Threatening blue states’ road money amounts to banning “driving while brown”
When MTV’s Sean Duffy threatens to cut off road and bridge funding unless states escalate immigration enforcement, they’re not just talking about budgets: they’re redefining who gets to move freely. In a country where traffic stops already function as a frontline for racial profiling, this kind of leverage doesn’t ban “driving while brown” in statute. It bans it in practice.
Roads are where abstract policy becomes physical control: flashing lights, ID checks, and “routine” stops that disproportionately target people who look undocumented. By tying infrastructure money to immigration crackdowns, Sean Duffy is effectively deputizing traffic enforcement as border control, turning shared public space into a filtering mechanism for race, accent, and appearance. This is despicable.