Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement
is Constant Threat
Key Finding: 47% of Respondents Know
Someone Treated Unfairly by Police
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (The Southern
Poverty Law Center) April 23, 2009 ―
Like African Americans during the height
of Jim Crow, many Hispanics in the South
live in constant fear of being unfairly
targeted by the police as they go about
their daily lives.
Just the simple acts of driving to work
or taking a child to a soccer match can
result in intimidation or abuse
regardless of a Hispanic's immigration
status. More than one person in the
survey described the South as a "war
zone" for immigrants, a place where
harassment and routine inconvenience is
a way of life and where life-altering
consequences are always just one false
step away.
This culture of fear is understandable
given the many tales of police abuse and
racial profiling recounted in extensive
interviews for this report.
Forty-seven percent of the respondents
in this survey said they knew someone
who had been treated unfairly by police.
One of the major complaints is Hispanics
are pulled over by police for the most
minor of offenses or no offense at
all. Forty-seven percent of the
respondents cited traffic stops as the
most common form of "unjust treatment"
by police. That figure climbs to 55
percent in Alabama and 60 percent in
Georgia.
"Even if everything seems fine, I feel
like I am being followed," one
37-year-old Mexican man living in Macon,
Ga., told SPLC researchers. "If there is
a cop behind you and you're doing
everything right, you're still afraid."
Maria Eugenia, who came to Tennessee
from Colombia, said her immigration
papers are in order, but she is still
afraid of being stopped by the police.
"You never know when you will come
across a racist police officer."
Police Checkpoints
Police checkpoints in predominately
Hispanic areas are a common complaint,
particularly in rural areas of north
Alabama. Fifty-five percent of
respondents in Alabama said there are
police checkpoints where they live.
These checkpoints can be a lucrative
source of revenue for local governments,
because many areas in the South charge
substantial fines for driving without a
license. Fines can range from several
hundred dollars to several thousand, and
many states can impose jail sentences.
Some local ordinances allow police to
confiscate a driver's vehicle and charge
the owner for the number of days it sits
in the lot. A number of jurisdictions
use minor traffic offenses to funnel
immigrants into deportation proceedings
as well.
Claudia, a Mexican living in northern
Alabama, has seen firsthand how the
actions of police have left the Hispanic
community isolated and fearful.
Countless police checkpoints have been
set up in areas near trailer parks where
many Hispanics live. During a May 2008
interview for this report, Claudia said
there were checkpoints every weekend
near these trailer parks.
"People are afraid to leave their
homes," she said. "They go to and from
work and don't leave the house if they
don't have to."
Similar stories were reported in other
communities.
"Elena," a Mexican living in south
Georgia, reported daylong police
checkpoints at the only entrance to her
predominately Hispanic neighborhood.
Cars were impounded, fines were issued
and some neighbors were even handcuffed.
The message sent from the checkpoint was
clear: Stay in your home.
In a recent study by the Pew Hispanic
Center, nearly one in 10 Hispanic adults
8 percent of native-born U.S. citizens
and 10 percent of immigrants reported
in the past year the police or other
authorities had stopped them and asked
about their immigration status.
Savings Confiscated
In May 2008, Victor Marquez was
traveling to his hometown in Querιtaro,
Mexico, when the truck in which he was
riding was stopped by a police officer
in Loxley, Ala., "for failure to
maintain a marked lane."
Marquez planned to pay for a retirement
home in Mexico and was carrying his
legitimately earned wages and savings,
along with that of a brother. Even
though Marquez was not arrested or
charged with any crime, the officer
confiscated almost $20,000, claiming it
was drug money.
No Charges, But Savings Confiscated
"Samuel," a 25-year-old Guatemalan in
New Orleans, was pulled over by police
while riding his bicycle from soccer
practice. The officer was looking for a
woman's stolen bike. Even though the
woman said she wasn't sure if Samuel's
bike belonged to her, the officer took
the bag containing Samuel's cleats from
the handlebars, threw them to the ground
and handed the bike to the woman.
Samuel was left on the street.
Hundreds of miles away in Tennessee,
Miguel had his car towed away and
impounded after a traffic stop by a
police officer.
"I told the officer the keys to my
house, my paycheck and my tips from work
were in the car," he said in an
interview for this report. "He told me
he didn't care."
The officer drove him out of town and
left him there even though Miguel told
the officer the traffic stop was within
walking distance of home. Despite going
through the legal system and paying a
fine, he was never able to locate his
car.
"Sometimes I feel terrorized because I
am illegal," he said. "I only came here
to work."
Racial Data on Profiling Scarce in
the South
Those who study racial profiling have
long advocated the retention of racial
and ethnic data as an important practice
to prevent racial profiling. In
conducting research for this report, the
SPLC found most Southern states and
localities do not require the collection
of such data.
For this report, the SPLC requested data
under state open records laws from
several dozen localities where
respondents reported profiling by the
police. The vast majority of those
localities refused to respond to our
request and would not indicate what
data, if any, they maintain.
One locality Huntsville, Ala.
provided records that reveal some of the
difficulties in interpreting the
available data. Huntsville maintained
substantial racial data related to
roadblocks. However, the information
collected about ethnicity contained only
four categories: white, black, Asian and
Indian. There was no record showing
whether individuals were Hispanic.
Data provided by the city of
Albertville, Ala., showed 73 percent of
the vehicles seized and impounded as a
result of roadblocks were taken from
drivers with Hispanic surnames. Census
data for the small city in north Alabama
shows Hispanics make up only 16 percent
of its population.
