Officer In Trouble For Catching Illegals

A Rhode Island state trooper who apprehended 14 illegal immigrants during a traffic stop is being investigated at the request of a renowned “civil rights” organization that claims the officer had no right to ask for identification.

During a routine traffic stop in Richmond’s Route 95, Trooper Thomas Chabot asked the driver as well as the passengers in a van for identification, a department procedure. When 14 of the passengers could not provide valid identification, the officer called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

As it turns out, the 14 passengers were found by federal authorities to be in the U.S. illegally and now face deportation. This outraged the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an advocate of open borders and rights for illegal immigrants.

The ACLU went so far as to accuse the trooper of “egregious racial profiling” and overstepping his authority by taking immigration enforcement into his own hands. The organization’s Rhode Island affiliate filed a complaint this week, forcing the officer to be investigated.

Perhaps the ACLU would prefer that federal immigration officials man checkpoints in every city so that illegals could be detained on the spot by the “appropriate officials,” as Common Sense and Wonder points out.

The point, however, is that a local law enforcement officer did his job and now he is under fire. Rhymes With Right asks who, but the ACLU, would oppose a cop who catches lawbreakers and Americans For Legal Immigration reminds us that a state trooper did his job and as a result we have 14 individuals that have no respect for our laws being deported.