The Times has an interesting article about immigration crackdowns, which includes this picture of Romy Campos, a dual American/Spanish citizen who was held in LA County jails for four days after a misdemeanor arrest on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. Her hold wasn’t based on any of the new state laws, but on existing federal law:
Exact numbers of Americans erroneously held by immigration authorities are hard to come by, since they are not systematically recorded. In one study, 82 people who were held for deportation from 2006 to 2008 at two immigration detention centers in Arizona, for periods as long as a year, were freed after immigration judges determined that they were American citizens.
It’s easy for politicians from every party to pound the table for “tough enforcement of immigration laws”, especially if none of their children look like Romy Campos.
The Other Bob
Wha? How hard is it to determine a persons citizenship? That is f’n crazy
ericblair
All of these Papers Please laws should have caused an uproar among our concerned white folk all over the country that they would now have to carry around ID to prove that they’re not in the country illegally. There was no uproar, of course, because the concerned white folk knew exactly who was going to get targeted by enforcement.
I hope these people can sue the snot out of everyone and everything involved. It’s a fucking disgrace.
Guster
If I was a swarthy-American, I’d dye my hair blonde and keep a copy of Forbes with me at all times.
Problem solved.
Tom Levenson
But, but, but kids of color can get ahead just by youtubing!
Shurely Shome Mishtake!
Linda Featheringill
@ericblair:
Not a bad idea. Lawsuits can bring about social changes.
JPL
@Guster: My son’s SO was passing through security at an airport and the nice white man in front of her was pulled over for a further search. He turned around and said why not her. She looks more like a terrorist than I do. She’s not a blond btw.
Tom Levenson
@The Other Bob: What constitutes proof of citizenship? A passport? — not everyone has one. A birth certificate? I have no idea where mine is. Driver’s license? — nope. Voter registration? — maybe but what about FRAUD!!!!?
It takes some doing to disprove the negative. If someone says “you’re no citizen,” and you are in jail — it could take some effort.
El Cid
The important thing is that they not detain any foreign executives running huge businesses in the state, because that would just be wrong.
Schlemizel
@ericblair:
My guess would be that they are covered by immunity based on their only following the law.
@Tom Levenson:
That easy – if you look European then you are obviously an American. A simple test would be to put a paper bag up at the airport & compare skin tone to the bag, if you are not lighter than the bag you really should have a passport.
jibeaux
@Tom Levenson: That’s exactly right. Most of us Americans, from a cell, would have some difficulty proving citizenship. Hell, my state deported to Mexico and left with $5 and a prison jumpsuit, a mentally disabled guy who didn’t speak a lick of Spanish or any other language of Mexico and who had a valid social security number that checked out with ICE, because he said something about being born there. He also said things about not being born there. All in English. http://www.ajc.com/news/north-carolina-man-sues-681887.html
amk
@El Cid: Didn’t they do that to an auto company exec (bmw ?) in az ?
Jerzy Russian
@Tom Levenson:
If you become a naturalized citizen then you get this nice certificate. One hopes it would take less than 1 year to dig that up. However, it is not clear from the quoted passage above if those held for a year were naturalized citizens or ones who were born here.
JGabriel
NY Times:
So. If you have dual citizenship and two passports, remember to ALWAYS enter the US using your US passport.
Amazing the minutiae people have to know about just to avoid being “accidentally” detained in their own country. Land of the fuckin’ free.
.
El Cid
@amk: Yes.
El Cid
More incivility on the intertrons.
If I Were a Rich White Motivational Speaker:
JGabriel
@JPL:
Classy.
.
R-Jud
@JGabriel:
While it’s ridiculous that this young lady was detained over this, I don’t really know if that’s “minutiae”.
When I took my daughter to the US Embassy to get her citizenship papers sorted and passport application processed, two of the three staffers we spoke with stressed the importance of using her US rather than UK passport when travelling to the US. It was also called out in boldface in a letter accompanying the actual passport.
ETA: I will note that neither the staffers nor the letter pointed out what the consequences of failing to use the US passport might be, just that it would “cause problems”. Which, apparently, involve detention if you’re brown.
