Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote these words in supporting yesterday’s cruel and unusual Supreme Court ruling upholding racial profiling in immigration raids.
“The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs; who work or appear to work in jobs such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, or car washes that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English. If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go.”
Let us be clear. The United States government apparently now believes, and the Supreme Court has affirmed, that working freelance makes you a suspect. Hammering the siding of a house or fixing a gutter makes you a suspect. Tinkering with a garden makes you a suspect. Cleaning cars makes you a suspect. Speaking a language other than English in public makes you a suspect.
The law of the land, in the wake of this ruling, seems to be: “Show us your papers.” The holding, at bottom, is that the burden of belonging has quietly shifted. It is now on you, at any moment, when the masked men come, to prove you are lawfully here. As the factors of suspicion pile up, we will soon all be illegal until proven citizen.
Of course, if everyone is presumed guilty of being Other, no one meaningfully belongs.
I’m not sure the vast majority of people quite understand what has happened here. Let’s revisit and keep in mind that old concept of the “slippery slope.”
This isn’t just a bad or corrupt decision. This is the end of the Supreme Court of the United States as a legitimate branch of government. This decision basically says the government can round up any “undesirable person” of any group it deems to be possibly engaging in any activity it chooses to deem unlawful, including your very existence. To my white heterosexual people out there: do you meet at the coffee shop on Saturday to discuss Anand’s new book? Who’s to say you aren’t contemplating engaging in activity to overthrow the present Trump regime? The government has determined you might be, so off to the detention center you go until (maybe) they can figure out “what the hell is happening here.” This is where this decision leads. Yes, it leads, even to you. Never mind, if you belong to any minority group whatsoever.
The Court has fallen.
First they came for the ….