U.S. citizenship to be checked in event of a storm

Source: Houston Chronicle

BROWNSVILLE — Ending speculation about the fate of the Rio Grande Valley's undocumented immigrants during a hurricane evacuation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has confirmed it will check the citizenship both of people boarding buses to leave the Valley and at inland traffic checkpoints.

Those determined to be in the country illegally will be taken to detention centers away from the hurricane's path and later processed for deportation.

<snip>

Locals responded with predictions of humanitarian disaster.

<snip>

"Imagine," Seifert said. "We're all in an uproar, everybody's in an enormous hurry, there's just a narrow window of opportunity and you get to the place with the buses and the Border Patrol's checking people. You're not going to go."


Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5784300.html

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I'm at a loss for words.

... check people's papers rather than move people the hell out of there. :sarcasm:

you should read the comments to the story -- such hatred for "immigrants" illegal or not.

OMFG! Where's my passport???!!!

recently with less than a 5 minute warning. In fact, when was the last cyclone to hit us?

If you did have more than five minutes, wouldn't you want to gather some important papers?

What would you take?

Same thing, just different word for hemisphere.

If I had only 5 minutes, I'd catch all the animals living with me, making sure my family was all together, shut off power, try to grab my needed medicine and purse (which contains my needed medicine and passport, but most people I know don't carry theirs all the time).

...the technical term for hurricane, often used by the NWS, is tropical cyclone, which describes ALL large circular weather systems which derive their energy from warm water and convection. In fact, any system of spinning air is a cyclone; there are different types. Tornados are cyclones. The original criticism is on par with complaining that you called their car a vehicle.

ALL the survival literature says think of what you would pack if you only had 10 minutes to and could never come back ever.

Even the government's own documents talk like this.

It was forecast to come right up my driveway in the Tarpon Springs area in about 5 hours, and it made a unexpected turn and wiped out an area about 150 miles south of here.

And I keep my passport in a safety deposit box at the bank.

It was forecast to go one direction, made an abrupt change in the middle of the night.

I can recall a few of those.

all the idiots applauding this obscene policy (read the comments section) are going to have a big surprise when everyone gets caught in the storm b/c of their hatred toward brown people.

Who the heck is going to have their papers ready in an emergency? What a farce! The only ones who do escape will be the illegal aliens that have better sense than to stand in line waiting to get their papers checked.

I have all my important papers in one box ready to go. I can pack clothes and be gone in less than 10 minutes. In only takes a little box to put passports, insurance papers, birth certificates, etc.. into. Not only will they be ready to go in the event of an emergency, but you also don't have to spend time finding those things if needed for another reason.

with your box. I'll wave as I speed past you.

I don't need to wait for someone to tell me to leave. I can take care of myself enough to know when it's time to get the hell out of dodge.

We run a home business. If we don't have time to pack up files and equipment we stand to lose our meager livelihood. For obvious reasons it isn't possible to pre-pack that stuff.

Charley 2004 is a good example of how people can be caught off guard and find themselves scrambling to clear out and perhaps forgetting (or without access to) the most important things. Not making allowances for individual circumstances is where the right goes wrong every time.

...and the bank's open 9-3 Monday to Friday (actually it's not but you get the point)

Are you worried that someone will steal them ?

If you are worried about protection from fire or flood then I recommend a small fireproof, waterproof, and portable safe.

Why? Get a fireproof safe for the cost of 1 or 2 years cost and have the convenience of it being right there (AND never having to pay a monthly fee again).

because there are things that I want to have in a different place than home. The stuff I'd need in case of an emergency (passport, insurance papers, etc) I have here. I don't pay a monthly fee for the box -- I get it with my savings account for $20/year.

First timers will not.

Are you seriously defending this?

Just stating a fact.

I've been through the FEMA wringer, and even WITH ID (this was before 9/11), we were shunted around like refugees. The sad reality is that even without the INS intervention, even without the DHS getting involved FEMA and any other government agency WILL slow shit up, asking for papers. My family was denied shelter together, because I had the NERVE to keep my maiden name and didn't climb through rubble to snag my marriage license when all hell broke loose. It -didn't- matter that I was on crutches, with an infant. My ID had a different last name, and they -didn't- believe I was married. Oh yeah, and the *shelter* I was sent to with my infant was a bullet-ridden motel room in a redlight district.

And this was WITH my valid drivers license, which was what we were told was enough.

