Beknigted happens when the sun goes down in Arkansas.
Yes, to fuck Texas is something one would do reluctantly.
If you’re in Texas, the sun goes down in Mexico. New and Old
The latter, but I wasn’t paying sufficient attention to my homophones.
The DA in Chicago needs to find a way to charge the driver(s), dispatchers, owners and anyone who signature is on any invoice, waybill, work order, purchase order, receipt or other paperwork required for the trip. With Human Trafficking… In fact the next bus that arrives in Chicago should be met by the police and the driver needs to be dragged out onto the street to arrested in the most humiliating and degrading way. booked and repeatedly “perp” walked as much as possible. I think after making an example of one driver and impounding the bus using civil forfeiture laws; Texas would be hard pressed to find a transportation company willing to take the risk, or even drivers willing to do so. This should also be applicable to the charter fights, arresting and charging the crews and impounding the aircraft.
So… you’re going to arrest the peons at the gas station where one of these buses refuel along the way, even though the poor SOB has no clure about what’s going on with that bus?
Arresting one of the drivers is going to have about as much effect as arresting a street-corner drug-dealer has on the narcotics trade in general. The people running this human trafficking operation do not care about these bus drivers, or if they do, only marginally more so than the human pawns the drivers are transporting.
That might actually have more effect because if there are airplanes involved there is more money involved and I suspect they people running this operation pay more attention to dollars than people. But maybe not. Might also cause complications due to Federal control of the airways.
Just applied the same “legal logic” used by the State of Texas regarding the abortion aiding and abetting law that was passed…
As for the drivers and bus companies staff involved… they know what they’re doing… one way to put a stop to this madness is to let the lower level employees know that they are going be held accountable for their actions… and you are right the likes of Paxton and abbot don’t care.
I wasn’t referring to the bus company employees. The notion was to punish everyone in any way connected… which would include people who haven’t a clue what that bus is up to, all they’re doing is fueling it or otherwise servicing it. But hey, don’t just arrest the petty street corner drug dealer, arrest everyone on the block because they’re all guilty, right?
But I’m not entirely convinced the drivers would necessarily know what’s up - so far it’s been reported that they drivers mostly don’t speak any Spanish so they can’t communicate with the passengers. Is that deliberate or not? So a driver is told to drive a bunch of people he can’t communicate with to Chicago or New York City, maybe he’s told they’re all going to a family reunion. Maybe he’s told someone will meet them at the other end - no reason the drivers aren’t being lied to as well,
It still grates me the notion of arresting all the low-level peons when the real perpetrators will get to go free, unpunished forever. But hey, being rich and powerful has its privileges including freedom from consequences and the law not applying. I’m sure we’ll see more and more of that in the next decade if extremist Republicans get their way.
I would think that would be red flag that something is going on… being told to drive a bus full of people who don’t speak English, without any guides or chaperoning of any kind from Brownsville to Chicago or any liberal city. That would be a big red flag for me…
I agree, the republicans are trying so desperately to rollback our government to the gilded age of the 1880-90… you know before the rise of the middle classes, workers rights, education, healthcare, social services etc… and a time when everyone knew their place and stayed there.
Yes, it does grate. But the alternative is punishing none of the perpetrators because we can’t punish all of them. And that is even worse.
Yeah but the proposed alternative appears to be not to punish perpetrators but instead punish anybody else who happened to be in the vicinity of the perpetrators as some sort of bottom-up deterrent. Ignoring, of course, that the perpetrators don’t give a single damn about peons, whether they were willing participants or not
I’m sure some of the drivers are being treated like Mushrooms… but making an example out of a couple of them, might send a message that you don’t want to be the one behind the wheel when you cross over the Illinois State line… If I was driver and I showed up to work and saw the bus full of non English speakers that looked like they were being forced into the bus and go to Chicago and I knew that if the State Police or whatever they called commercial motor vehicle law enforcement in Illinois, is going to arrest and possibly charge me with Human Trafficking. I would think twice about taking the bus out of Texas.
I’m only mussing about applying the same principle to the bus company employees that would be applied to anyone who had hand in helping a Texas Woman get an abortion…
I get it. It’s cathartic to think about retribution. But the target appears misplaced.
But Texas women can still get abortions. Or at least the ones with at least enough money to get out of state. The law is meant as a deterrent function. And mainly for poor, predominantly minority women and their communities who have few viable alternatives in any event. The middle class and the wealthy are able to get to New Mexico or Colorado just fine. The cruelty is the point.
So, the response is to do likewise and punish the blue collar people who are least likely to know anything, are least able to afford to raise questions, and are least able to affect any real change because the cruelty is the point. Good on you!
It’s always easy to volunteer someone else to be a martyr for the cause.
What, you’ve never seen a tour bus of foreign tourists roll into your city?
Then again, I imagine a busload of refugees doesn’t look or vibe quite the same as a bus load of middle-class Japanese tourists on vacation…
I agree, arresting the bus driver doesn’t do much good, but seizing the bus every time one arrives with busloads of unwanteds should get the attention of the companies, especially if the fines to get the buses back are twice the value of the vehicle. Might be helpful to send back the driver with a warning that if s/he’s caught driving another such bus into Illinois it will be a human trafficking charge since now s/he knows it’s a Bad Idea.
That sounds like 
I plan. But I think it’s better to invoke civil forfeiture laws rather then just impounding and fines… they want the bus back make the owner work for it…
I was thinking the same thing, maybe pass a law making it illegal to use Illinois roads for transporting migrants for the purpose of relocation.
You know, something similar to this law.