Georgia currently has no state law
prohibiting racial profiling and does
not require the collection of data that
would allow one to objectively determine
whether it is occurring. None of the
Georgia localities to whom the SPLC sent
open records requests provided any data
to show they were keeping records of
their traffic stops to ensure racial
profiling does not occur.
The SPLC also received numerous
complaints of racial profiling by
immigrants in Louisiana, a state that
has passed an anti-profiling statute.
The statute requires law enforcement to
collect and report data but provides an
exemption from this requirement for
agencies that adopt a written policy
against racial profiling. As a result,
virtually all law enforcement agencies
have adopted such policies, and none is
required to keep track of racial and
ethnic data related to traffic stops.
287(G) Agreements Lead to Serious
Abuse
Adding to these concerns is the 287(g)
program, which allows local or state
police to enter into an agreement to
enforce federal immigration law.
Hispanic immigrants in locales with
287(g) programs expressed enormous fears
that the most minor transgression might
result in the destruction of families.
Though 287(g) programs have been
operating since 2003, Immigration and
Customs Enforcement documents show more
than half of the 67 active partnership
agreements on record by November 2008
were signed in mid-2007 or later. This
is about the same time immigration
reform legislation failed in Congress.
ICE data shows these agreements have
been negotiated disproportionately in
the South. More than half of these
partnerships 37 are in the
Southeast.
ICE Terrorizes Communities, Hispanic
Citizens
One commentator stated, "ICE's roster of
287(g) agreements reads like a map to
hotspots in the immigration wars, places
where activists say relations between
immigrants and the larger community are
particularly strained."
Baltazar, a Hispanic immigrant living in
Charlotte, described the changes that
occurred when local law enforcement
began enforcing immigration law.
"When the police started acting as
immigration agents, immediately they
started having roadblocks roadblocks
on the main streets," Baltazar said.
"The police get carried away by the
color of the skin without knowing
whether you are a citizen or if you are
an immigrant."
Many question whether the eagerness
among law enforcement agencies to round
up undocumented Hispanics is based
mainly on bigotry.
In Nashville, a city with a robust
287(g) program, such notions were
reinforced in January 2009 when it came
to light that Davidson County Sheriff
Daron Hall had spoken to a meeting of
the white nationalist Middle Tennessee
Council of Conservative Citizens on
November 22, 2008. The Council of
Conservative Citizens (CCC) is descended
from the pro-segregation White Citizens'
Councils of the civil rights era and is
classified as a hate group by the SPLC.
When news of the appearance reached the
local newspaper, Hall said he "had no
idea" of the group's background and
thought he was simply reaching out to a
politically conservative group.
Nonetheless, Hall's appearance before
the group sent a message.
"It is open season on Hispanics in
Nashville now," Nashville immigration
lawyer Elliott Ozment told the SPLC.
Ozment once served on a council formed
to advise the sheriff on 287(g), but the
sheriff removed him after Ozment said
publicly the council played no
meaningful role.
Sheriff's statistics in Nashville
revealed approximately 80 percent of the
3,000 individuals deported in the first
year of the program were arrested on
misdemeanor offenses. It's estimated 25
percent were arrested on charges of
driving without a license, an offense
that frequently snares undocumented
immigrants who cannot obtain the legal
documentation to lawfully drive.
For Juana Villegas, an undocumented
immigrant from Mexico, a traffic stop in
Nashville for a minor offense led to an
appalling series of events. Nine months
pregnant, Villegas was arrested pursuant
to the 287(g) agreement.
Six days later, Villegas was released
from the county jail. She had already
given birth to her son, going through
labor as a sheriff's officer stood guard
in her hospital room. Much of the time
was spent with one of her feet cuffed to
the bed. She also was barred from seeing
or speaking with her husband.
The ordeal didn't end after her
discharge from the hospital. Separated
from her infant for two days, Villegas
was not allowed to have a breast pump in
jail. Infection set up in her breasts
and her baby developed jaundice. She has
since filed a lawsuit in a case
supported by the SPLC.
The Trade-Off
Although these stories show the
devastating impact overzealous law
enforcement can have on the immigrant
community, all residents are hurt when
local agencies become preoccupied with
enforcing immigration at the expense of
other responsibilities. This was evident
when a newspaper investigated the
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in
Arizona an agency that has gained
national attention for its efforts to
curb illegal immigration.
The investigation found as Sheriff Joe
Arpaio and his deputies arrested
hundreds of undocumented immigrants, the
department was failing to meet the
response time set for life-threatening
emergencies. It also found "rampant
overtime spending" on immigration
efforts pushed the office into
"financial crisis" to the point of
closing facilities across Maricopa
County.
Records examined by the newspaper also
showed efforts to fight illegal
immigration by enforcing the state's
human smuggling law pulled deputies from
other parts of the department when it
was already short-handed.
"A lot of this is the trade-off," Doris
Meissner, a former commissioner of the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service, told the newspaper. "If the
local police are doing federal law
enforcement, other law enforcement
responsibilities get a lower priority by
default."
The economic downturn has exposed
another trade-off that comes with the
287(g) program. When the sheriff's
department in Wake County, N.C., was
asked to trim its budget by 10 percent,
the sheriff said he wanted to part with
287(g) a program that costs the
department almost $500,000 a year only
if the county's budget crisis reached
worst-case levels. The program was
placed on a list of cost-cutting
measures, but the prospect of its
elimination appeared unlikely in early
February 2009.
"With the economy as bad as it is,
everything should be up on the table,"
Tony Asion, executive director of the
North Carolina advocacy group El Pueblo,
told a reporter. "We definitely need
more police officers on the streets and
not playing immigration officials at the
jail."
