An Illegal Alien...Temporarily

Thanks to a snafu with the work permit paperwork, for a week or two, I was an illegal immigrant.  Interesting enough, they renewed the children's permits without realizing it, so they were fine.  John had a trip to the U.S. so he expedited his paperwork to make sure he'd be able to re-enter the country after his departure.  That just left me.  

Here in Belgium, they often have random checkpoints.  Police blockades.  These occur at various hours of the day (not just at night like a DWI checkpoint.)  It's my understanding that these are employed to look for illegal immigrants, driving under the influence, and other various infractions.  

This is another one of those times where I've noticed the absence of the constitutional protections offered in the U.S. that I would normally take for granted.  There is no probable cause requirement here.  

I have never been stopped at one of these checkpoints, although I've seen them often enough.  I figured that it would be just my luck that I would get stopped at one of these while I was carrying an expired i.d.  It didn't happen.

I did however, happen upon a checkpoint a week or so after I had my shiny new i.d. card in hand.  In the past, any time I've gone by one of these checkpoints, it so happens that the police officers are all busy with other cars and I zip on by without being stopped (and usually avoiding eye contact with the officer in charge of pointing the cars over to the side of the road.)  This time, I looked the officer right in the eye as I slowed down in accordance with the orange cones he was using to filter cars past one at a time.  I practically dared him to pull me over.  (Might as well show that shiny new card to someone, right?  And my curiosity about what happens at these random stops has been peaked.)  He peered into my car and waved me by. I was a little disappointed.

It made me think that racial profiling might be standard practice here as well.   If my skin had been a different color, I wonder if my day would have been interrupted with an impromptu police interview?