Drug Warriors, Please Don’t Trample My Rights : Latinos: The price of ridding America of drugs should not be unduly borne by one part of the population because of a coincidence of ethnicity.

I want to enlist in America’s war on drugs, but only on one condition: that the warriors don’t trample me and other innocent Latinos.

I’m heartened that America’s anger at drugs has coalesced into a crusade. But that anger also frightens me, because it’s principally aimed at Colombian and Mexican drug lords. The danger is that mainstream America will consider law-abiding Latinos, like me, guilty by virtue of our ethnicity and appearance. As a result, we will end up paying an inordinately greater legal and social price for the drug war.

Conditions are right for this “guilt by ethnicity” to take root. Lately, all I read or hear are warnings of how Latin drug lords are threatening our national security. These warnings are becoming so ingrained in our rhetoric and psyche that they may breed the kinds of emotions that tolerated the internment of loyal Japanese-Americans during World War II.

True, the warnings correctly underscore the seemingly incalculable number of drug-related crimes occurring in our streets and the torrent of Colombian cocaine flowing into this country through Mexico. In response, President Bush and the Congress have launched a $8.8-billion counterattack. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney has even declared that the military will help defend our borders.

This drug war serves to inflame the fears of mainstream Americans that swarthy brown foreigners are bent on undermining the United States. Problem is, these swarthy brown foreigners resemble my family, my friends and me.

Indeed, the highway patrol may be watching my family and me every time we’re on the road. The reason is that some state highway patrols are participating in Operation Pipeline, which uses “drug-runner” profiles to help officers decide which drivers to stop on suspicion of drug trafficking. One such profile implicates all foreign-looking Latinos between ages 20 and 35 who drive too fast or too slow. Since I’m 31, have a darker complexion than most Mexican Americans and occasionally drive my beat-up Honda too fast, I’m likely to be pulled over.

My uncle is especially vulnerable. A youngish-looking 42, he’s a recently naturalized citizen who speaks poor English and drives a rusting Chevy van. My uncle, of course, is no drug runner, but the officer won’t know that until he’s searched my uncle’s van. Sure, the officer needs probable cause to conduct a search. But given the fervor of the drug-war mentality, I would not be surprised if some judges expand probable cause to include physical similarity to a drug-runner profile.

Operation Pipeline is only one of many signs of an emerging public attitude that tolerates infringement of Latinos’ civil liberties for the sake of the drug war. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 62% of Americans would give up some of their liberties if that bolstered the anti-drug effort. I suspect that most of them would think differently if they were frequently stopped by the police. But because they’re not targets, I assume they’ll tolerate someone else’s loss of liberty, especially if he or she happens to look like a drug runner.

Latinos are paying in other ways for the drug war. In looking for drug-war money, the White House was initially willing to cut $320 million from the $1 billion already appropriated for the State Legalization Impact Assistance Grants program. Congress created that program as part of its Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which set up an amnesty plan for illegal aliens, 85% of whom are Latino. It was intended to assist states in paying the additional costs they would incur in providing public assistance, health care and citizenship education to recently legalized aliens.

As it turned out, the grant program wasn’t trimmed to finance the drug war. Rather, the half-billion dollars Congress cut from it paid for other programs, none of which directly benefited Latinos. Obviously, the politicians in Washington felt secure enough to wield their knives on a program primarily of value to the Latino community. What’s troubling about this is that White House and congressional actions mimic America’s mood swings.

Far more threatening and objectionable than the traditional stereotyping of Latinos, or employers hassling them about their citizenship, is a slowly escalating war against all Latinos in the name of a desirable goal--a drug-free America.

Am I being an alarmist? What if a Latin drug lord ordered the assassination of a federal judge or Cabinet member? In the ensuing calls for revenge, would the reputations and freedoms of innocent Latinos survive?

Admittedly, fighting a drug war involves conflicting demands. But respect for liberty and dignity is not a luxury we can afford only in tranquil times. The price of ridding America of drugs should not be unduly borne by one segment of the population because of a coincidence of ethnicity.