Thread: At least they don't racially profile

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Cheryl Kuehn, Georgia, Illegal immigrants
At least they don't racially profile
By Arthur Weinreb
Thursday, April 12, 2007

On Tuesday, the Ottawa Citizen broke a story about Cheryl Kuehn. The 23-year-old was driving to Florida to visit her in-laws after completing her Masters of Social Work program at Carleton University. In southern Georgia she was arrested after pulling off I-95 for going through a stop sign and speeding. Although her husband who was with her was able to post a bond for her release, Kuehn was held for 11 hours under seemingly horrific conditions until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could determine that she was not in the United States illegally.

This seems to be quite a bizarre story considering that the U.S. is plush with sanctuary cities where illegals can be arrested for serious felonies without ever having their immigration status checked. Being an illegal immigrant, oops, an "undocumented worker" is pretty well a legitimate status in itself. Obviously the Georgia police don't see it that way.

Georgia has always had a bad reputation for their treatment of out of state drivers who commit relatively minor traffic offences. Lester Maddox, the state's governor in the late 60s and early 70s even had the state erect billboards warning the unwary about upcoming speed traps. It seems not much has changed since the late Governor Maddox was in office.

An investigation was launched by the state about the Cheryl Kuehn's treatment that included being strip searched and thrown into a cell where she was jeered by other inmates. According to police and jail officials, they were just following a new state law that mandated that Kuehn be held until her immigration status could be determined. Only time will tell, but it is possible that the Georgia officials misunderstood the law that is supposed to apply only to serious felonies like drunk driving and not to minor traffic infractions such as speeding or going through stop signs.

In a longer version of the Citizen article by Andrew Seymour that appeared on driving.ca, Kuehn was quoted as saying, "I'm not a terrorist. I'm a blond, petite woman from Canada, trying to go to Florida to celebrate graduating my master's in social work. They knew I was a tourist from Canada. They were treating me like an (illegal) immigrant."

After going what she went through it is completely understandable that the university student feels the way she does. Nobody can blame her. She doesn't look like a terrorist or a criminal. Hell, she doesn't even look like a person who would go through a stop sign or exceed the speed limit. What is interesting is not how she views what happened to her during an innocent trip to Florida, but how others who can be more objective will view it.

Let's face it; had Kuehn been a 23-year-old black male from Toronto on a two-week vacation from the grind of the pharmaceutical business, no one would have given the incident a second thought. What happened to Cheryl Kuehn shouldn't have happened, but many people will agree that it shouldn't have happened to her because: a) she's a blond woman, b) she's white and c) she's a Canadian.

Whatever flak the state officials in Georgia take and whatever consequences they face if indeed they did misinterpret the law and acted in an unlawful manner, they should at least be commended for what they did right – they don't engage in racial profiling. Treating foreign nationals from Canada in the same way that foreign nationals from Mexico are treated cannot possibly be bad. And if the law is going to be applied harshly or wrongly, it should be comforting to know that white blond women from Canada are being treated in the same manner as Muslim men from Saudi Arabia. The anti-racial profiling activists should be singing the praises of the Georgia police for treating Kuehn in the manner that they did.

Those who are outraged both at Kuehn's treatment and racial profiling should really ask themselves if what they are thinking is not just a tad inconsistent.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/weinreb041207.htm

When 30,000,000 Kuehn's sneak into my country I will begin to be upset. Currently I am focused on the 30,000,000 Mexicans who are already here illegally.