Mark B.
@JPL: Statements like that ought to make a person eligible for a full cavity search. With a rusty chainsaw covered in barbed wire.
rlrr
Cheech Marin made a movie based on this scenario…
RedKitten
@JPL: Charming. There are just no other words, really. Unfortunately, scorn just bounces off of those assholes, due to their protective layer of cluelessness.
RP
A FPer should — no, must — post something about this:
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102133_2102332,00.html #ixzz1gWJQJ2aH
Amir Khalid
For the life of me, I can’t imagine how Romy Campos looks not-American. She looks like a white person to me. I have been to the US myself, and met Latinos and native Americans as brown as I am. What does a non-American look like, exactly?
Also, it’s my understanding that an American on his country’s soil has no legal obligation to carry identification, let alone proof of citizenship. Do these new state immigration laws impose that obligation? If so, does this raise a constitutional issue, and is this what the Department of Justice is looking into?
Chris
@JPL:
Yet another one of those nice respectable Not Racist people who will recoil in indignation if you ever imply that they’re racist.
Soonergrunt
My daughter looks quite a bit like her. It’s the Scottish last name (that people think is eastern-European for some strange reason) that protects her, I’m certain.
If our last name were Campos or Valdez, I’m pretty sure we’d be fucked even as we’re all whiter than egg-shell paint.
Mike in NC
Uh, they wish their children looked like Romy Campos.
The Other Bob
@Tom Levenson:
Last I checked it was the government that was supposed to prove the illegal act. I know, I am being naïve.
I suppose I am thinking about it with my son in mind, who was adopted, but is now a citizen. He has a Certificate of Citizenship. That said, we are not just discussing immigrants are we?
You have a point. If I (American born) was brown skinned and arrested how I would prove I was an American? Still, a birth certificate can be obtained much quicker than one year.
Soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: These are the very issues that are causing such problems right now.
As you note, an American Citizen is under no legal obligation to carry identification, and the Police are not supposed to stop and question somebody except on probable cause (to believe that they have committed, or are about to commit a crime) but the right wingers in this country keep trying to push us ever more and more to that state where the lack of ID will be probable cause itself–which requires a stop and questioning to determine. The courts, overrun with right wingers since the 1980s, have repeatedly allowed the erosion of civil liberties that we once held sacrosanct.
This is why it’s assinine to get wrapped around the axle about a drone, which has no more capability than a suitably equipped helicopter except for endurance, when the real threat to civil liberties is and always has been a right-wing judiciary.
amk
The oldest democracy is slowly becoming the shittiest democracy.
Chris
@amk:
I draw some small comfort from the fact that Israel probably still has us beat…
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Too many in this country get away with the capital crime of LWB, Living While Brown. Thank god these sane, hard working cops are willing to enforce this heinous crime in White Amer-….what? What do you mean there’s no law against Living While Brown? Well, there aughta be, dad’gummit.
(And to note, I’m a Filipino with a decidedly Hispanic last name, and been mistaken for everything from Spanish to Mexican to Indian to Middle Eastener, even Chinese. Something like this has been in the back of my mind for the past 2 years every single day. The painful reminder that you can be American-born, American-bred, and still considered an alien by the law)
amk
@Chris: Of course, there is the apartheid SA to cross before that.
gnomedad
@El Cid:
The page came up with a Tony Robbins ad.
JGabriel
@R-Jud:
I’m glad to hear that at least people are warned about this. I assumed, incorrectly it appears, that this came out of the blue and wouldn’t be widely known by the people who need to know it.
.
PurpleGirl
@amk: In Alabama. Two different executives from two different companies (a German and a Japanese (Korean?). I think the cops could tell that the executives weren’t the type of people the law was meant to ensnare but I think too that the cops didn’t like having to be an immigration cop and decided to make their point by embarrassing the state by taking in everyone.
SenyoorDave
@JPL: Hopefully this nice whitem man got a full body cavity search from a TSA employee named Bubba
amk
@PurpleGirl:
That might turn out to be the saving grace in the end. Not many cops may want to play gestapo like that arpaio mofo.
