Please express your personal rant.

I doubt that people in those communities will ever trust the words of US government.  Just a typical INS mess that is hurting the interest and the credibility of USA.

The interesting thing is that I hadn't heard anything about this from the U.S./local media outlets.

Probably we should be tuning into the BBC and foreign outlets when we invade Iraq to find out what's going on.

For weeks now we've been subjected to one apology after another from Trent Lott, a well known racist to begin with, and the top story in every major news broadcast, yet we don't even hear about this travisty.  Frankly, I'm disgusted that it took the BBC to break this story.  I'm left only to assume the Ashcroft has now taking control of the local and national media, in his tyrannical effort to erase cultural diversity.

Anyone think of this?  If the INS hadn't been asleep at the switch for the last two decades, this wouldn't have happened--because most of those people wouldn't have been here in the first place!

It's hard to try enforce laws after a 20-year hiatus....

and they showed their faces. All got charged with solicitation.

There's one important detail here.

Not all of the detained people were here illegally.  Many had valid visas, and many were US Citizens.

So yeah, if the INS had been doing their job, they wouldn't have had to overreact like this.  But before 9/11, it was more important to the INS top brass to not have long lines at the airport than to effectively screen people entering the country.

Before we get too excited here, you should consider the source of this information. The LA Times is one of the least objective and most agenda minded newspapers in this country. To say that its coverage of political events is often slanted is an understatement. For many years I represented an investigative, award winning journalist, who worked for the Times. He eventually quit his position because he became so fed up with the paper's biased viewpoint.

Ramona Ripston, who is the executive director of the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the arrests were reminiscent of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This is typical of her penchant for making hyperbolic, uninformed, and insulting statements. For her to compare the four-year internment in concentration camps of Japanese Americans, many of whom were native born citizens of this country, is downright outrageous. She should have been ousted from her position long ago. She does not represent those of us who support most of her organization's causes.

I suspect that the action the INS has taken is, in some instances, improper. If those folks have been illegally detained, they have the right to seek civil redress. But the article points out that many of those taken into custody had not complied with the law.

In sum, my point is this. Do not jump to conclusions, particularly when you are relying on incomplete and often biased information. If you want accurate reporting, I suggest you read the Wall Street Journal, The LA Daily Journal and the NY Times. Although I read the LA Times everyday, I long ago learned not to blindly trust the objective information it purports to provide.

This was way overblown for anyone with a clue about immigration law.  If your an illegal alien, you can't stroll into an INS office and have them ignore your unlawful status.  The total number of aliens held was greatly exaggerated and those held had no legal status.  The same has happened with INS sweeping through employer worksites or other sting operations in many states arresting dozens or hundreds of illegal aliens.  Maybe it doesn't matter as much if they were from Central American or South American countries with little political clout in the U.S.  This is just not a good time to be an illegal alien.  Period.