I read in the Home News editor’s view on the crack-down of illegal students by the Borough of Bound Brook, dated August 27, 2014. It seems that Bound Brook is returning to the days of the wild, wild west, bounty hunters and all, only this time the targets are not outlaws, but children whose only crime seems to be that they are undocumented and want to go to school. Apparently the town feels it is a matter urgent enough to justify paying vigilantes $50.00 a piece to find the culprits, this despite the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona et als. V. U.S., no 11-183 (June 25, 2012) which strikes down part of Arizona’s restrictive law SB1070, regarding undocumented aliens.

Whatever the reasoning of the Borough might be to create such a process, I cannot think of any justification under which children can be legally hunted down, like animals, and fetched out of school merely because they were brought to the U.S. illegally. That does not sound like America. And, assume for a second that is feasible, what does Bound Brook hope to accomplish? Yank the children out of school and let them linger at their homes or in the Borough’s streets where they might learn the ways of life at an early age and perhaps become thugs and prostitutes instead of what might been? If it’s money they’re worried about, the latter outcome might prove a lot more expensive to them and society as a whole. I would say, get real.

Eralides E. Cabrera