"Gregory Bovino, the officer in charge of roving immigration enforcement in American cities, admitted this week that his agents arrest people based on "how they look." Asked by a WBEZ reporter to elaborate, Bovino said the pertinent question was how "they" appear as "compared to" the reporter, a white man. Bovino's candor stripped away any pretense: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are detaining individuals because they look Latino."
"Although the majority did not explain its decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh tried to muster a defense in a solo concurrence whose reasoning crumbled upon scrutiny. Kavanaugh insisted that ICE agents may use a person's "apparent ethnicity" as a "relevant factor" when deciding whether to arrest them. But he assured readers that agents may use ethnicity only in combination with other, nonracial factors when deciding whom to target."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are detaining and arresting people based on perceived appearance, specifically targeting individuals who look Latino. A recent Supreme Court decision authorized consideration of a person's "apparent ethnicity" as a relevant factor in immigration stops, with the caveat that ethnicity be combined with nonracial factors. That legal permission has emboldened enforcement practices that already resulted in violent harassment and extended detentions of American citizens. Claims that such stops are typically brief and harmless are contradicted by documented incidents, creating heightened risk to civil liberties and unequal treatment for Latino communities.
Read at Slate Magazine
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