For yourselves, your daughters and your granddaughters, tell Rep. Cooper to speak up

Congressman Jim Cooper, who represents most of Davidson County, has been described to me as a nice guy, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Boy Scout and an assortment of other warm and fuzzy descriptions.

Ooooooooooh! I could just squeeze him like a roll of toilet paper.

But never has anyone described him as an effective lawmaker, which I thought representatives of the people were supposed to be -- particularly in a supposed progressive city of Democrats like Nashville. Quick, tell me what Cooper has proposed and passed in Congress to make your life better. Sorry, time's up. But I have to admit that I can answer the same question for Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

So it is no wonder that Rep. Cooper has continued to remain silent about the inhumane treatment of undocumented workers and their families for the past 14 months in Davidson County under the 287g deportation program. And over the July 4th weekend, that treatment became torture and degradation, just like we've heard about at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

The 287g deportation program was requested by Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall. And he sold it to Nashvillians as a way to deport the dangerous, criminal element from the county and nation. But the program -- like the Iraq war -- has operated on a rotating rationale that has nothing to do with its founding mission.

The great majority of the people deported have had no dangerous criminal record at all. And now Hall has backtracked to claim he never promised that the program would only deport dangerous criminals. At least George W. Bush acknowledges his initial misrepresentation.

Yet I still can respect Hall, even if he wears his hard feelings toward Hispanics on his sleeves. I can't respect Cooper, who hides behind a nice guy image but fails to speak up when tortuous inhumanity arises in his own congessional district. Instead, he only speaks up to joust with the windmills of Rural Electric Cooperatives. But there isn't one REC in his district.

Still, local Democrats and the news media give Cooper a pass. But I can't, especially after what happened to Juana Villegas DeLaPaz from July 3 to July 10 here. Mrs. DeLaPaz was literally tortured by the county sheriff's department as she went through childbirth and the recovery afterward.

I use the word "torture" specifically, because the mothers I've spoken to say the pain they went through would have been multiplied for Ms. DeLaPaz with handcuffs to the bedrail during most of her labor, leg shackles for trips to the bathroom and -- worst of all -- the denial of a breast pump by the sheriff's department to feed her newborn and ease the pain from her swollen breasts.

The water boarding this nation used at Guatanamo and the various degrees of degradation used against Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib have been duplicated here in Nashville with a woman arrested three days before giving birth by the Berry Hill Police Department. She spent seven days in sheriff's custody, which supervised her torture.

No law required the department treat her like that. It was the department's policy under one man, Sheriff Daron Hall. And the treatment was more indicative of overt sexism against women than it was scorn for her ethnicity.

That's why every Nashville woman should be outraged by this incident. They are vulernable, too, if they accidentally drive through Berry Hill in south Nashville and then come under the sheriff's custody.

Congressman Easter Bunny could stop this threat with his simple objection to the 287g program in his congressional district. I'll fly up to Washington, D.C., and walk him over to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His objection would carry great political weight because no member of Congress has yet to object to 287g in his or her district. The program has now spread like a virus to 55 communities across the nation. North Carolina will soon add it statewide. The state of Tennessee reportedly is pursuing the program statewide under the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

So if you're a woman driving Tennessee's interstates, be warned. You could end up at the mercy of the county sheriff where you car is stopped. Some Tennessee sheriffs make Daron Hall resemble Sherlock Holmes, so beware.

Sheriff Hall, however, will protest loudly and long if you challenge him on 287g. He'll say people have nothing to worry about if they are legally in the country. Technically, he's right. But in how a police department in a very small section of south Nashville interpreted the law, he's wrong. Mrs. DeLaPaz had enough documentation to prove that she'd show up in court for a driving without a license traffic offense. But Sgt. Barney Fife of Berry Hill went overboard, made Ms. DeLaPaz wait an hour in her car on a hot summer day and then hauled in this woman who was three days from delivering her fourth child.

Then consider that Sheriff Hall and his department have a very enlarged opinion of themselves and their authority after running 287g for 14 months. More than 1,500 people legally in this country have been detained and questioned for hours by the sheriff's department. That's a lot of people. I am part of the second generation of my family born in this nation. My Uncle Sal is a WWII hero, who saved members of his crew as a middle gunner on a B-17.

But I would never bring him here because of 287g and the threat to him as a Mexican-American.

My wife, a daughter of Kentucky, always asks me if I have my driver's license before I travel to mass at St. Edward Catholic Church. If I get stopped, she knows I'm at the mercy of local law enforcement. And you never know -- as we all have unfortunately discovered in this computer age -- what this form of supposed higher intelligence will say about us. We all have received enough erroneous, computer-generated information from health insurance companies, banks and credit card issuers.

I could get confused with another "Chavez" in the federal immigration database used by the sheriff. "Chavez" in Mexico is like "Jones" here.

Now you won't have any trouble with Metro Police. Chief Serpas has trained his men and women to look for other forms of ID to establish residency and assurance that you'll show up in court for a traffic offense. You'll get a ticket and drive on. Chief Serpas is a man of integrity.

But if you drive through Belle Meade where Al Gore lives, or Berry Hill near 100 Oaks Mall and St. Edward's, you're at the mercy of police officers who are part of a smaller force and perhaps a smaller way of thinking and tolerance. And remember, some smaller sections of Nashville are notorious for setting up speed traps, so you could easily be stopped. Then, your fate or that of your loved ones is out of your hands.

You may not like Mrs. DeLaPaz because she is Mexican. You may not like her because she is illegally here. You may not like her because she was deported before in 1996. But think about yourselves, your sisters, your daughters and your granddaughters and the sanctity of childbirth.

Do you want it violated by the men heading local and county law enforcement? That's the precious thing at stake here.

It's also why lawmakers representing you in Washington, D.C., should first be effective. Whether they love puppies or look like one is not really important. Remember what Tina Fey said during her SNL appearance about Hillary Clinton and all the silly talk that she was too hard-nosed. Who do want dealing with terrorists? Santa Claus? Mr. Nice Guy? A Boy Scout?

The same need is required when dealing with local authorities who would treat a woman at childbirth like a terrorist.

Cooper's continuing silence is deafening. And it is a reminder of what Dante wrote about people who remain neutral at the time of crisis.

If you're happy with an ineffective but lovable congressman, then read no further.

But if you want competency and effectiveness, then send an e-mail to the following address or make a phone call. Tell the congressman to file an objection to 287g in Nashville and to tell the governor not to allow 287g across the state.

Call Congressman Cooper at (615) 736-5295 or (202) 225-4311. Send an e-mail to http://www.cooper.house.gov and click "Contact."

The welfare of yourselves, your sisters, your daughters and your granddaughters depends on it.