It's reprehensible that they are adding yet another hurdle (and dragnet) for people to get through in an emergency. This is how our government works NOW (thanks be to Ronnie Reagan and the Republican Party). But to act surprised about this in this day and age is naive. :shrug:

"Let me see your papers!"

"Your papers are in order."

leading to more of them dying than otherwise would have been the case. of course, it will also lead to people being detained and/or deported simply because they are hispanic and couldn't find their fucking papers.

Because buildings go bye bye in big storms.

:sarcasm:
:grr:

Have a nice day!

And yeah, that was sarcastic.

During an emergency we are going to slow the evacuation down to check peoples papers.

:crazy:

... and I read it over about five times looking for the catch. More from the article:

"The unofficial word, he said, was that agents recognized they'd have to be more lax amid a disaster.

But Tuesday, a reporter photographing a mock evacuation for the Rio Grande Guardian Web site saw Border Patrol agents rehearsing citizenship document checks of people boarding buses."

You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie...or Chertoff...or whomever.

:eyes:

It would explain a lot.

"The correct identification"?

Nice excuse to jail most of us during a disaster or a riot.

There won't be any evacuation for poor people -- only the well-off. Did you learn nothing from Katrina? Poor people can all drown, for all the Republicans care.

Yeah, I always carry my citizenship papers around with me, because they're so easy to replace if anything happens to them /sarcasm

So first it's hurricanes. What about wildfires, tornadoes or earthquakes, which don't come with as much warning?

Customs got moved under Homeland Security (hate that name: Mr. Obama, will you please change it asap?) didn't it? Seems like they're still doing a heckuva job.

Don't you think the people involved, legal or not, will need help not sorting?

You're just seeing the disaster, being sane.

I'm Canadian. My mother wants me to come down to Florida in December. I may take the scenic route. I hear the Rio Grande valley is beautiful that time of year.

I'm sure it has the appropriate INS stamp, so I don't see your point.

Also, there is something called the Weather Channel here in the US. You might not have it up north.

They can usually tell you if there is going to be a major storm heading in the Rio Grande Valley where you wish to travel.

I'm guessing you'd adjust your plans.

Unless they have a US visa a Canadian will not get a stamp at the border, it sounds counter-intuitive but that is how it is. Although I know some Canadians who will request an entry stamp to simplify things when the TSA fucktards nose through their passport looking for expired entries or visas. Rather than educate themselves about how US immigration treats the citizens of different countries, they see the missing stamp and decide they have caught an illegal immigrant and call the airport police.

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This isn't about having your fucking papers ready. This is about kowtowing to the xenophobes in this country, and using this as an opportunity to round up undocumented residents. It's almost like someone said "We'll have them right where we want them, this is a perfect way to weed them out and round them up!"

Our point is that in their desperate attempt to deny illegals even the right to life they will also be denying themselves the right to it. Stupidity is a GOP trait.

This is yet another incremental step toward getting us used to being checked for papers or identification. Pretty soon, no one will be able to go anywhere without the "proper" papers and, therefore, the OK of the powers that be.

Very scary to see it happening right here, right now.

Okay, now set up a roadblock just over that rise there. :scared: :scared: :scared:

Another brilliant decision from the Neo-Fascist Guv.

I drove on an overpass of I-65 in Ala., looked down to see 4 lanes,
90 miles inland, of stalled traffic trying to evacuate from the coast,
and we had a 48 hour warning.
Those cars sat out the hurricane.
Opal, 1994. Destroyed my house.

Sounds like the real plan is to corral the poor folk to make it easier to drown them.
After Katrina, people along the Gulf will never trust the government again in an emergency.

In so many ways and situations, that about sums it all up.

This is almost better than blocking the self-responding would-be rescuers from coming into NOLA the day after Katrina. I probably would never be asked being somewhat too caucasian looking but if any pasty faced little gestapo wannabe were to ask me for my ID in the midst of the next evacuation, he's gonna be shopping for new teeth.

Some of the older folks still speak mostly Spanish. And they surely look suspiciously brown.

But they may not have their birth certificates handy. And I doubt they have passports...

Oh . . . those papers.

I will return the compliment by asking the INS or whoever agent to now prove HIS/HER citizenship. "You coulda stolen that badge and uniform, compadre."

I mean, folk should be prepared, right? And it's not like a few minutes delay getting out of the blaze would make that much difference, right?