Supreme Court ruling goes beyond just Latinos

The high court's directive allowing immigration officials latitude to stop and question anyone indicates all brown people are suspicious

- ANITA CHABRIA COLUMNIST

PROTESTERS hold signs during an "ICE Out of OC" rally on Aug. 19.

What makes someone suspicious enough to be grabbed by masked federal authorities?

Is it a Mexican family eating dinner at a table near a taco truck?

Afghan women in hijabs working at a Middle Eastern market?

South Asian girls in colorful lehengas, speaking Hindi at an Indian wedding?

According to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing a concurrence in the Supreme Court's emergency ruling allowing roving immigration raids in Los Angeles, any of these could be fair game, using law and "common sense."

Brown people, speaking brown languages, hanging out with other brown people, and doing brown people things like working low-wage jobs now meets the legal standard of "reasonable suspicion" required for immigration stops.

Living while brown has become the new driving while Black.

HOMELAND SECURITY officers protect a federal building in downtown Los Angeles as immigrant rights activists demonstrate Sept. 1.

Of course, this particular high court ruling — and our general angst — has centered on Latino immigrants.

That's fair, and understandable. In California, about half of our immigrants are from Mexico, and thousands more are from other Latin and South American countries.

But increasingly, especially for newer immigrants, more folks are coming from Africa and Asian countries such as China and India — some of which, you may recall, Donald Trump called “shithole countries” way back in 2018, while questioning why America doesn't take more immigrants from white places such as Norway.