And it’s a stupid law, anyway.

You heard me.

Things that make me angry #579

This.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A bailiff who forgot about a woman locked in a courthouse holding cell and left her there for four days without food, water or access to a bathroom has been suspended for 30 days but will keep his job, officials said Wednesday.

Yeah, you read that right. He’s keeping his job. A slap on the wrist.

When I read that, I thought there had to be some mistake, and that the story would be about lawsuits and protests and so on. But nope, not a word about any outrage over this little wrist slap from anyone except … the Mexican consulate?

Washington County Cpl. Jarrod Hankins acted without “intentional misconduct” when he left Adriana Torres-Flores in the 9 1/2-by-10 1/2-foot cell, Sheriff Tim Helder said.

Hankins “became busy and simply forgot” about the woman last Thursday, leaving her in the cell with only a jacket until Monday morning.

“I realize some people may have expected Hankins to be terminated. However, my philosophy is if an employee makes a mistake while trying their best to perform their duties, I will try to salvage them,” Helder said in a statement.

…

Torres-Flores, 38, appeared in court last Thursday on charges of selling pirated CDs. While others pleaded guilty she pleaded not guilty, but Circuit Judge William Storey ordered her held because she is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, deputies said. [Full story]

Oh. I see. So it’s okay to leave a human being without food or water for four days, and instead of criminal neglect charges or, you know, getting fired, you get a slap on the wrist because they were born on the other side of an imaginary line and then had the unmitigated gall to cross it, is that the theory?

This is not an episode of “The Brady Bunch.” Drawing an artificial line in the sand does not give you the right to treat people worse that you would treat an animal. It burns me, it really does, that there were protests and articles and panic and outrage and comparisons to genocide and slavery over a slaughterhouse worker using a cattle prod on a cow’s eye, but this story, this one we’ll probably never hear a word about again.

Just because someone has broken the law by crossing a border does not mean that it is okay to deprive them of basic human rights. If Adriana Torres-Flores had been Nancy Worthington, Nice White Lady Born and Raised in Little Rock, that bailiff would be facing charges right now. But immigrants are only people if they have the documents to prove it in today’s America, I guess.