“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.” “You can only be free if I am free.” I didn’t come up with that. It was Clarence Darrow.

Let me tell you about a call I got a couple of weeks ago. A Mexican woman told me her child was being held in Mexico. The child is a US citizen, the mother is not.  I asked the mother if she had called the police, filed a missing person’s report. She told me that she had not because she was sure she would be arrested if she came into contact with the local police department. Instead, haunted by the calls of her missing child begging to be rescued,  she had slipped into a state of clinically documented depression because she has three other children here to consider.   Incredulous, I decided to call the police department in question myself. I explained the situation to the officer and then added that I just wanted to confirm that the mother would not experience any difficulty if she reported her child missing. He told me he could not make any such guarantee and that she very well might be arrested if she was not here legally. “But her child is missing!” I said. And I reminded him again that the child is a United States citizen. His response, “Illegal is illegal, Mam.”

Fast forward to today, when I heard about a US citizen born and raised here.  He is Hispanic. As an immigration lawyer, I don’t get many calls about US citizens who need my assistance.  He told me that he had a no license charge  pending in a State Court. At the most recent hearing, the Judge had continued the case and ordered my client to produce evidence that he is not an immigrant before the Judge will adjudicate the case.

A friend of mine suggested I contact the media about this.  But the truth is, I don’t know that anyone would care. I know if the Judge had said, “Sir, I need proof that you are not an African American, or a gay American or a disabled American or a Jewish American before I adjudicate this matter.” there would be uproar. But does anyone care when a Hispanic man is forced to prove that he’s really one of us before a Judge will adjudicate his (no license) case.  And what of the 11 year old American girl who calls her mother begging her to help her return to the States? We turn a deaf ear because her mother is not a citizen…sorry kid, no help for you because of your mom’s status- just try to tough it out down there.  That’s not very American of us now, is it?

It brings me back to this “You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.” “You can only be free if I am free.” I didn’t come up with that, but it’s a good one.