Justin showed me this article about a thirteen-year-old Guatemalan boy who vanished while crossing the Mexican border illegally to join his mom in Arizona. I have not heard of this kid before. He’s been missing for two months and it really doesn’t look good. It seems unclear whether he vanished on American or Mexican soil — thereby giving both country’s authorities an excuse not to look for him.
What really gets my goat, though, is the barrage of ugly, vicious, racist comments attached to the article:
She is illegal and so is her son. I care nothing if they are found dead in the desert…The more of them found dead, the better off the world is.
Another one down…how many to go?
Good riddance to this gang banger.
And there was another comment, which I can’t find now and must have gotten deleted (and rightly so), saying something like “Her son is dead and he’s a good boy, because the only good wetback is a dead wetback.”
No matter how you stand on the immigration issue, you’d think people would feel some compassion for this child, and his mother. If this boy disappeared on American soil, then the American authorities have an obligation to look for him, the same way they’d have an obligation to look for someone from, say, China, or England, who disappeared within the United States borders.
The racism inherent in the illegal immigration issue bothers me a lot. If you are in this country illegally, you are MUCH less likely to be deported if you’re white. When people come here seeking asylum, either they’re let go on bond until their court date, or they’re put in immigration detention, and it’s a proven fact that people of color are MUCH more likely to be put in detention than white people. There was this one guy I know about who disappeared in Texas, and who was originally who was from Russia. I saw a board post from the police officer whose department was investigating the case, saying they had found the Russian man alive and well in another state. The cop added, and I quote, “He’s here illegally, but because he’s not Hispanic and he’s not Middle Eastern, we’re not going to do anything about it.”
I was horrified. I mean, I don’t especially care whether they deported the person or not. But I was shocked and deeply saddened that a public official would openly state that they were not going to enforce the immigration law in his case for the sole reason that he was white. The guy was every bit as illegal as someone who’d crossed over from Mexico. It’s like a judge saying at sentencing, on the record and in front of everyone, “Well, if you were a black guy you would be getting five years for this offense, but since you’re white, I’ll let you off with probation.” Disgusting.
What is it about illegal immigration that seems to rile up so many people, even more than crimes like murder and selling drugs? I mean, for example, you don’t see a lot of people saying “Who cares about Haleigh Cummings, her parents were drug-dealing criminals and they deserved to lose their kid, and she would have turned out the same way as them” or something like that. I am horrified by these people’s utter lack of empathy. I swear it makes me want to cry.
UPDATE: I found this article with photos of the missing boy. They think they might have found his body, but they’re not sure.
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