By Kathryn Olson, 2010 summer intern
Yesterday, invoking our history as a “nation of immigrants,” President Obama made an eloquent call for comprehensive immigration reform.
While Obama’s moving acceptance of diversity in this country is welcome, it is clear that the trend toward beefing up “border security” without concern for the consequences to border residents continues unabated.
Sad to say, but “border security” has become a euphemism for policies that erode Texans’ basic fundamental rights.
Unfortunately, the President failed to address what increased “border security” has meant for Texans living along the border. For many Texans, “border security” means: a wall snaking through family farms, an ever growing presence of federal law enforcement, border patrol shootings, and increasing complaints of racial profiling by local law enforcement.
As the ACLU of Texas has already shown, increased federal funding for local law enforcement increases racial profiling, not security.