Linda Featheringill
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Living while brown:
I, for one, am glad that you are living and still fighting and kicking, regardless of whether you are brown, or purple, or green, or . . . . .
“America” is not as homogenous as some people would like for it to be. “We” come in many flavors.
Peace.
Admiral_Komack
I’ve always been one not to jump on the “mexicans are illegal aliens” bandwagon because:
1) I don’t know anyone’s immigration status.
2) Some who are comfortable about yelling about illegals also are comfortable calling me a nig(GONG!).
Linda Featheringill
@Admiral_Komack:
This. If they pick on “them”, they will probably pick on you. And they would find some reason to pick on me, too.
R-Jud
@JGabriel: It’s possible that they’ve only been up front about warning people in recent years, as a post-9/11 thing. My experience was in 2009, so things may have been different when Miss Campos, who’s 19, got her passports sorted out.
ericblair
@JGabriel:
Yes, most countries are like this: I believe it’s a couple hundred dollar fine if they catch you using the wrong passport to enter the US (and if they bother making a stink about it if you’re not in shit otherwise). Usually it means you’re in the bad line at the airport and will get a bunch of questions about where you live and what your status in the US is, so people don’t tend to want to do this anyways.
The problem is using this as a flag to determine foreign citizenship. Not only can you easily trigger it with an unrelated act like this, someone who entered under a foreign passport and then naturalized a few months later would be caught, too. They’d have to clear the flag somehow, and I don’t think they have the information from the new US citizen’s foreign passport to do that.
It’s all a hack to get around that there’s no national ID registry for US citizens. Of course, the people who are most in favor of the Papers Please laws would completely freak at a national ID law. They’re all relying on the fact that they’re Not Brown: what else do you need to know?
Admiral_Komack
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Dude, you haven’t lived until you have been stopped by the police walking while black in your neighborhood…twice.
Good times :-(
Paul in KY
Ms. Campos looks plenty pissed. Or maybe she’s just doing ‘fierce’. Sorry she got into that situation.
bourbaki
I like how mistermix fails to quote the first paragraph of the article:
or this
Yeah it sure is easy for “politicians from every party to pound the table”…and sometimes easy for them to do more
Tonybrown74
This scares me a little bit, being a naturalized citizen. I became one through my mother obtaining her citizenship before I turned 18.
However, since I do not walk around with my passport, and say my ID was expired, how do I go about proving my citizenship? Birth certificate is from Trinidad, so that won’t do it. And children who become citizens through their parents do not get a certificate (I don’t have one).
This prevents me from even thinking about going to a protest. I don’t know what would happen if I were to be arrested.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: She doesn’t look ‘pasty white’. She may to you, but to our intrepid furriner-finders, she looks a little ‘ethnic’.
Paul in KY
@JGabriel: When I received my British citizenship (thus making me a dual citizen), it was stressed at the British consulate that you should use your US passport when entering the US (and use our British passport everywhere else).
PurpleGirl
@R-Jud: I don’t think she looks all that brown or dark. After all the term “blue blood” was coined for the Spainish aristocracy which had links back to the pale skin of Germanic tribes.
PurpleGirl
@rlrr: Oh yes, great movie.
Joey Maloney
@ericblair: Can you say “sovereign immunity” boys and girls? Sure, I knew you could.
Paul in KY
@Tonybrown74: Voter registration card, as only citizens can vote?
I don’t even know if those things exist. Being pasty white myself, I have never had to prove I was a citizen. Been asked that on forms & stuff, but never by law enforcement.
I know it must suck balls.
ericblair
@Tonybrown74:
I believe you should have gotten something at some point documenting your status. However, you should be able to get a replacement certificate of naturalization through USCIS (it’s a few hundred dollars, I think; they’re having fun gouging people these days, and you can thank Congress for that). Keep it handy where someone can get it for you on short notice. Disclaimer: I’m a blogger, not a lawyer, dammit!
The other fun bit about immigration law is that there are a lot of documents that can show valid status, some of them can be expired and still valid if USCIS is backed up, which is most of the time. Good luck having Deputy Dawg from Asswipe County figure all that out correctly.
