By Democracy Now
We believe that this illegal arrest, though carried out by the Brownsville Police Department was essentially a favor to the Border Patrol agents who had no authority to arrest them or to force them to answer any questions. Omar and Nancy had made it perfectly clear to the Border Patrol agents that they were willing to present their identification and boarding passes to the TSA agent without need for any further harassment by the Border Patrol agents.
When it was clear that the Border Patrol was not going to and could not arrest them, and that there were no legitimate charges that could be levied against them, the Brownsville police stepped in, instead, and arrested the two without any justification.
For standing up to the Border Patrol and asking questions, Omar has been charged with failure to identify himself (Class A misdemeanor), obstruction of passageway (Class B misdemeanor) and resisting arrest (Class A misdemeanor). Nancy has been charged with interference of public duties (Class B misdemeanor) for simply asking questions.
We believe that these are all bogus charges. We believe that to have a Border Patrol agent stop all passengers boarding a domestic flight after never having left the country constitutes a form of harassment that borderland dwellers, whether documented or undocumented, constantly endure in their daily lives. This practice of forcing people to answer unnecessary questions through intimidation and fear must be resisted and stopped. Nancy and Omar were totally justified, both morally and legally, in their actions, and we commend them for standing up to the Border Patrol's racial profiling and harassment, not criminalized and charged. For this reason, we believe that all charges stemming from this interaction should be dropped immediately.
We can make this happen if we generate enough calls to the local District Attorney of Cameron County, Luis Saenz, who has the power to drop these charges and refuse the case. live-streamed videos
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