No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I read this story in this morning’s news with mixed emotions:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Just like the police tell you to do, Abel Moreno called 911 when a man began assaulting his girlfriend. Before the end of the year, he could be deported to Mexico for his trouble.
Moreno, 29, of Charlotte made the call Dec. 29 because, he alleged, a Charlotte police officer was trying to fondle his girlfriend after a traffic stop.
The officer ordered Moreno to drop the call and arrested him and his girlfriend for resisting arrest.
Several things then happened. Five other women came forward to allege that the officer, identified as Marcus Jackson, now 26, had tried to molest them, too. Moreno was released after investigators debunked the resisting arrest
charge. So was his girlfriend.
Jackson was fired and faces 11 counts of sexual battery, extortion and interfering with emergency communication.

Police Chief Rodney Monroe admitted that Jackson should never have been hired in the first place because of previous charges related to a restraining order filed by an ex-girlfriend.
The local 911 system is under review because Moreno’s call wasn’t
acted upon.
And Abel Moreno now has a six-month deadline to show why he shouldn’t be deported, even though police acknowledge that his 911 call was crucial to their uncovering a dirty cop, and even though they agree that he shouldn’t have been arrested.
That’s because the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county jail where Moreno was held, is one of 67 local law enforcement agencies in 24 states that have signed up under Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows some local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws during the course of their normal duties. While he was still in jail, Moreno was found to have been in the United States illegally for the past six years, working at a restaurant so he could send money back home to his mother and his five brothers and sisters in Acapulco.
Sixty-seven local agencies in 24 states take part in the 287(g)
program, allowing them to enforce federal immigration laws. (This list includes Harris County, Texas, but not the City of Houston.) Six other agencies are negotiating or awaiting approval.

A judge granted Moreno a six-month deferment on his deportation because he is a witness in the criminal investigation. But that reprieve runs out in November.
Moreno’s attorney, Rob Heroy, said he was confident Moreno would eventually be granted a so-called U visa, which allows illegal immigrants who are victims or witnesses in criminal investigations to stay in the country for up to four years. But only 10,000 such visas are available in any year, and while that process works its way through the system, Moreno remains in
limbo.
“Now I’m unemployed,” Moreno said, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I don’t have any money, not even for rent, not even for my phone — anything. ... The truth is I’m scared.”
In many respects, Section 287(g), which has been around for 15 years, is similar to the law Arizona enacted last month obligating police to question people about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally