The expanding powers, vicious unaccountability and violent, invasive searching conducted in America’s 100-mile “border zone” should concern you.
It’s taken over all of Maine and Florida and most of Michigan. You can be searched without a warrant, detained, harassed. When you complain, you’re liable to subjected to punitive cavity searches and insults. That’s if you’re a citizen. Undocumented people have it much worse:
Perhaps what bothered Gomez was the photo silkscreened onto that shirt — of her husband during his hospitalization. It showed the aftermath of a beating he received from CBP agents. His head had a partially caved-in look because doctors had removed part of his skull. Over his chest and arms were bruises from Tasering. One tooth was out of place, and he had two black eyes. Although you couldn’t see them in the photo, two heavily armed Homeland Security agents were then guarding his hospital door to prevent the father of two, formerly a sound technician and the lead singer of a popular band in Los Angeles, from escaping — even in his comatose state.
Jose Gutierrez Guzman’s has become an ever more common story in an American age of mass expulsions. Although he had grown up in the United States (without papers), he was born in Mexico. After receiving a letter requesting his appearance, he went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Los Angeles and was promptly arrested and deported. Customs and Border Protection agents later caught him crossing the border in San Luis, Arizona, near Yuma, in an attempt to reunite with his wife and children.
(via Wil Wheaton)
(Image: Border Patrol Agents in Line Formation on Motor Bikes, USCPB, no copyright)