Immigrant Daily

ICE denies racial profiling? Claims that its agents are clairvoyant.

According to today’s NY Times article, Ramon Rivera, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated that they do not get any complaints about racial profiling from the people that are arrested by the agency.

Mr. Rivera also denied that agents engaged in racial profiling. Border Patrol agents arrested 931,000 illegal immigrants in 2003, he said, the year of the incident in Montana. “Out of that, we have maybe one person that made an allegation,” he said. “So what is the percentage?”

The put that statement into perspective, the case involves an Iraqi who was arrested in Montana when he stepped out of an Amtrak train to walk around and stretch his legs.  At that moment, border patrol agents stopped him and asked if he had registered under a special registration program for certain foreigners.

Hm…I am not a very smart person, but I wonder how they knew to ask him about that?  I have never been stopped by anyone and asked such a question, yet I wasn’t born in this country.  But then again my pinkish shade of skin probably means that I am an All-American.  Or maybe Abdulameer Habeeb was wearing a big sign that plainly stated: “I am not from United States, but instead I was born in Iraq where I was tortured by Saddam Hussein, and I may not have registered in the special registration system as required by U.S. regulations.”  Maybe…or maybe he was the only person on the platform with a peculiar shade of skin that is rarely seen in Havre, Montana.  Or maybe it’s because he wasn’t wearing cowboy boots.

Listen to NPR story here.