Emelina Ramirez called police to tell them her roommates were attacking her, punching and kicking her in the stomach. When the police arrived, they handcuffed her, took her to jail and ran her fingerprints through a federal database. She is now in an Alabama cell awaiting deportation.

Sadly, the LA Times did not report the whole story. According to local CBS affiliate, Atlanta WGCL CBS 46 (video), Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez is the pregnant mother of two beautiful young girls, Wendy – age 8, and Karla – age 3. While her attackers were punching and hitting her in the stomach, she asked her daughter to call 911. When Carrollton police arrived at the scene, the xenophobic police officer at the scene, Lt. James Perry, decided to arrest Emelina and only one of her attackers instead of asking questions because he did not speak Spanish. He charged her with simple battery and took her to jail.

Lt. Perry told the LA Times he went back to the house after Emelina was arrested and her daughter provided officers with eyewitness information. Lt. Perry states, before asking any questions about what happened, he asked the inhabitants for identification and observed “both body language and verbal language that led me to believe they might be illegal.” In other words, they had to be an “illegal” because they look and spoke different.

In the end, it was the “Messkin” looking one that was accused of aggression while the other woman was released. The two little girls are now staying with their aunt, it is also being reported that both children are depressed and refusing to eat and little Wendy is having trouble sleeping at night. Who can blame them, they were led to believe that the police were there to support their battered mother; however, in the blink of an eye, it was their mother, the victim of a violent attack, who was hauled off as the felon. Now the children are victims of the system.

The focus of the LA Times story was on GA’s new state law, Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, which was just enacted, making it one of the nation’s toughest laws against illegal immigration. The law is every Latina/o (both native and foreign born) worst nightmare come true. The new law requires law enforcement officers to check the citizenship status and criminal record of any Brown person they see. It also directs the state Public Safety Department to select and train Georgia state patrol officers to carry out federal immigration law while carrying out regular duties.

It is already being reported by local activist in GA that xenophobic cops are taking the liberty to go beyond what the law is asking. They have reported that cops are already running background checks on every Latinas/os who have committed misdemeanors, such as minor traffic violations, or even those who go to the police to report thefts or fraud.

For many undocumented immigrants, deportation is the ultimate punishment. Many are living with the fear of arrest, detention, and deportation everyday. This fear is intensified when deportation would result in the undocumented person’s separation from immediate family members who are citizens the United States, and this is particularly acute where the undocumented person is a survivor of domestic violence.

After further investigation, it seems like this is the case for Emelina. According to an old Google cache from Congress.org, from Congress.org, it appears that she was previously married to an US Citizen who abused her. Ironically, her former husband happens to be police officer. During their marriage, they never had her immigration status adjusted. The marriage ended in a divorce because he was an abusive towards her. Since her divorce, she is still stigmatized and branded as an “illegal.”

In domestic violence situations, there may be physical, verbal, sexual, emotional, and economic abuse. The power over the victim’s immigration status is used as a type of emotional control, one that often keeps victims trapped in homes without access to finances or to employment, and that prevents the victim from moving freely or becoming self-sufficient. In 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) because they recognized the vulnerability many battered immigrants face at the hands of their abusers. The law created a way for immigrant victims of domestic violence to legalize their status without depending on the abuser to complete the process: the VAWA self-petition. The law also allowed abused spouses placed in removal proceedings to seek “cancellation of removal,” a form of discretionary relief from removal available to people in unlawful immigration status.

I am still looking into this because other than the Google cache, I have not been able to find other information to see if this actually took place. I have recently email a person who’s name constantly showed up in my Internet search to get further verification. I will update this post, if I hear anything thing new.

Politicians continue refrain from acknowledging from what is an obvious; race is being used to fight immigration because they know it is politically incorrect, however, it is hard to avoid what is glaring in our faces, and race is obviously playing a huge role in this debate. As a Xicano, I have noticed a sudden increase in the use of stereotypes on Latinas/os regardless if people are native or foreign born. It is very evident when ICE elects their sites to raid.

We must continue to educate the public to start using the term “undocumented” rather than “illegal” or “alien” so that they and others can start seeing immigrants as human beings rather than a faceless enemy. The words “illegal” and “alien” dehumanize and criminalize people, which causes fear and is dividing people in this country.

It is laws these that puts me and other Latino/a who are US citizens in danger and it is one we cannot avoid. Lt. Perry arrested Emelina Ramirez because she didn’t look or speak like someone from the dominate culture. The question we must ask ourselves, if this happened in GA, what is to say that this practice has not yet been practiced throughout this country. Just ask Pedro Guzman’s family or Justeen Mancha.

It is easy for us to close our eyes and hope it doesn’t happen us, but in doing so, we remove ourselves from public life and begin to lose our humanity and become more preoccupied with ourselves and our families. As we distance ourselves from the real public, we start to lose what is vital – the social mix and the surprises of democratic space – the very things that gave city life its human connection.

How much longer can we continue to live and work in a world where individuals are constantly in a quest for self-fulfillment, while at the same time fear our own society?

Update: Ann from Feministing provided a great resource for immigrant victims of violence, please see Legal Momentum’s Immigrant Women Program.

Please pass this information if you or someone you know anyone who is in a abuse relationship. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and every family deserves to live in a world free from violence, regardless of the citizenship status.