Prosecutors say the most egregious incident occurred June 29, when Mathison detained four Latino men sitting along Chestnut Street in Chelsea. After forcing them into a nearby building, Mathison allegedly demanded that they give him money to avoid arrest.
If Mathison's unchecked and repeated exploitation of migrants isn't enough to raise eyebrows, the fact that this isn't an isolated event should:
Over a month ago I linked to a Boston Globe article which details how around 500 Cambodian migrants were caught in a pyramid scheme that defrauded them of around $27 million. In this case one of the defendants might have even hired a hitman to kill the 12 witnesses that were testifying against him.
Vivir Latino posted on another case in Sacramento where a bounty hunter, Jeremy Christian Brickner, impersonated an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to kidnap a mother and her 10-year-old daughter. He plead guilty to “one count of impersonating an agent of the United States and one count of being a felon in possesion of a firearm” according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
Just the other day I wrote a long entry on how Guatemalan migrants are being assasinated in a small town in New York.
The list goes on and on…
It's fitting that someone going by the name of Jack Park wrote this comment in response to the Boston Herald article.
Now the police need to go arrest the illegal immigrants who got ripped off and get them the hell out of the country.
How much do migrants have to suffer before it is enough for people like Jack Park?
I can't help but feel anti-migrant advocates are only interested in enforcing civil immigration law because it disproportionately affects the people that threaten them. Contrary to their claims, they are supporting lawlessness and exploitation by doing so.
Kyle, I'm not sure I see any policy consequences from these examples. Any statistics on the number of people accused or convicted of false impersonation of an immigration officer?
Also, I'm sure you know that false impersonation of any federal officer is a crime, and the states (Massachusetts, for example) have similar laws. So if I posted a story about, say, someone who falsely impersonated a state trooper, do you think there is any policy consequence? What about impersonation of a military officer?
My point is that false impersonation of an officer is not uncommon and, as far as I know or you have shown, does not single out immigrants as victims. Surely the answer to the societal problem of false impersonation must be to prevent false impersonation if we can, not to somehow curtail legitimate law enforcement. After all, the reason false impersonation is so problematic is that it makes legitimate law enforcement more difficult by causing the public to suspect officers' true identity.
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TedF
…I find reading your pieces interesting, but it is obvious that American English is not your first language. I find your use of “migrants” a bit disconcerting. Could you please use the correct term, which is “alien”? The denotations may seem similar, but the connotations are not.
Did you miss the whole “lesson” on s/he uses the word migrant? Though I don't agree with him, I don't presume that anyone who speaks differently than I do has trouble with English.
…there are migrants who are not aliens.
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To some extent, I was a migrant in the US. Born in Norfold VA, moved by my parents to Blacksburg VA, Charleston WVA, and Cincinnati OH. Went to Columbus OH to go to University. Then to Arlington VA, New Haven CT and now to Boston.
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An alien is the correct term for what KyleDeb is describing. From the Merriam Webster web site re “alien”:
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I have been a migrant, but never an alien in the US. Those who travel to the US from Central and South America might be considered migrants because they are moving from place to place as did I, but they are more specifically characterized as aliens.
might be the correct legal term, but migrants in the U.S. don't like the term. I don't think its right to call people something that they don't like to be called. I also think migrant is an accurate term for the people I'm describing, as they are neither here, nor there.
What is this American English? I thought it was Amerikanisch.
…my presumption is that the poster is not a native Amerikanisch sprecher.