UPI, May 9, 2008
UPS has refused to send a package to a Mexican woman living in South Florida because she has refused to provide proof that she is a legal resident.
Cristina Bustos told the Palm Beach Post the package has the birth certificates of two relatives also living in Florida who need them to apply for passports. She was told the package would remain at a UPS center in Louisville, Ky., until she sends a copy of her green card.
{snip}
Kirsten Petrella, a UPS spokeswoman, said the company is obliged to follow directives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency believes documents like birth certificates are sensitive because they could be used by terrorists to get false documents, she said.
Original article
(Posted on May 9, 2008)
Comments
This is very ironic when one takes into account the fact that UPS makes substantial monetary donations to various and sundry immigrant/Hispanic advocacy groups.
Posted by at 11:00 PM on May 9
I guess I don’t exactly understand this. Am I overlooking something in the article?
When I get a package delivered by UPS, they don’t even ask for my ID. I could be an illegal Canadian for all they know.
Posted by kitty at 11:58 PM on May 9
The reporter from the Palm Beach Post could find out the contents of the package, but NOT the legal status of Christina Bostos?
Posted by at 4:52 PM on May 10
Kitty posted “I could be an illegal Canadian for all they know.”
I have no problem with an illegal white Canadian than any of the Central and/or South American ilk.
Posted by PressOneForEnglish at 6:34 PM on May 10
The problem is not the package itself, but the fact that it contains sensitive documents.
UPS generally leaves stuff on our doorstep with just a ring on the bell. In my pre-felony days, when I still had an “03 Curios & Relics” FFL (a firearms collector’s license), long boxes and heavy crates would come marked “adult signature required”, and then they had to have an answer. Originally, in the early 1990s, before I bought my house, they would take the stuff to my apartment complex’s leasing office, and my landlady, who had a file copy of my FFL would sign for them. Later on, my very sweet retired neighbor would sign for them if I was out. I’d pick them up after coming home from work.
UPS isn’t being inherently wicked or even racially-aware here. They are a corporation, and so worry about things like ICE directives about sensitive documents and liability lawsuits.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 6:42 PM on May 10
“Kirsten Petrella, a UPS spokeswoman, said the company is obliged to follow directives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency believes documents like birth certificates are sensitive because they could be used by terrorists to get false documents, she said.”
It’s nice to know your following procedures but unless that package had “Birth Certificate” stamped all over it no one would have known what was in it. Anytime I’ve ordered something and it was shipped UPS the driver wouldn’t even knock on the door. I’d hear someone walking on the porch and I’d get up and open the door to find the parcel on my mat with the driver already in his truck.
Posted by at 7:18 PM on May 10
The USP is wrong. There may be a lot of non-US-citizens staying in US legally having no green card.
E.g. you were a foreigner having a two months vacation in Florida and would like to receive an item bought from a US net store.
Posted by acc at 12:11 PM on May 11
Maybe ups should take control of immigration control. It appears they had no trouble finding this woman, as opposed to all the hoopla about the government’s fishy claim of inability to locate them for deportation.
Posted by The Old Sage at 12:28 PM on May 11
This sounds like something the “National Council of The Race” would say is unfair to illegal (criminal) immigrants. Of course, any other policy of the post office would only aid terrorist efforts.
Posted by factualist at 7:11 PM on May 11
I called ICE to report suspected illegal activity (a crew of illegal immigrants laying bricks for a private sidewalk in the Garden District here in New Orleans), and after speaking to an ICE representative I was put on hold. I hung up after listening to elevator music for 15 minutes.
I get the feeling that ICE, like the rest of the federal government, doesn’t have the political will to do what they are mandated to do.
Posted by from nola at 10:04 PM on May 11
