Not in My Hurricane Shelter

Matt Welch | October 3, 2005

Here's a queer usage of federal Marshals:

LONG BEACH, Miss. -- Last Wednesday, police and the U.S. Marshals Service swept into a Red Cross shelter for hurricane refugees here. They blocked the parking lot and exits and demanded identification from about 60 people who looked Hispanic, including some pulled out of the shower and bathroom, according to witnesses. The shelter residents were told to leave within two days or else they would be deported.

Comments

|10.3.05 @ 12:13PM|#

Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.

Baylen|10.3.05 @ 12:15PM|#

Tancredo's a U.S. marshall?

|10.3.05 @ 12:21PM|#

It's called gettin' 'em while the gettin's good.

Mike|10.3.05 @ 12:34PM|#

It just pisses me off that this country has turned into a "give me your papers" police state without very much fuss.

Hakluyt|10.3.05 @ 12:34PM|#

"You will respect my authoritah! (sic)"

|10.3.05 @ 12:39PM|#

It just pisses me off that this country has turned into a "give me your papers" police state without very much fuss.

Well, you see, we have to limit the wonderful services provided by our government in the wake of these two hurricanes to legal American citizens. Why do you hate our police state?

Timothy|10.3.05 @ 12:54PM|#

I think deportation is a fine penalty for being here illegally, but it still makes this a huge waste of resources, not to mention immoral.

My dad and some clients of his got stopped along the border in South Texas the other week for being four guys in a van. US Citizens all, they hadn't even left the country and come back.

|10.3.05 @ 2:59PM|#

It looks to me like libertarians are on the side of Mexicans who are taking jobs that could go to Americans affected by the storm. If they're willing to make that choice, can they be trusted in public office? Thankfully, unless they're able to buy Diebold, we'll never find out.

"Local contractors agreed to house workers they are hiring for cleanup work and other jobs in tents at worksites..."

"We were concerned with the growing numbers of the Hispanic population and whether or not we had displaced residents of southern Mississippi from the hurricane or workers brought in from other areas using the shelter as base camp," he said. Contractors, not relief groups, are responsible for providing housing to workers, he added.

Meanwhile, undocumented workers are likely to be a major part of the massive cleanup and rebuilding, competing for jobs against some non-Hispanics thrown out of work by the hurricanes."

|10.3.05 @ 3:39PM|#

"They took er jerbs!"

The US government seems perfectly happy to keep a two-tier economy going, to satisfy both companies who want to pay less for their workers and people who want low-skill jobs done for them. Except... every once in a while we have to make a show of rounding up a few illegals to placate the real losers - low-skill Americans - who have the rather inconvenient right to vote.

|10.3.05 @ 4:13PM|#

Tyson Foods, Home Depot, Wal Mart et al must have been late with their "campaign contributions".

|10.3.05 @ 4:33PM|#

"Meanwhile, undocumented workers are likely to be a major part of the massive cleanup and rebuilding, competing for jobs against some non-Hispanics thrown out of work by the hurricanes."

Before I form an opinion on this, TLB, I need to know: just what % of these "non-hispanics" are white?

|10.3.05 @ 9:04PM|#

It's getting so hard to tell the difference between satire and libertarian policy.

|10.3.05 @ 9:47PM|#

Rhywun:
"Except... every once in a while we have to make a show of rounding up a few illegals to placate the real losers - low-skill Americans - who have the rather inconvenient right to vote."

That is the saddest fact of all. Most low skill Americans I know do not vote, but piss and whine while the illegals take their jobs.

|10.4.05 @ 10:57AM|#

joe,

since it is Mississippi and Lousiana we are talking about, I'd think most of said "non-hispanics" happen to be black. Thoughts?

|10.4.05 @ 11:20AM|#

There are increasingly more and more hispanics in Louisiana. After living in Texico in the 90's and moving back to La. I noticed that the population of hispanics aka mexicans living in the area had gone up significantly. My theory is that there are so many in the border states now that they are overly saturated for th enumber of jobs available to them so they must then spread out further and further to take jobs that no one ever did to begin with. Wait if no one was doing the jobs to begin with how were we getting those things done before the mexican invasion or workers came to our rescue? Could it be that we had americans doing those jobs, maybe just maybe this could be the case. But then these hard working "immigrants," came along to help us out with all we weren't getting done before their arrival. How fortunate for us they even offered to do the work no one else ever did for 1/2 as much as we didn't pay others to not do that same job. Everyones a winner right?