Tonybrown74
I have never seen a voter registration card. Not here in Massachusetts at least. I assume they check your citizenship when you register to vote. I’ve yet to have a problem on that front.
I think being black (oh, the irony), as well as having a very American/English name (Anthony) and no accent probably prevents me from attracting “suspicion” at airports and other settings. Although it can be comical when I find myself in the middle of conversations where someone is going on about people coming to America to “take our jobs”. “Excuse me?” followed by, “you DO realize that I was not born here, right?” kinda gets them sputtering defensively.
Tonybrown74
@ericblair:
That is good to know. Thank you for the heads up.
Let’s see if I can scrape up the money and take care of that early next year *sigh*
Kilkee
Born and raised in the USA. I’m awaiting receipt of my Irish passport. So I guess the deal is I should always enter the US with my American passport. Does it matter if/when I otherwise use the Irish one? Does anyone know if I’ll wind up on a terrorist watch list if, say, I use the Irish passport to go to Sharm al-Sheik to go scuba diving?
Damn shame I have to be so paranoid about my own country denying me.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@Guster:
Awesome in so many ways. Ima stealin’ this, mmmkay?
Brachiator
@mistermix:
As outrageous as this was, it doesn’t help when you mistake the facts. Ms Campos was not arrested on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. She was arrested for some minor misdemeanor infraction, and then stupidly and unlawfully detained on the immigration BS.
That’s odd. I don’t see that there is anything particular about Ms Campos’ looks that makes her more illegal immigrant-like than anybody else in this country, especially in California.
@El Cid:
The crazy thing is that Alabama apparently wants to double down on stupidity.
I guess some in Alabama are nostalgic for the possibility of bringing back the prison chain gang.
Paul in KY
@Kilkee: Only when entering the US, my fellow Brits told me.
Violet
@Tonybrown74:
If you are American you are eligible to have an American passport. Whatever documents they require for you to apply for the passport should be sufficient to prove you’re an American citizen. I don’t know the specifics in your case, and it sounds like others have made some good suggestions, but looking into what is required to get a passport might help you figure out what you need to prove you’re a citizen. Although it totally sucks that you have to do it at all.
If you live near our southern border, at least in Texas, you can expect to go through border patrol checkpoints on a regular basis. I’ve got a friend who lives in West Texas who has to drive through one twice a day to get to and from work. Freaking pain in the rear and adds 20-30 minutes to the “commute” that without the checkpoint should be about 15 minutes.
I went through one driving from El Paso, TX to Ruidoso, NM this summer. You have to go through the checkpoint, the officer leans in, sees white people in the car, and says, “American citizens?” In our case, one of the white people in the car was a green card holder. So the green card had to be produced before we could proceed. But if the green card holder had only nodded affirmatively to the “American citizen?” question, we probably all would have been waved through.
The officer just assumed the white people in the car were American citizens until told otherwise. I can only imagine how it wouldn’t go quite that way were the people in the car not white. Ugh.
Surly Duff
I volunteer to give her a body cavity search.
Robert Sneddon
@Kilkee: The problem is that if you arrive at an American port-of-entry using a non-American passport you are expected to have applied to the local US Embassy before travelling, jumped through assorted administrative hoops and paid for permission to enter the US (part of the fee goes to promoting tourism to the US). You will also have an entry visa tag put into your passport which states that as a visitor that you can only stay for a maximum period, usually 90 days. If you overstay this period then Immigration will, in theory, seek you out, arrest and prosecute you before deporting you in which case you can try explaining to a judge that you are in fact an American citizen.
If you use your American passport you can just swan through Immigration and go home. Your choice.
I’m British and I used to visit the US regularly to visit friends, attend events etc. The pre-approval paperwork and fees are the main reason I don’t visit the US any more. Instead I travel to Japan which hates foreigners even more than the US does but loves them some free-spending tourists and doesn’t put obstacles in their way of getting through Immigration and into downtown Tokyo.
ericblair
@Kilkee:
If you visit Ireland, you’ll probably need to, since like here most countries want you to enter on their passport if you have one. I’ve used more than one passport on trips before, and there shouldn’t be a problem, although you may have to explain why you don’t have expected stamps or visas to various immigration agents. I’ve never heard of an immigration officer that wasn’t aware that having more than one passport was possible (and legal).
