I mean, I’m a middle-aged white cishet man, and I still go on alert around police, these days. I can only imagine how much worse it is for anyone in other categories.
I call this kind of the thing the “right of way” attitude. Sometimes pedestrians will step out into traffic, declaring that their right of way means that the traffic has to stop for them. They do not take into account that a vehicle of a certain mass going a certain speed will simply not be able to stop even if they try to. Momentum prevails. And when it does, the pedestrian wakes up in the hospital (hopefully!) and if they’re really lucky a lawyer is sitting there ready to file that “right of way” case. Because now, after you’ve hit by the speeding truck, your right of way has been violated and you have cause for action. But your right of way was never going to stop that truck in the first place. So Maria may be absolutely correct in that the authorities don’t have the right to do it. But what she should think about is what her life will look like if they do it anyway. There have been numerous stories on national news about people in very similar circumstances to Maria whose lives have been no end of bullshit as the Trump administration treats them like criminals regardless of whether or not they have the right to be there. Momentum prevails and the Trump administration is not even trying to hit the brakes.
I didn’t read all the replies, but …
- Momma’ always told me, "When the reaction is disproportionate to the (predicate) action, it’s usually something else. I think you figured that out in no time flat. I think others are offering essentially that as a pretty likely explanation, but with more specifics;
- Even I feel like I know you well enough to know you must have felt profoundly awful in that moment … as she was letting loose that (IMHO, unearned) tirade. No matter where it really came from, I’m sorry. Hard to imagine a better way to have handled it than the way you did.
I’m a tall, fit-appearing, and – let’s be honest – awfully damned good-looking white guy. I got nuthin’ directly to the OP 
You are correct. And yeah, a lot of those people sitting in the camp in Dilley, Texas, were in the right, too. These trigger-happy, masked, armed, poorly trained ICE cowboys don’t give a flying fig. And if you get thrown into one of those places you will need a very good lawyer to get you out. Being in the right won’t protect you.
Years ago on the Dope there was a bike-riding thread and this kind of a position was argued by someone. “Bike riders have a RIGHT to be on the street–it’s the law. Cars have to look out for them, etc.” I posted something like, “And on the bike rider’s tombstone it will say ‘He had the right of way.’” Boy, was I ripped a new one for “blaming the victim.” 
Of course, my point was that if you’re dead, it doesn’t really matter whose fault it was.
Sigh.
Thanks for your understanding words. Your mom is a sharp cookie. Like her boy, no doubt.
Someone very dear to me is Haitian-American. She was born in Florida to parents who were both fairly dark-skinned but in the unpredictable way of these things, she is quite light. When I get a tan, I’m darker than her. Like that. She lives in NYC and I can’t count how many times people just automatically start speaking Spanish to her. I used to find it funny, but not any more. The thought of those ICE thugs giving her any kind of hassle on the street makes my blood boil.
Recently, I considered asking her to take a trip to Europe. But now I don’t trust my own country to take her citizenship as a given, considering her U.S. passport. What kind of goddamn America is that?
ETA: We’re taking the trip and I shouldn’t get nervous about it, but here we are.
The term ‘illegal immigrant’ can be interpreted in different ways. The waiting list for a green card takes years. H1B is a lottery. People who have done it that way resent the ones who find a way to game the system. They see it as jumping the line and are not totally wrong. When they heard el donald and his cult, they assumed that those were the people he would be going after.
The other interpretation is a vicious stereotype that all immigrants must be illegal. It is the implication in the rhetoric at those MAGA rallies. To be accused of being one of those is deeply insulting to someone who has jumped through the hoops.
