“It’s important to understand how disturbing it might be for a father to be told he cannot follow the police to the location where they are taking his child. In many places, you have to follow the police when they take your loved one so you know which jail they end up in. If you don’t, they disappear.”
Ricardo, our facilitator and translator interrupted the speaker to make sure we all understood the context of her story. This Sunday, she and about 15 other Portland Latino community members had come together at a meeting organized by MIRC – the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition (of which we are a member) to hear about issues impacting immigrants in Maine.
The El Salvadorian woman was talking about her cousin who was stopped in a Maine Walmart while speaking Spanish with his father. Out of nowhere a plain clothed ICE official tapped him on the shoulder and asked him for his documents. Father has a workers permit but her cousin doesn’t. He was arrested immediately and taken away in a van. When his father attempted to follow the van, he was pulled over and told that would not be allowed. They could think of no other reason that he would have been questioned other than language.
While that particular story was about ICE, many others told stories about perceived profiling by state and local police, and the concern about fear and context is true regardless of which agency the officer represents.
Fortunately, all Maine law enforcement agencies have a clear policy banning bias-based profiling - defined as stopping, detaining, searching or seizing based on "race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, economic status, age or cultural group rather than solely on an individual's conduct and behavior or specific suspect information."
And no matter which state you live in, all of us have the fundamental right not to be profiled or discriminated against because of our race or national origin.
Here in Maine we also have leaders in law enforcement committed to understanding and addressing the experiences of those who feel they have been profiled wrongly and to provide information to community members about proper police procedures and lawful stops. The ACLU of Maine is working with the other members of Maine's A
dvisory Committee on Bias-Based Profiling to hold a statewide community forum to share stories, hear from law enforcement, and develop collaborative solutions to keep all of us safe and free.
Every law enforcement agency in Maine has a policy prohibiting profiling -but they can't do anything about it if they don't hear about it.
So if you care about this issue or feel you have been profiled, please register for the statewide community forum on October 12th at the Portland Public Library and read more about it on Facebook.
And if you speak Spanish, check out the new Spanish language ACLU page.