Jay in Oregon
@JPL:
At which point I would turn to the young woman with you and say “Isn’t that the guy you told me was bragging about the foolproof system he had for hiding heroin in his checked baggage?”
Rafer Janders
It’s not@Guster:
If I was a swarthy-American, I’d dye my hair blonde and keep a copy of Forbes with me at all times.
I’m as white as it gets, but even though I’m an American citizen since birth, I speak with a noticeable non-American accent due to being raised overseas. I do wonder at times whether someone would assume I wasn’t an American if I ever fell into this situation, and what the result would be….
chrome agnomen
hell, when i worked in the bronx and walked to and from, i used to occasionally get stopped for WWW (walking while white) because the cops were sure i could only be there to score.
Rafer Janders
@Kilkee:
Born and raised in the USA. I’m awaiting receipt of my Irish passport. So I guess the deal is I should always enter the US with my American passport. Does it matter if/when I otherwise use the Irish one?
Try to use it during a hijacking. Since Ireland has never invaded or attacked anyone, you should be pretty safe when the terrorists start to pull out the passengers to kill until their demands are met….
ericblair
@Jay in Oregon:
Yeah, well, I wouldn’t, since I don’t want to be in a little white room in the basement for two days. The guy in front of you said “terrorist”, so he’s probably going to get the latex-glove-and-vaseline treatment, so you can luxuriate in that thought while you sit at the gate.
(cue the Jehovah-stoning scene from Life of Brian)
Violet
@Rafer Janders:
A guy I knew slightly, who was as white as could be, told me his name was on the terrorist watch list because it was the same as some IRA terorist’s name. He said it took him an hour minimum to get through airport security every single time. The Irish thing is a little more complicated than one would think at first glance.
Brachiator
@Violet:
One of my bosses always gets hassled, especially when doing international travel, because his name is close to that of a known terrorist. Just the name. No physical resemblance issue at all. The odd thing is that there is nothing in the system to easily correct this.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“So. If you have dual citizenship and two passports, remember to ALWAYS enter the US using your US passport.”
Word. Having had triple citizenship and had ICS ream me for entering the US on an EU passport (thinking foolishly that if I entered the EU on an EU passport I should reenter the US on my EU passport to be consistent), it’s just a lot less pain to show you’re not a Furriner at all stages to any agency of the DHS, like ICS.
cintibud
@Violet: Gee. isn’t there a NY congressman(Republican) who could help him with that? Forget his name…
ETA – Peter King
Violet
@Brachiator:
Yeah, that’s what my acquaintance said. He said he looked into trying to get taken off the list, but it was almost impossible. He’d just given up and resigned himself to the long security processes. He had to travel for work quite a bit and it was a total pain for him.
Our system is stupid.
ericblair
@Violet:
I think it’s even stupider than that. I remember some other case like this, and apparently the best thing that ICE could suggest would be for the poor shlub to get his name legally changed, then he wouldn’t have to worry about the list. Good thing actual terrorists will never figure that out.
batgirl
@jibeaux: From the article you linked to:
Okay, does anyone else see what is wrong with this sentence?
Violet
@cintibud:
Heh. Apparently not. This was a few years ago, but the guy had tried to get off the list. No luck. His name was something completely bland, like “John Smith” or something (like I said, he was an acquaintance, I didn’t know him very well) and he said he wondered how many other “John Smiths” were dealing with this hassle.
@ericblair:
Yeah, now that you mention it, I think that’s what he said ICE told him to do too — change his name. The whole system is extraordinarily dumb.
Geri
What I was told by someone with two passports was that you should use the same passport when leaving a country that you used to enter the country. That way you have matching entrance and exit stamps. Then you can switch passports to enter the next country if necessary.
Catsy
@Rafer Janders:
LOLwut?
