Immigration woes

This is Joseph

This story has some rather chilling implications.  Duncan Black makes the point:

I bet half the country would have a hard time producing clear evidence of citizenship, and 99.9% couldn't do it on the spot.

In a sense this new normal of detention seems to be most dangerous to US-born citizens, who really don't have anywhere to be deported to (they end up as stateless persons).  From the article:

Plascencia and her family say the experience has shaken their ideas about the protections they are entitled to as American citizens. Sepulveda said she is now afraid to leave the U.S., the country she was born in. 

The real issue seems to be the lack of an apologetic response.  A simple "we made a mistake" statement would go a long way to making this situation clear as an accident and not part of a new normal in terms of policing.  That would have done more than anything else to reassure people (including those directly involved) and fix the otherwise terrible optics of the situation.