It is lunchtime on Friday afternoon at the Super Stop & Shop in Hudson, Massachusetts. A warm humid day in the first days of September and the children are back at school. Friday afternoon means payday for many and although direct deposit is a popular service banks offer, there are some who prefer a check on payday. Actually, they would prefer cash, but as long as they can cash the check right away…a check will do.

Lunchtime on Friday and an older car with Brazilian flags on the bumpers and hanging from the rearview mirror parks in the fire lane directly in front of the entrance to the Super Stop & Shop. Two young Hispanic men, dressed for a game of hip-hop basketball with thinly trimmed beards and checks in hand enter the Stop & Shop a few feet from where they parked, illegally, in the fire lane. The handicapped parking is twenty or thirty feet away from the front of the store and for where they parked, directly in front of the store entrance. If you have ever been at a grocery store (or similar venue) when someone had a medical emergency or there was a fire alarm or some reason for the Police and Fire and Ambulance/EMT services to show up, then you have seen where the emergency vehicles were stationed. That is where the two young men, dressed for hip-hop basketball with checks in hand were parked.

Inside the Super Stop & Shop in Hudson, Massachusetts at lunchtime on Friday afternoon, these two young men joined a group of similarly dressed men, many sporting Brazilian flags emblazoned on their sleeveless t-shirts or more convincingly with a tattoo.

They were lined up to cash their checks at the Stop & Shop branch of, get this, Citizen’s Bank. That’s right: Citizen’s. Next stop: wire the money back to Brazil, where they are citizens. Legal citizens.

When people want to immigrate to the United States and want to assimilate, want to adhere to the laws of the United States and contribute as well as benefit from a United States way of life, that is indeed the American way. When people want to come into the United States illegally with no intention of assimilation, intending to export U.S. dollars earned illegally and tax-free; overloading emergency room services for “free” medical care at taxpayer expense; overloading our public school systems with the children of parents who do not and have no intention of ever speaking English; that is not immigration. That is an invasion of criminals. Who is parked in the fire lane when you need EMT services at the grocery store? That’s who.