Rafer Janders
@Catsy:
Please come up with a list of countries invaded and attacked by Ireland. Considering that Ireland was itself occupied by a foreign power for much of the last thousand years, I guarantee you it’s going to be a pretty short list of, oh, let’s say zero.
cintibud
@Violet: Just snarking Violet. Peter King is the guy that thinks all Muslims are Terrorists but he’s an IRA supporter.
pete
@Herbal Infusion Bagger: I have dual UK/US citizenships, and passports, though I live in the US. Before 9/11, I regularly left the US on the US passport and entered UK on the UK one, and reversed the procedure when returning. (Of course I enter the US on the US one!) Nowadays I figure they swap this information while the flight is up, so switching would seem like suspicious behavior. Since I generally go to the UK to visit family, for short periods, I have been going as an American … but is that necessary? Anyone know?
Rafer Janders
@batgirl:
Uh, the “while” bit? Puerto Ricans are full US citizens at birth, so he’d be a US citizen even if he was born in Puerto Rico rather than North Carolina. It’s like writing “while he is of West Virginian descent, Jones was born in Chicago, Illinois….”
Violet
@cintibud:
Yeah, I know. That was what my “Heh” was for.
@pete:
A friend’s husband is Chilean. He’s got dual Chilean-US citizenship. He goes back to Chile all the time — in fact travels in South America for business a lot too. He uses the Chilean passport to enter Chile and while traveling in S.A. Then uses the US passport to return here. So far it’s working okay.
pete
@Violet: Thanks. Actually, I guess the critical thing for me might be using the US passport to check in at Heathrow, so the flight into the US matches from start to finish. UK security and immigration are horrible, too, but less likely to cause me a serious issue. But I have trouble pretending to be paranoid enough to understand the rules!
Brachiator
@ericblair:
Or they could get a cool glyph and go as “The terrorist formerly known as …”
Violet
@pete:
When you check in for a flight in the UK, you don’t go through a departure Immigration area, do you? I go there regularly, and it’s just check in at the airline counter, go through security and then board the plane. Some countries do have the departure Immigration areas, but the UK isn’t one of them.
I think the airlines are just making sure you have a valid passport and/or other entry documentation (visa, etc.) so THEY don’t get dinged by having allowed someone on the plane who can’t legally entry the country the plane is flying to. They don’t really care if you use one passport over the other.
jibeaux
@batgirl: Many things. Chief among them being that Puerto Ricans can travel freely to, and work and live freely in, the mainland US.
R-Jud
@PurpleGirl: Oh, no, I agree. She is actually very similar in coloring to my own daughter, who has a hefty dose of Italian in her background. But to a lot of people, dark hair, dark eyes, olive complexion = “ethnic”.
pete
@Violet: As I said, I’m not paranoid enough to understand the system. But I figured the airline manifest got passed on to security. I could well be wrong, but why wouldn’t they? Heigh ho. Mind you, I’m not doing anything wrong, and I’m an educated white guy in late middle age (oh, all right, o-l-d) with not enough hair to be long any more but I don’t like to invite attention.
Jager
@Tom Levenson: My handwrtten birth certificate has a mispelling of my last name. (written by the doc at 3:40am)When I moved to California, they wouldn’t accept my expired passport as proof of citizenship, nor my SS number, nor every other piece of ID I have, including my old Massachusetts driver’s license. They used my tattered handwritten birth certificate as proof and my new license had my misspelled name on it until I did a legal name change to the correct spelling. Imagine if I was swarthy, I’d never get out of jail!
Violet
@R-Jud:
Italian used to be (maybe still is in some places?) considered “ethnic.”
Rafer Janders
@jibeaux:
Chief among them being that Puerto Ricans can travel freely to, and work and live freely in, the mainland US.
Because they’re US citizens. They can “travel freely to, and work and live freely in, the mainland US” just the way that, say, Alaskans and Hawaiians can. There is no citizenship distinction between a Puerto Rican and any other American citizen (other than the fact, mainly, that when in Puerto Rico, they cannot vote for President, do not send Senators and Representatives to Congress, etc.).
catclub
@ericblair: “I hope these people can sue the snot out of everyone and everything involved.”
