Silly Folks

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Kennedy: Families Pay The Price For Failed System

They apparently name this mess “Operation Return to Sender”. How… cute. 

Boston Herald

All over New Bedford on Tuesday, hundreds of women and men woke up, kissed their children goodbye and left for another day of work at Michael Bianco Inc. They knew it would be a grueling day because there was no other kind of day in the sweatshop-like conditions of the factory. But they were willing to work hard and without complaint because they believed in the American Dream, in which hard work creates a hope for a better life - if not for them, then for their children.

What happened next was a tragic example of the desperate state of our current immigration policy. Hundreds of armed police and immigration officers raided the factory, creating panic among the workers. They handcuffed unarmed men and women in the same factory where the workers had already known nothing but indignity at the hands of their employer.

While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was ready with hundreds of officers to subdue a group of frightened workers, they were woefully unprepared to deal with the aftermath of their own raid. The DHS knew that it would be detaining young parents, and yet had no effective plan to identify and help the children who would be left alone. The photographs of bewildered, crying children told with eloquence the story of a government operation distinguished by its callousness.

Pot Haulers Are Laid Back Too, I Guess

For some reason I just can’t see this happening with a cocaine shipment. 

From BBC

An abandoned consignment of marijuana with a street value of $20m (£10.3m) was found in California when a policeman went to check on a lorry.

The vehicle was unlocked and the engine warm, but no-one was in the cab.

The patrolman found plastic-wrapped bundles of the drug in the back of the rental vehicle near Los Angeles after smelling marijuana, AP said.

[...]

“Somebody’s going be in some major trouble for walking away and leaving that quantity sitting on the side of the freeway,” said Sgt Telfinues Preszler Jnr of the California Highway Patrol .

“I’m glad I’m not him.”

He suggested the engine might have overheated, causing the vehicle to be abandoned along with three tons of marijuana on a slip road in the city of Ontario late on Wednesday. (emphasis added)

For want of a nail…

This story cracks me up. Maybe the shippers were broke until after they were paid for the delivery, and so couldn’t afford to service a truck carrying millions of dollars worth of (illegal) goods. Or even provide a spare water bottle.