Or just civil disobedience?
If you use your favorite mapping program to look up the San Juan Islands, you’ll find that they lie just north of the Straight of Juan de Fuca, between Victoria BC and Bellingham, WA.
Gorgeous scenery. About as rural as your going to get anywhere in the US, and the first thing you notice while driving around the roads on the various islands is that the people in the oncoming cars will wave to you. It is considered impolite to not wave back.
However, there is one warning: Most of these people are longtime, leftover hippies (this county voted overwhelmingly for Dennis Kucinich in the Dem Primary in 2004).
And with this news, I’m not so sure how long the waving will last.
The people of the San Juan Islands tend to be independent sorts, espousing a do-it-yourself, leave-me-be ethos as natural and ever-present as the tide.
But for many of the 17,000 people of this island county, the normal rhythms of small-town life have hit a dissonant chord lately.
A couple of months ago, the U.S. Border Patrol began occasional “spot checks” of every vehicle and passenger arriving in Anacortes off state ferries, the lifeline between these islands and the mainland.
For some here, it seems like a good idea or, at worst, a minor inconvenience. But for a vocal and active faction, the federal agents’ aggressive questioning and demands for identification have spurred outrage.
In the islands’ coffee shops and the editorial pages of the local paper, then in a crowded, heated meeting last month, a number of people have complained that islanders are being unfairly treated and questioned, even though they haven’t left the country and normally wouldn’t be subject to such scrutiny.
Terms like “police state” are hurled around, as they say the searches are illegal, unconstitutional — and just a ruse to catch illegal immigrants and petty drug users.
The Border Patrol responds that the stops are annoying but necessary, the cost of keeping the country safe. It maintains that a terrorist could easily use the same maze of waterways and islands here that for generations has harbored smugglers, rumrunners and drug dealers.
But in this comparatively affluent county, where there isn’t a single stoplight, angry islanders are unsatisfied. They’ve complained to their congressional delegates and recently asked the American Civil Liberties Union to monitor the situation and provide legal advice.
And they have rallied around a family who immigrated illegally from Mexico years ago and were recently caught up in the dragnet. They raised bail for them and paid their rent while they were detained.
This isn’t DHS’s “Security Theater” this is the ICE checking for illegal immigrants. It must be working if these folks are unhappy about it, and not just annoyed.
