A Trip To My Senator's Office - HERE'S A TIP: Leave your camera at home.

I just returned from Senators Wyden and Smith’s offices in downtown Portland.

I have to say, for a Monday when there should have been quite a bit of activity, it was very quiet.

I first went to Senator Wyden’s office in the Federal Building. Other than unloading my coat and briefcase at the metal detector I had no trouble getting in and up to his office. I walked in and other than Senator Wyden’s receptionist, it appeared as though I was the only one in there.

I very politely asked if I could leave some information for her to forward onto the Senator and she took the information and said she would see to it that he received the literature.

I left the office and went outside. I had brought my new DV Video camera with me and thought, Hmmmm there is nobody here, I should take some footage of the lack of people in the courtyard.

Just a heads up for future reference… Don’t take pictures on/of Federal Property. They get cranky about that sort of thing. It didn’t even cross my mind that taking some video of the flora and fauna was a stupid idea. It was. Thankfully there were 2 ICE officers and a security guard there to let me know it was a bad idea. IN FACT, it took them ½ hour to get the message across while they ran my personal information through Denver. I wasn’t real happy about that, but what can you do?

The I.C.E. Police were very nice and explained that they were just trying to make sure people were following the rules – REALLY? HEY! ME TOO! And at that point, I began to get into detail as to why I was there and oddly enough had one guys undivided attention. The conclusion was that the I.C.E. Police pretty much feel the same way we do (or at least these guys did), they’re just not at liberty to proclaim their personal feelings on the subject to the world.

Undiscouraged, I trundled on to Senator Smith’s office. They don’t make it much easier to get in there either, but again I had little trouble finding his office and again I talked to a nice receptionist that assured me the letters / information I had would be given to Senator Smith.

I spent a certain amount of time looking for others that had come to inform the Senators of our position on Illegal Immigration, but found nobody.

Apparently the lunch hour isn’t the best time to go to a senator’s office.

Let’s see what happens.