ACLU Fighting for Illegal Aliens

I stumbled across these two stories today from my local rag the AJC and found it just a little curious. They were curious because in both instances they raise the specter of racial profiling in regards to a local police department and their enforcement of immigration laws and both are written by the same reporter.

The police department in question is Cobb County in Georgia and they are one of a handful of counties who are allowed to detain suspects until their immigration status can be determined. I have written about it before, because most citizens view the program as a success and even the reporter mentions some of the statistics.

As the Georgia county with the longest track record, Cobb’s program bears further examination. Since July 2007, 6,386 inmates suspected of being illegal immigrants have been detained for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to records provided by the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office.

About of third of those inmates were jailed for traffic offenses such as driving without a license. Drunken driving was the next most common charge. Four murder suspects, 10 alleged rapists and 27 suspected child molesters were also among those detained for federal immigration officials.

That isn't what got my attention though. The above information was included in the first report posted this morning just before 10 o'clock under the title Cobb policy: Law enforcement or racial profiling?
In the second story posted a little before 2 o'clock she has this headline. ACLU: Report documents racial profiling in Cobb

In it she includes a story that can only be classified as anecdotal at best, about an unnamed individual who was supposedly detained for driving without a license and spent 18 days in jail. I say anecdotal since they use a pseudonym for a name and then do not provide anymore information about how his situation is related to his immigration status. It does mention that he has been pulled over before, therefore reading between the lines I would assume he is in the country legally.

According to one account, "Federico" was stopped for having a malfunctioning brake light on a Saturday afternoon while driving home with his family from a trip to the park. He was arrested for driving without a license and spent 18 days in jail. The report doesn't state which police department made the arrest.

Federico stated he had been stopped many times while driving in Cobb County. He said he was aware of many other Latinos that also had been pulled over "for no good reason."

I particularly love the part about being pulled over "for no good reason". Quick show of hands. How many of us have said the exact same thing when telling our friends about the BS ticket we just got?

Okay, put your hands down.

I am not saying the reporter has a certain angle in mind when writing these stories, and maybe she was just on a roll with the racism thing or under pressure from an editor. But whatever the case is, I would think that in at least the second story her editor would have made her back up the story with some sort of proof the "Federico" existed and some way to confirm his story and conveyed that information to the reader. As it is, it's just another fairy tale that makes a good human interest story, just like the part about that he was driving home from the park. They could have stopped the sentence right after writing driving home.

Anyway, kudos the the Cobb County sheriff's department. Keep up the good work, because one thing that isn't in dispute is the FACTS contained in the first story.

Four murder suspects, 10 alleged rapists and 27 suspected child molesters were also among those detained for federal immigration officials.

Oh and the ACLU might want to pay attention to what the first letter in their organization name stands for.