Torrent of racist posts traced to DHS

(RAW STORY)   Racism in law enforcement? Why, No Sir, Never.

From The New York Times:

After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them of harboring illegal workers. Still others made personal attacks about the reporter who wrote the article.

[…]

The article about the arrests, posted on June 16, led to a torrent of angry Web postings. One, sent from a fake e-mail address, said, “watcha doing to mi wifey, no checky her papeles. she no legal, but she havey benifit card.”

A response, which carried a Homeland Security Internet protocol address, read: “That sounds like my boyfriend. Leave him alones and get your own. My boyfriend works sometimes but he is really good at getting FREE benefits from the Federal and State government.”

While the paper removed the comments, the Times adds that other posts from the Department of Homeland Security were found on reports up to a year prior.

It should be noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement — otherwise known as I.C.E. — is the largest investigative wing of the Department of Homeland Security.

I suppose the next reasonable question would be, ‘Did these comments come from an immigration officer?’

DHS opened an internal investigation into the matter earlier this month.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/torrent-of-racist-posts-traced-to-dhs/