Free The Illegal by Lawrence Hill Page B

here?”
    He ignored her.
    “Hey, buddy, what’s going on?” she said.
    “Beat it,” he said.
    Viola removed the phone from the strap on her shoulder and began filming. All those leaving the boat were black. Mostly men. All thin.
    The immigration official turned to face her directly. “I said beat it.”
    “I’m with the Telegram ,” she said.
    “And I’m Barack Obama,” he said. The man was as white as paste.
    She wheeled past him, right up to the police paddy wagon into which the refugees were being shoved. She saw five men and a woman in there and took a picture with her cellphone.
    A man was led in handcuffs right past her.
    “Sir,” she said, “I’m with the Clarkson Evening Telegram . Who are you, and why are you being arrested?”
    He was about twenty-five years old and bleeding from a cut above his eye.
    “Did someone hit you?” Viola asked.
    The man took a look at the officer leading him, and said, “No, I just bumped my head.”
    “Where are you from?”
    “No talking to media,” the police officer said.
    “There is no law that says you can’t talk to the media,” Viola said. She tried again. “Where are you from?”
    “Zantoroland,” the man said. The officer rushed him into the paddy wagon.
    “You, ma’am,” Viola said to a woman. She was about twenty, walking with a pronounced limp and carrying a bundle of rags in her arms. “Why is this happening?”
    “Three weeks on that boat,” the woman said. “No toilet, bad water, food rations. Now I can’t wake my baby.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Dolores Williams. Can someone help my baby?”
    Viola looked around. “I’ll see if I can find someone.”
    “Bless you! And tell my sister I made it. Loretta Williams, in Yagwa City.”
    A police constable standing on the far side of the paddy wagon appeared to be telling people what to do. Viola wheeled over to him.
    “A woman over there can’t wake her baby.”
    “She’ll have to wait.”
    “But the baby could be dying!” Viola said.
    “Not my concern.”
    “I work for a national news outlet and you are telling me that you don’t care if a baby is dying?”
    “If you weren’t way down in that contraption, I’d smack you and arrest you for disturbing the peace. Beat it, before I get angry.”
    Viola aimed her phone at him. If he did something stupid, she would catch it on video.
    “Viola Hill, reporter with the Clarkson Evening Telegram , and I’m simply asking you where you are taking these men and women—and why.”
    The constable started walking away.
    “I’m going to call 911 if you don’t go see that baby!”
    “Christ almighty,” he said. “Where’s the damn baby?”
    Viola pointed to the mother, and the constable walked her way.
    Suddenly, cars began streaming into the parking lot by the wharf. Men and women, all white, mostly over forty, gathered at the pier. There were about a dozen of them, three with placards: “Enough Is Enough,” “Send ’Em Back” and “Who Invited Them?”
    Viola took photos of the placards. Then she wheeled up to the demonstrators.
    “Sir,” she said to one, “I’m Viola Hill with the Clarkson Evening Telegram . Can you tell me why you are here?”
    “Who are you?”
    “I just told you who I am. Who are you?”
    “We’re with SIB.”
    “SIB?”
    “Send Illegals Back.”
    “Who told you that these people were being arrested?” Viola asked.
    “We scan the police radios. Our country is wasting good resources detaining this scum. Should have turned the boat around and sent it back home.”
    “What is your name?”
    “Don.”
    “Last name?”
    “None of your business.”
    “If you turned this boat around, those people would die.”
    “Is that our problem? We didn’t invite them to Freedom State. Our country is not a house without a door. They can’t just keep crashing into it with no passport, no documentation, no legal right to be here.”
    “Why, exactly, are you so worked up about refugees? A mother who