Fitzsimon File

The folks in Alamance County must be feeling awfully safe these days. A popular local librarian was arrested at work by sheriff's deputies and three children, one just six years old, were left to fend for themselves in a car on the side of an interstate highway at 2:00 in the morning after their mother was dragged away in handcuffs.

Just for good measure any undocumented students in the county can forget about attending the local community college this fall even if they graduated at the top of their high school class and are able to pay out of state tuition, roughly 140 percent of what it cost the state to educate a student at a community college.

As disturbing as the events in Alamance County have been in recent days, they aren't much of a surprise. Sheriff Terry Johnson seems proud of his reputation as one of the most aggressive local law enforcement officials in the country in arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants and last year he revealed where some of his zealotry comes from, declaring that undocumented immigrants have bad morals and describing them as alcoholics and pedophiles.

The News & Observer reported this week that the librarian, 23-year-old Marxavi Angel Martinez, has been in the community since her parents brought her here as a toddler when they came from Mexico.

Martinez became an honor student and cheerleader at school and her arrest at the library shocked her coworkers and friends, several of whom have been attending her court hearings where Martinez always arrives shackled and chained. Can't be too careful with a librarian.

Sheriff Johnson says he was told about Martinez's immigration status by an employee of the county health department where she was receiving prenatal care, prompting concerns that county workers have been looking at confidential medical records. 

Martinez faces charges of using a false social security number and could spend several years in prison before being deported.

Two weeks ago Maria Chavira Ventura's three children spent the night in a car on the side of Interstate 85 after a deputy took her away in handcuffs for driving without a license or valid plate. A man riding in the car left the scene out of fear of being deported.

Officials in Johnson's office don't apologize for the way the arrest was handled and dispute Ventura's account that the deputy didn't ask about the children staying with the man. Johnson declined to be interviewed by the N & O about what role any information in Martinez' supposedly confidential health records played in her arrest at the library.

The incidents have focused state and national attention again on Alamance County and Johnson's open disdain for some of the people in his community. It is also a reminder of the tone of the current political debate that helps enable Johnson's hateful rhetoric, with both major candidates for governor trying to outpander each other about banning undocumented students from enrolling in community college.

Attorney General Roy Cooper last week reversed his May position that federal law prohibits the students from enrolling after receiving a memo from federal authorities that said access to higher education is not a benefit under federal law.

The board that sets community college policy voted to ban the students from campus in May and will consider the issue again at its August meeting, but any change would be too late for students who want to enroll in classes this fall.

That's quite a week. And expect more children abandoned on highways and more families ripped apart if Johnson and likeminded officials get their way and politicians who know better keep refusing to confront them.

The only hope lies in the vast majority of people in the state who have stayed mostly silent as the anti-immigrant rhetoric continues to turn more dangerous and hateful.  A retired librarian who knew Martinez told the News & Observer that it is insane "to go after productive citizens who have been our neighbors and friends for years."

Insane indeed, and it will keep happening until more people say enough and demand that people are treated like human beings and that Congress finally does its job and passes comprehensive immigration reform. 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.