Re: “Profiling isn’t racist,” June 17 Mike Rosen column.
Mike Rosen’s column contains deliberately confusing language and several outright falsehoods about the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). He rehashes defamatory and downright ridiculous claims made on the Internet that we are loyal only to our “race” and are for “open borders.”
NCLR is an American institution that has been working on behalf of Latinos in the United States for more than 40 years. We are not and have never been for “open borders.” We are strong supporters of effective, state-of-the-art, and humane border enforcement, a key pillar of the comprehensive immigration reform that we and the majority of Americans support.
And one more fact check: Latinos are an ethnicity, not a race. Check out the Rockies’ 2010 roster, Mr. Rosen, for confirmation.
Rosen also uses an ancient device to conflate two separate and distinct things: profiling and racial profiling. Psychological and behavioral profiling is an accepted and effective law enforcement tool, and not just in the 20-year-old fictional instance Rosen cites. Racial profiling, on the other hand, is a notoriously ineffective practice that has been shown time and again to do nothing to help catch criminals and reduce crime. That is why it is banned in 24 states, thousands of top law enforcement officials are against it, and Congress is considering legislation to ban racial profiling entirely. What racial profiling is remarkably effective at is increasing harassment and abuse of minority communities, making the work of law enforcement personnel much harder, and putting states and localities at risk for major lawsuits. Just ask Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Finally, Rosen states quite unbelievably that if Latinos are indeed asked to identify themselves, it’s just “inconvenient” and basically they should take it. Seriously? How about the very real Eduardo Caraballo, who spent three days in jail in Chicago and faced deportation because he could not produce his immigration papers? He was released only after a member of Congress intervened. Caraballo was born in Puerto Rico and as such is a native-born U.S. citizen, so he does not have any immigration documents. It is not pretense but fact that this kind of incident — and many more like it — will become the norm in Arizona when SB 1070 takes effect.
Clarissa Martínez De Castro is director of Immigration and National Campaigns for the National Council of La Raza. She lives in Washington, D.C.
