Paul Cuadros
Two months ago I was on my way to the Sunday soccer pickup game in Pittsboro with my friend Francisco. It was a beautiful, cool, sunny afternoon, and so we wore our sunglasses as I drove to the elementary school where people gather from all over Chatham County to play.
As I passed the courthouse circle, I spotted one of Pittsboro's finest in my rear view mirror.

Francisco and I both knew instantly what was going to happen. We were two Hispanic men in dark sunglasses on a slow Sunday afternoon. A wave of emotions flowed over me: from anger to frustration to resignation.

The police car followed me for at least a mile and through four turns and finally hit his lights when I pulled into the school for our game. Francisco, who sports a military-style haircut, flashed a smile and shook his head and said, "Driving while brown."

The federal immigration program 287 (g) has been in the news lately in both Orange and Chatham counties. This is the program that trains county sheriff's deputies to check the immigration status of every person taken into custody. Its use has become controversial because some immigrant rights and Latino groups say it leads to racial profiling by those deputies. If you have never been racially profiled, then you don't know how much control it takes to restrain your anger over the violation of your civil liberties.

The program now adds an extra level of suspicion in the already suspicious minds of some law enforcement officers when it comes to Latinos. Now instead of just asking for my license and registration I might have to answer questions about my legal status. If I forget to bring my driver's license, I might be on a bus to a detention center.

How do you prove you are a U.S. citizen in your car? What documents do you bring in your Ford to prove you were born here? Officers see all kinds of fake IDs. How do you convince someone who has just stopped you and questioned you and is suspicious of you?

With the power of 287 (g), deputies may take Latino U.S. citizens into custody under the guise of checking their immigrant status back at the jail. A small infraction that would never result in an arrest, like forgetting your driver's license, can have immense consequences.

This is the pernicious thing behind 287 (g) and its little brother, the "Secure Communities" program. Citizenship questions are only asked because of the way you look or the way you sound. My father was a naturalized U.S. citizen but never lost his Spanish accent. It's a free country, but freer for some more than others.

There are many in Orange and Chatham who think that profiling doesn't happen now. They are wrong. I cannot tell how many times over the past several years I have gone through license checkpoints in Siler City driving a soccer kid home from a game. The checkpoints would be set up right in front of his neighborhood, which is predominantly Latino.

When you're stopped by the police, you go through a mental checklist to find what it is you did wrong to get pulled over. I wasn't driving fast; the courthouse circle prevents that. And I didn't miss any stop signs or lights, again the circle. I hadn't had a ticket in three years, my license was just renewed and my registration, plates and vehicle test were up to date.

After asking for my license and registration and keeping me and Francisco waiting for what seemed an unusually long time to check my information, the young cop walked up and leaned down to tell me why he had stopped me. He said my license plate monthly sticker had faded. The year was fine, new in fact, but the month was hard to see. He just wanted to let me know that. I knew exactly what he wanted me to know.

Paul Cuadros is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC. Contact him at pcuadros@mindspring.com.

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/news/story/41670.html