Shocking Tales of Racial Profiling in The Big Easy

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/shocking-tales-hi-tech-persecution-immigrants-new-orleans-emerges

Last August, New Orleans resident Julio Gallego was driving his friends Karen Sandoval and Enrique Morales Sosa to pick up school supplies for the couple’s young daughters when an unmarked car flashed its lights at him. He pulled over and was swiftly surrounded by several more cars containing plainclothes officers and five Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The ICE officials handcuffed the two men, told them they had been speeding (a lie), and began to question them.

They started by making fun of Gallego’s car and his unkempt appearance. Gallego is a construction worker who had just got off work. “These Latinos are dirty,” one of the agents said. The other agents signaled their approval with a round of laughter. “So basically you stopped me because I’m Latino?” asked Gallego. “Basically, yes,” responded another officer. “And because your car is old.”

Stories like Gallego’s have become increasingly commonplace in New Orleans’ Latino communities.

On Dec. 19, 2013, the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice published a scathing report that unmasked an outrageous new tactic of ICE, in which field officers stop and fingerprint those they suspect of being illegal immigrants with criminal records. These suspicions are based purely on racial profiling, and such practices amount to unnecessary and unwarranted harassment of Latinos in New Orleans.