On further reflection, I guess the question you’d want to ask her then is if she is going to react the same way when it’s a squadron of armed, angry ICE goons surrounding her. They will question her citizenship. They won’t care if she did things right. They will accuse her of cheating the system. They will call her a criminal. They will threaten to deport her to the worst places imaginable. And they will do it in the hopes that she will throw a fit, thus justifying their use of potentially lethal force. Perhaps maybe somewhere in the world someone has confronted racist wannabe cops with a firmly worded “how dare you?” and lived to tell of it. But I wouldn’t count on it. She gets mad at you and you want to make amends because you didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. But ICE goons are trying to hurt her feelings. They want her to make a scene. They want her to be mad. If she’s yelling and screaming, that’s when they can start hurting her on purpose and bystanders won’t get involved because they don’t want these thugs doing the same thing to them. ICE isn’t professional law enforcement who understand rights and proper procedures. ICE is a gang of racist thugs who have government permission to act out their worst impulses. So if Maria has a particular sensitivity to having her citizenship called into question, she’s going to have to suppress that at the moment when adrenaline is high, trigger fingers are itchy and racists who hate her for simply existing have her surrounded and are looking for any excuse to use force on her. She’s not a criminal. That’s not the problem. The problem is, they aren’t cops.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. These bogus, untrained “cops” with their masks and brand new guns are looking for a reason to smack someone, handcuff them, and/or shoot them.
It’s more nuanced than that. She has reason to be afraid, and I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes (or her skin). I was more astonished than hurt when she yelled at me. It was clear to me that I never intended any insult. If she decides to quit, I’m okay with that. I just didn’t want her to slam the door and fly out of here in an inappropriate rage. I don’t really need her housekeeping services all that much anymore, but she really needs the steady, reliable EFT every other week from me.
If indeed she is/was a trump supporter, then (as @Ancient_Nerd said) the perceived insult may have come from my intimation that SHE is one of THOSE people whose faces leopards are eating. Because of course, the leopards would NEVER eat HER loyal, trump-loving face.
I’m certainly not bringing up the subject again. I can afford to wait this one out.
I very much appreciate the comments and this interesting discussion.
Back to the cop’s action, does the Texas license specify whether someone is a citizen?
No. Only Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington issue Enhanced DLs that can be used to establish citizenship.
I was wondering that myself. What if he ran her driver’s license through the police system? Don’t they do that routinely when they pull you over? To see if there are any outstanding warrants?
I got my legal training from watching every episode of Law & Order multiple times. Of course, that’s not Texas…
If it ever does come up again, that might be a good time to point out that el donald is a lying fascist trying to create divisions. The stereotype that all immigrants are illegal is one of his techniques.
Immigration reform was one of the major pieces of legislation that was passed during the civil rights era. Congress, at the time, had a lot of clueless white guys who meant well. They fixed a lot of the blatant racism in our laws but, we should have learned since then. Many immigrants took advantage of those reforms. That means that they or their parents were not here to see the civil rights movement.
And I think you did just fine in your overall description of the incident and in your conversation with Maria, after the opening phrase “I have a woman from Mexico who…” which, I admit, rocked me back a bit.
I know you didn’t mean anything in the least derogatory or dismissive by that: it’s normal US dialect to speak of skilled consultants and service providers in terms of possession. “I have a mechanic who never answers the phone”, "I have a guy who shovels the snow because I quit doing it myself years ago", etc.
But I think the opening exposition would have come across more smoothly if you had instead said something like “I know a woman from Mexico” or “I have a friend/acquaintance from Mexico” or even “I have an employee from Mexico”, etc.
Well, your comment seemed to be indicating a willingness to discuss your choice of language on this potentially sensitive topic with a lot of ethnic and racial baggage, so I tried politely and empathetically to explain why one little bit of what you were saying sounded a bit “off” to me. That’s all.
If you didn’t want to hear it, I apologize for bringing it up.
Like I said: a minefield.
Sorry, was not intending to explode at you.
I’m not ThelmaLou, and don’t mean to speak for her. Seems clear that “her willingness to discuss her choice of language” is about the language she used in her conversation with Maria.
There’s also this:
No need to apologize, and you didn’t explode at me. I guess my use of the word minefield wasn’t 100% appropriate.
One thing I have learned from posting on this board is that no matter how carefully you read and reread your post, and filter it, and go through it with a “fine toothed comb” 
somebody will find something objectionable in it. Or possibly objectionable. Or potentially, hypothetically objectionable. Or questionable. Or “off.” It’s a continuous learning experience.
Thanks, @WOOKINPANUBv.2. 
Being latino i try to make myself as scarce as possible around any authorities. As far as your cleaning lady goes, there is a subset of latinos that absolutely hates being lumped in with illegals and will pull as far away as possible in the opposite direction to show that they are not one of “those people”. She probably voted for Trump, it probably had the opposite result of what she hoped.