This article is about an Ottawa woman who was jailed for 9 hours in Georgia to ascertain her immigration status after being stopped for speeding and running a stop sign. Georgia recently passed an act (effectively July 1, 2007) to provide for the following:

(a) Every person arrested for a violation of a criminal statute shall be required to show proof of lawful presence in the United States.

I initially assumed this woman was a brown person, given that one article stated that she was traveling with her husband and a friend with the last name of Pham. But it turns out that she is white (photographs also verify this):

“I’m not a terrorist. I’m a blond, petite woman from Canada, trying to go to Florida to celebrate graduating my masters in social work,” said Mrs. Kuehn, who handed in her last paper Thursday. “They knew I was a tourist from Canada. They were treating me like an (illegal) immigrant.”

Note that the newspaper stuck the word “illegal” in there.

Maybe this is what it takes for white people to recognize the danger of giving local agencies the power to enforce immigration regulations. Because if Mrs. Kuehn were a brown person, I think the story would be different.

Thanks to Immigration Orange for the tip.

Edited because of lack of clarity due to lack of coffee.