August 03, 2007
Border Control
It's interesting that we make little effort to detect and stop illegal immigrants from coming into our country but have the resources to "catch" and falsely arrest one of our kids, who was returning from a trip to Europe.
Atlanta (AP) - A high school student returning home from a European soccer trip got a different welcome than he expected: He was jailed for eight hours over a ticket he had already paid.Customs officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport checked Stephen Kelsey's passport Monday and found an arrest warrant for failure to appear in court on a ticket given for rolling through a stop sign.
Even though he had already paid the $175 fine, the 17-year-old was taken to the Fulton County jail.
"Somebody made a mistake, and here I am having to be handcuffed in front of my coaches, my mom, my brother and my teammates," Kelsey said.
Nice. A seventeen year old kid gets treated worse than an illegal adult. Where are our politicians and their compassion on this? Oh wait, the kid might take a job from a Mexican.
Posted by Woody M. at August 3, 2007 09:00 AM | TrackBackA seventeen year old kid gets treated worse than an illegal adult.
Er... I hate that the kid got arrested due to a bookkeeping error but, uhm, what could this possibly have to do with illegal aliens?
Posted by e. nonee moose at August 3, 2007 03:40 PM
Bookkeeping error? Why, it was not a problem with books but rather sorry government employees.
The connection is my uncanny ability to find anything wrong and connect it with Democrats and anything that they support.
In this case, we have controls to supposedly determine if our citizens re-entering this country have an arrest warrant, and then we detain them if they do. However, illegal aliens can keep getting arrested over and over with nothing that local law enforcement can do about it. It seems that customs has more ways to catch legals than illegals.
Posted by Woody at August 3, 2007 04:11 PM
As with most government offices, "it's not my yob." Immigration and Naturalization Services, one of the least efficient and most despised of government agencies, has sharp divisions between the people handling theoretically legal and theoretically illegal persons. Both are incompetent in their own way. Those handling illegals are so overwhelmed with numbers that their efforts are rather random, even desultory. Those dealing with legals are pettifogging empire-builders of the worst order.
I get moose's point that the two can be considered separately. But in the larger scheme of things, it is more than ironic where that agency puts its resources.
Posted by Assistant Village Idiot at August 3, 2007 08:51 PM
His crime was treason.
Playing soccer and going to Europe to play.
;-)
Posted by Joerg - Atlantic Review at August 5, 2007 07:54 AM
Last night, I watched a short TV segment that wondered why we do not pay attention to serious problems in the press, but go after conduct ranging from silly to criminal, of "celebrities", all - I should add - who send "permission slips" to young people..and not so young, re: what behaviors are acceptable...even laudable.
The issue was the fallen bridge in Minnesota.
Bridges just sitting there do not make for "hard hitting" tv news. Further, they don't do much in written media either.
Most Americans, it would appear, want to be entertained with the news, not necessarily informed about serious issues. Many serious issues are not "sexy" and all that interesting. What we want, and get, are fast-paced action pieces.
So, it would appear the days of real investigative journalism has given way to mostly "show me something: burning/crashed/exploded/kidnapped/etc."
I don't wish to minimize those items, but when we do not go after the really big stuff....in the proactive mode, vice the reactive, we get what we get.
Same deal with border security. We are not really, really serious about it. We kinda/sorta say we are and dicker with semi-solutions meant not to offend anyone. That, of course, is silly. You cannot apply controls to anything without making someone unhappy.
We need to do some more growing up and be more interesting in doing the right thing vice what is popular.
Or, so I think.
Posted by tad at August 5, 2007 09:14 AM
