A Few of the Acts the State Has Criminalized

As we go about our daily lives, let’s never forget what sort of government we live under.

Border Patrol agents accept assistance from vigilante militias who take it upon themselves to detain unarmed people at gunpoint.

ICE rounds up ordinary people in their homes and workplaces to be imprisoned for punitive lengths of time and eventually deported. The Trump administration even hopes to do so as dramatically as possible with a “blitz” of mass arrests explicitly designed to stoke fear among immigrants and deter others from coming to our country.

Meanwhile, here are a few of the acts the state has criminalized—commit them and you can expect the authorities to arrest you and press criminal charges against you in court:

• Walking up to the border fence to ask for asylum

• Leaving jugs of clean water on desert trails to save others from dying of dehydration

• Entering a museum to sing songs and post stickers with the images of children who have died in the custody of U.S. government agencies

Oh, and here’s another example from the last few days:

• Going into “total mom mode” to help kids in the midst of a medical emergency

She Stopped to Help Migrants on a Texas Highway. Moments Later, She Was Arrested.

By Manny Fernandez
May 10, 2019
New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/us/texas-border-good-samaritan.html

MCALLEN, Tex. — Teresa L. Todd pulled over one recent night on a dark West Texas highway to help three young Central American migrants who had flagged her down. Ms. Todd — an elected official, government lawyer and single mother in a desert border region near Big Bend National Park — said she went into “total mom mode” when she saw the three siblings, one of whom appeared to be very ill.

Struggling to communicate using her broken Spanish, Ms. Todd told the three young people to get out of the cold and into her car. She was phoning and texting friends for help when a sheriff’s deputy drove up, followed soon by the Border Patrol. “They asked me to step behind my car, and the supervisor came and started Mirandizing me,” said Ms. Todd, referring to being read her Miranda rights. “And then he says that I could be found guilty of transporting illegal aliens, and I’m, like, ‘What are you talking about?”

Ms. Todd spent 45 minutes in a holding cell that night. Federal agents obtained a search warrant to examine her phone, and she became the focus of an investigation that could lead to federal criminal charges.

As the Trump administration moves on multiple fronts to shut down illegal border crossings, it has also stepped up punitive measures targeting private citizens who provide compassionate help to migrants — “good Samaritan” aid that is often intended to save lives along a border that runs through hundreds of miles of remote terrain that can be brutally unforgiving.