So last night, i went and handed out Dean stuff with my friend M at an Al Franken booksigning/show. It was all good, Franken was both hilarious and deeply emotional for the hometown audience on the anniversary of his friend Paul Wellstone's death.
So i was dropping M off at home and getting her stuff out of my car when we were accosted by these two very drunk Ecuadoran guys. One was asking for help in broken yet aggressive English. His friend was bleeding profusely from his face, after getting in a fight at a party over "some puta". So we call 911, get the guy some ice, and try to calm two very drunk and upset guys down with about 50 common words between us. I got poor bleeding Julio off his feet and on the curb by being as much his amigo as i could, which led to warm hugs and bloody fingerprints on my white shirt.
Then a neighbor comes out who happens to be a co-worker of Fernando and thinks highly of him. She helps calm Fernando down, we get Julio cleaned up a bit, and progress is at hand.
About fifteen minutes after we started waiting for the cops to drive two blocks ("Get up, get get get down, 911 is a joke in your town"), we figure out that Julio and Fernando don't have green cards. Not wanting these apparently decent (if drunk) guys hauled off by INS for a fistfight (and considering Julio wasn't really badly hurt, he just looked a mess), we start trying to hide them. That means, of course, trying to steer them, and figure out what house their party is in, etc. We were a half-block away, negotiating with strange neighbors, when the cops came. Luckily, M and her husband stayed behind and convinced the cops to leave without checking on them.
Shortly after the cops leave and the neighbor friend says "You fucking owe me Fernando!", Fernando relieves himself on the street in that charming way unique to drunken young men. Then he shakes the hand of his amigo (me) who saved him from the police, and promised to take me drinking manana. I couldn't convince them to take an offer of a ride to ANYWHERE ELSE, so we left them stumbling to their next adventure.
Now i ask you, how would REPUBLICANS have dealt with that situation?