Sitting on a Parked Motorcycle While Latino -Ernesto Cruz says two cops told him they were taking him in because he was illegal. But that would be illegal. – Chicago, Illinois

“ON SEPTEMBER 7 Ernesto Cruz was sitting on his parked motorcycle outside his girlfriend’s home in Albany Park when a car pulled up and two men got out. Cruz, a 21-year-old native of Mexico City who came to Chicago with his parents and brother six years ago, says the men were wearing jeans, bulletproof vests, holsters, and green-and-yellow baseball caps that said U.S. BORDER PATROL. One of them asked if his motorcycle had a license plate. “I pointed to it,” he says.

Cruz says the men then asked to see his driver’s license. He told them he’d lost his wallet, so all he had was his student ID from Northeastern Illinois University, where he’s a business major. Then they asked for his social security number. Cruz, who also works at a restaurant, says the men put his hands against their car and searched him, and then one of them took his keys out of his pocket, got on his motorcycle, and rode off. He says the other man told him, “We’re impounding your motorcycle and putting it up for auction””you’re not getting it back.””

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