Humberto Sermeño

You’re not going to believe this, but this afternoon, as I was waiting for the bus with my wife, an immigration car stoped in front of us and asked us (that is, demanded) for our IDs. It’s amazing that during the four years I lived in the U.S. I was never asked to show my ID for just walking on the street, and in six months here I’ve been asked for it twice.

It’s not so much that I apparently look very much like a foreigner in my own country, but the realization that we continue to lose civic liberties in El Salvador. We’re now considered criminals simply for having long hair, tatoos or body piercings (I’m only guilty of long hair, by the way). No country that pretends to respect the rights of their citizens should assume that anyone walking on the street is guilty of something until proven otherwise.