by
Alex
Kormann/The
Minnesota
Star
Tribune
via
Getty
Images)
I
know
a
little
place
where
the
ingredients
are
always
fresh.
You
can
get
a
mega-burrito
and
a
Dos
Equis
to
wash
it
down
for
not
much
more
than
10
bucks.
If
you’re
in
a
bad
mood
when
you
arrive,
you
won’t
be
for
long,
because
the
workers
smile,
they
laugh,
they
seem
like
they’re
having
so
much
fun
making
your
food
just
the
way
you
like
it
that
you
can’t
help
but
start
to
feel
like
you’re
having
a
little
fun
yourself.
When
I’m
in
there
with
my
parents,
the
staff
are
careful
to
treat
them
(and
any
other
older
people)
with
respect.
Someone
always
comes
around
from
behind
the
counter
to
carry
my
mom’s
food
to
her
table
for
her.
Last
week
my
favorite
burrito
shop
was
dark.
The
door
was
locked.
A
note
posted
outside
indicated
that
they
would
be
closed
for
the
foreseeable
future
for
kitchen
renovations.
No
mention
had
been
made
of
upcoming
renovations
at
any
of
my
prior
visits
though.
With
ICE
known
to
be
skulking
about,
it
didn’t
exactly
take
Sherlock
Holmes
to
figure
out
what
had
really
happened.
Immigration
agents
reportedly
kidnapped
several
of
the
employees
and
are
in
the
process
of
deporting
them.
I
confirmed
this
as
best
I
could,
which
basically
meant
asking
people
in
the
area
what
they
had
heard,
because
the
Department
of
Homeland
Security
generally
won’t
tell
taxpayers
(their
bosses)
who
they
are
taking
or
what
they
are
doing
with
them.
I
say
“kidnapped”
because
this
most
definitely
was
not
an
“arrest”
and
there
is
no
better
word
for
what
actually
took
place.
When
a
police
officer
takes
another
person
into
custody,
he
or
she
is
acting
under
the
color
of
legal
authority.
This
police
officer
must
respect
the
constitutional
rights
of
the
accused,
and
must
have
probable
cause
indicating
that
the
person
being
arrested
has
committed
a
crime.
When
police
officers
make
arrests,
their
badges
and
the
badge
numbers
on
them
are
visible,
their
last
names
are
stitched
into
their
uniforms,
and
their
faces
are
uncovered,
so
that
if
your
rights
are
indeed
violated
while
you
are
in
custody,
you
know
who
to
complain
about
later
on.
When
a
police
officer
goes
beyond
the
legal
authority
with
which
he
or
she
is
entrusted,
that
police
officer
is
subject
to
disciplinary
action,
civil
liability,
or
even
criminal
prosecution.
The
color
of
someone’s
skin
or
the
fact
that
they
speak
English
with
an
accent
does
not
amount
to
probable
cause.
Simply
being
an
undocumented
immigrant
is
not
even,
on
its
own,
a
crime.
The
president
—
who
has
himself
been
convicted
of
far
more
serious
crimes
than
almost
all
of
the
people
his
administration
is
deporting
—
calling
some
thug
a
police
officer
does
not
make
him
one.
Masked,
unaccountable,
unidentifiable
ICE
agents
who
trample
the
constitutional
rights
of
every
person
they
encounter
are
not
law
enforcement.
One
cannot
enforce
the
law
by
breaking
the
law,
and
the
Constitution
is
the
supreme
law
of
the
land.
These
are
kidnappings,
plain
and
simple.
I
give
far
less
of
a
damn
about
who
was
born
on
what
side
of
some
imaginary
line
drawn
on
a
map
by
a
bunch
of
dead
guys
than
I
do
about
whether
a
person
is
fundamentally
good
or
evil.
Even
if
you
do
fixate
on
ancient
cartography,
you
should
not
support
the
cruelty
and
the
lawlessness
inflicted
on
the
millions
of
hardworking,
innocent
people
who
came
to
this
country
for
decades
under
a
system
that
welcomed
them
in
with
a
wink.
We
needed
their
labor
and
their
other
contributions
to
the
economy,
but
to
change
the
law
to
bring
them
in
more
officially
would
have
required
our
useless
lawmakers
to
get
off
their
asses
for
once
and
would
have
prevented
American
bosses
from
exploiting
immigrant
employees
so
easily.
The
individuals
who
worked
at
my
favorite
burrito
shop
are
good
people.
They
didn’t
deserve
this.
The
local
economy
didn’t
deserve
this.
I
didn’t
deserve
to
lose
food
I
liked
and
a
place
I
felt
welcome.
If
you
support
what
ICE
is
doing,
I
don’t
care
what
you
say
your
reasons
for
that
are,
because
I
know
the
real
reason:
you
are
a
bad
person
who
enjoys
other
people’s
suffering.
I
see
the
real
you,
and
so
does
everyone
else.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD (affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].