I was sitting in a local not-so-fast-food burger restaurant when 4 large, black, non-descript passenger vans pulled into the parking lot. Some older white men got out ahead of about 40 young Mexican men who disembarked and were lined up outside the building. One of the older guys, who were all wearing dark blue and polo shirts with what looked like some sort of small law enforcement logo on the breast, came into the building first. As the young guys entered and walked past him, he was telling them all to "just say number 3 combo, say number 3 combo..." It was the cheapest thing on the menu that wasn't a child's meal. It was evident they were being coached because they didn't know English. They all looked apprehensive and many were wearing the same shorts, sandals, and socks, but different shirts. All looked to be older teens to early twenties. This happened in my small red town, coming soon to a theater near you. All the patrons just sat and watched silently in disbelief. Our government is not working for us, they are working against us.
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When I was in clinical practice, we used to provide services contracted with the county to see young people that were incarcerated. They were all young men probably under 20 that were more or less in some kind of supervised youth rehab job core type of program and not hard core criminals - more like wayward youths. They were escorted on their day trip, all loaded in a couple of vans, by only a few supervisors that were not dressed in typical law enforcement uniforms. Their attire was more in line with what you described. These young men all wore shorts, white crew socks, and flip flops. The short sleeved polo shirts were all the same. None of them were cuffed like other more hardened inmates that we saw that were from the jail.
It was winter at the time and it had snowed. I asked one of the officers if they were worried about the kids bolting. They did not seem worried and said that if they did bolt, they wouldn't get far - their clothing gave them away and flip flops don't facilitate running in the snow very well. From what I understand, getting out of their facility for one of these day trips, even if it was to go to the doctor or the dentist, was a privilege and they usually didn't cause trouble. Typically we had several of these groups of youths come in during the year and we never had an issue with them. They were always well behaved and polite. My point here is that there could be another explanation for what you saw.
But all Mexican? That was the striking element of it all.