The Martinez family was traveling along a Mississippi highway – on their way to a vacation – when a sheriff’s deputy stopped them for no apparent reason.
“All the van’s occupants were in the country legally, either by virtue of their U.S. citizenship, legal residency or valid visas. Stephanie Martinez and her three children are U.S. citizens.”
This, of course, made no difference whatsoever:
“This Latino family was detained by the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office for approximately four hours, without any reason to believe that they had committed a crime. During the detention, the deputy – who announced that he was looking for ‘illegals’ – confiscated the family’s passports and valid immigration documents, and repeatedly threatened the father, Marcos Martinez, with losing his lawful permanent residency if he did not admit to possessing drugs. ... A sheriff’s deputy drove Stephanie Martinez to tears by threatening to separate her from her three children. ... The family’s harrowing experience ended only after Stephanie Martinez made a 911 call from a room inside the sheriff’s office where the family was being held... Soon afterward, the family was told that they could leave. Nothing illegal was ever found and no member of the family was ever charged with a crime or even received a traffic ticket.”