VivirLatino

From Democracy Now! comes this report on yesterday’s horrifying news that over 1300 people were on a list of reportedly undocumented peoples that was turned into the government.

AMY GOODMAN: Where do you think this list came from?
TONY YAPIAS: This list came from a state agency. As we have called, as I have personally called a dozen or so families, there’s a pattern in the type of information that can be gathered. They indicate on the letter that they’ve been watching people in their neighborhoods, driving, etc. That’s not what happened. What we believe happened is we have state workers who are sympathizers or members or friends or associates of anti-immigrant groups here in Salt Lake or in the state of Utah and are angry with this whole issue of immigration. And so, because they have access to sensitive datas, that this information, when families apply for services, such as Medicaid or other types of services, then they get all the social information about the families, and that’s how they were able to compile the list. And so, I mean, this list is so much more sophisticated for someone like these anti-immigrant groups to just say, OK, Tony Yapias lives at this address, and then his friend lives at that address. It’s members of—Latinos that live from north to south, east to west in the state, so in every town.

It’s stated later in the commentary that the many of the people on the list are actually legal/documented and one woman is even going to be going for her citizenship test soon.

If you think your citizenship protects you, think again.