How successful are people who sue US federal law enforcement agents, when the agents can simply come back and say they were protecting the US from terrorists? I suggest zero as a rough starting estimate.
DA’s never get prosecuted for malicious prosecution, malfeasance/misfeasance. Even reporting on those egeregious cases is rare. Success and restitution, even rarer.
ericblair
@pete:
Yes, the manifest and passport information gets passed to US immigration before the flight arrives. I’d use the same passport at UK checkin as through US immigration just to avoid some unnecessary confusion and bullshit. Obviously discrepancies can happen from missed and late flights, but there’s no reason to use different passports here.
Svensker
@Jager:
That’s probably a birth record. The state you were born in should be able to issue you an official “birth certificate” (see: Obama, Barack) with a stamp and everything on it so you don’t have to carry around your doctor’s record. Many places don’t accept the hospital/doctor’s record anyway as an official document.
pete
@ericblair: Thanks! Though why I should accept as gospel anything from someone with your nym is beyond me. (I tried to add a symbol indicating humor, and was foiled by inferior intelligence.)
Brachiator
@R-Jud:
In California, there might be about two people who didn’t match this description. OK, maybe four.
And there are millions of Latinos who don’t fit any stereotype of whatever “brown people” is supposed to mean with respect to their physical appearance.
Rafer Janders
And there are millions of Latinos who don’t fit any stereotype of whatever “brown people” is supposed to mean with respect to their physical appearance.
Yeah, Latino is really more of a linguistic/cultural group rather than an ethnic group. I know several blonde/red-haired/pale-skinned/blue-eyed etc. Latin Americans (mainly Mexicans, Brazilians and Argentinians of German/English/Irish/Italian etc. descent). They’re generally physically indistinguishable from Northern Europeans, though they are classified as Latino because Spanish (or Portuguese) is their native language.
Rafer Janders
@Brachiator:
Never met any blonde surfer chicks?
ericblair
@Rafer Janders:
Yep, I know some blonde Mexicans. Funny that they don’t tend to run into problems with immigration agents.
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
I used to joke that at USC even the blonde surfer chicks are Asian.
It’s more fun even than this. A friend of mine was born in Mexico, but many Armenians assume that she is also Armenian.
And recently, the LA Times had a dumb ass article suggesting that Southern California Latinos would not “embrace” newly acquired Angel Albert Pujols because he is Dominican, you know, too black, although they were too polite to put it that way.
Narrow tribalism.
Robert Sneddon
@ericblair: If you present a British passport at US Immigration they will treat you as a British citizen, not suprisingly. In that case you will have been required to fill in all sorts of paperwork (on-line if you feel like it) before you turn up on US soil, be pre-cleared by the US State Dept and pay a fee for the privilege. If you didn’t jump through all these hoops you might find yourself on the next plane back to Blighty.
https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ (they take credit cards).
This is only for folks the US likes, you understand, such as British or Irish visitors. Other nationalities have to get a real visa which can take months and cost them hundreds of dollars even if their application is rejected.
There’s nothing stopping you using a US passport though if you’re a US citizen and possess one.
Jager
@Svensker: The state records were photo copies of the original handwritten certificates by the doc…the old black and white photographic style copies. They updated the system sometime later. And yes it is a bitch to be on the cutting edge of the baby boom!
b-psycho
@Paul in KY: If that’s “fierce” she does it rather well…
Jason
Wow. Talk about poster girl politics. “Now that I’ve discovered they are detaining /pretty girl/ hispanics, I find my anti-illegal immigrant hysteria wavering.”
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I have a pretty common name so I was on the watch list until one agent told me that I needed to hook my name and frequent flier number together. He took care of it at his terminal, took about a minute and no problems since. That was about 7 yrs ago, don’t know if they still do that. So now my name shows up as ron jackass42,567 instead of just ron jackass. But what do I care?
Paul in KY
@b-psycho: I agree. She’s a very pretty girl & I wouldn’t want her doing that face at me.