Posted on 11/08/2002 4:52:55 AM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
All Juan Pozo wanted was a valid Texas driver's license after moving here from California last year. Instead, the legal immigrant from Honduras got months of grief from the Texas Department of Public Safety, causing him to temporarily lose his job, miss the birth of his second child and lose a truck that he was buying on payments, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed in Austin, claims that the DPS unlawfully confiscated Pozo's work permit for more than three months after alleging that it was false. His attorney said the case fits a pattern of discrimination against Hispanic immigrants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "We feel Latinos are facing higher scrutiny," from the DPS, said Joe Berra, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund who is representing Pozo. Berra called the scrutiny "excessive and arbitrary."
DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said the agency would not comment before reviewing the lawsuit. Pozo, 26, said he was living in California with his girlfriend and their young child last year when a Houston-based oil exploration company offered him a job. After moving here in November, he said, he took his valid California driver's license and Social Security card to the DPS office in southeast Houston to obtain a Texas driver's license.
A DPS official photographed him, gave him a temporary license and assured him that he would receive the permanent license in the mail in a couple of weeks, Pozo said. But the new license never arrived. Pozo said he went back to the office in January and was told there was a problem with his documentation. He said one official accused him of buying phony documents. "Tell me where you bought these documents and how much you paid," Pozo quoted the official as saying.
He said he encouraged the man to call the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to verify that the work visa was legitimate. Instead, the official confiscated it, according to the lawsuit. Pozo said he lost his job and, without income, he lost his truck. He got his work visa back in April, but by then he was in debt and unable to go to California for the birth of his second child in June. "I had a lot of problems with my (girlfriend)" because of the DPS issue, he said Thursday. He said the couple almost broke up.
Pozo sought help at the Central American Resource Center, which offered legal aid. He finally got his documents back, which enabled him to return to work. His lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, claiming that the DPS violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The lawsuit also alleges that this sort of action is a routine DPS practice. Teodoro Aguiluz, director of the resource center, said his office has helped at least three other people whose papers were seized improperly by the DPS. They were afraid to speak out, he said.
"We are calling on people to not remain silent," Aguiluz said. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, many states had moved to make it easier for both legal and illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. The Texas Legislature passed a bill in early 2001 that would have offered driver's licenses to certain illegal immigrants, but Gov. Rick Perry vetoed the measure. Since Sept. 11, many states have reversed the trend by making it even more difficult for immigrants to get identification. Some of the airline hijackers who committed the attacks had used driver's licenses as identification to board the planes.
Lawyer Berra said the public is safer if immigrants are properly registered with the government. "We believe the restrictions (on obtaining licenses) cause more problems than they solve," he said.
A Mexican man out of Luling, Texas is collecting payments, mail, items, etc. for transport to Mexico. People in Mexico in the State of Guanajuato know the man and make arrangements to meet him to pick up money payments, mail, items, etc. from him when he travels to Mexico.
This man has a business because the postal service in smaller towns in Mexico opens almost ALL mail (claiming security purposes) and any item of value is stolen. So, money and valuables cannot be sent via the regular mail. You say to me, "So what." Well, if millions of people from Mexico are coming here, and to my knowledge no one is trying to persuade them to change the way they think, what is going to happen? We will have the exact same society here before long. How is this man able to get all of those things of value across the border and I would be LUCKY to get one thing across? I don't know. But he does it.
Stories could be written on and on about all of the things they are doing...working AND collecting welfare, etc. ad infinitum. Illegal immigration (and really legal too) is going to have to be stopped immediately or this nation is lost. I guarantee it.
Last, but not least, I have been trying to find a better job to get out of teaching in the public schools. I get no help from anyone. And yet, I come to find out that Hispanics who work for oil firms in the area meet together in caucus-type meetings to interview new candidates for work. If they like them, they're hired. If not, they're not. It's NOT anglos or blacks being considered for the jobs. They help each other get jobs all over the nation...incredible network. Will we help each other? No way. If I would reject everything I was taught, my nation and my conservative values...I could get a good job because I could just meld into that culture being fluently bilingual with cultural connections...and I would be taken care of. I simply don't understand what is going on and why it is not being corrected. It's like those of us who are generational Americans are being treated like WE'RE the criminals and outcasts.
To the contrary, we are adapting to them, which is a recipe for a second Mexico. The corruption is rampant in every level of Mexican society. It is not something that can be merely ascribed to the government. It permeates Mexico, and these attitudes do not change magically when the illegal crosses the border (see the illegal prison population).
I cannot understand the reasoning of those who escape the crime and poverty of Mexico, then turn around and do everything they can to convert our country into a copy of the cesspool they ran from. But the fact that they're getting back at the evil United States makes that a secondary concern.
Try to tell people this, but they refuse to listen.
You can also pay for the position, especially if it is a government job, that's another option. But, not to worry, the ACLU will be there to defend the downtrodden non-Hispanic who suffers discrimination.
It's interesting because here it's perfectly legit to discriminate against blacks (and whites of course) and use ethnicity in hiring, you can still call yourself an Equal Opportunity Employer by requiring fluent Spanish speaking applicants only. If someone speaks any other language fluently, they don't need to apply. No one will question why business are 100% one ethnicity.
I don't know too much about equal opportunity employment but what would happen if ten white people applied for a job and weren't hired could a suit be filed? Could be one way to beat them at their own game.
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