for a newspaper story about illegal dumping when something far more disturbing caught his eye: a woman's body in a plastic bag.
Carlos called his editor, Roberto Lima, editor of the Brazilian Voice newspaper, and the two went to the East Ward police station, then led officers back to the scene, where a homicide investigation began.
Instead of receiving thanks for the tip, both journalists say they were shocked by one of the first questions police asked Carlos at the crime scene.
Lately, I've been taking a lot of anti-immigrant diarists to task because they post diaries full of anger and free of facts. But today, I'd like you, gentle reader to join me in imagining. What if that dead body stuffed an alley in the Ironbound section of Newark was mine? What would it mean to my family if everyone who passed by was afraid to report it?
Who is my neighbor?