A friend of mine awoke in the middle of the night at the sound of shifting furniture, stomping feet, slamming doors, and shouts.

“Who are you?” they demanded. “Identification, now!”

My friend, partly in a dream state, but mostly afraid that men dressed in uniform have entered his room with no permission, no announcement of identity, just questions, looked frantically for an escape. He nervously tried to move. He was forcibly restrained. They asked him if he knew a fugitive they were after, he answered in cries “No, no, no!” or “I don’t know!”

His accent was heavy and he had no “papers” to show them. He was taken to jail at about 19.

But let’s rewind.

Not too long before that, he was a volunteer at a Presbyterian Vacation Bible School (Escuelita de Verano is what it’s called by Castellano speakers). I was the director, having planned recreation activities, music lessons, theatre instruction, and arts and crafts for about 50 children in a tragically neglected and underserved area. He was a tremendous help, a positive role model for the children, and had an endearing personality.

But he was caught in “a raid” (una enredada) as “police like men” were searching for an undocumented immigrant with a criminal history. (He doesn’t know whether they were FBI, state, county, or local police, INS, etc, etc).

Then you read this article in the New York Times and wonder how important, really, is the rule of law and protection from the “tyranny of the majority” (as James Madison highlighted in the Federalist Papers writing under Publius) to us, as a nation?

Are the indiscriminate raids on people in their homes a moral issue? Something the Church should be concerned about?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Christian Community, Human Rights, Immigration Reform, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.