The Patriot Post® · A Nation of Laws — In Name Only

By Arnold Ahlert ·
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57812-a-nation-of-laws-in-name-only-2018-08-23

While Democrats and their equally clueless allies continue to advocate for the abolition of ICE, another Narrative has blown up in their faces. Leftist outrage arising from the apprehension of illegal alien Joel Arrona-Lara, who was driving his wife to an appointment for a scheduled C-section, was eviscerated by a most “inconvenient” detail: Arrona-Lara is wanted for murder in Mexico.

And in what is becoming almost routine, the media did its best to cast the arrest in a manner sympathetic to the suspect and his illegal-alien wife. “A newborn is without his father Friday after immigration agents detained the man as he was taking his wife to deliver the baby,” CBS News reported. “After her husband was detained, Venegas drove herself to the hospital and delivered her baby, she told local media. Surveillance video from inside the store shows her crying and distraught,” The Washington Post stated.

The media also blamed President Donald Trump for the arrest. Newsweek framed it as a “Trump crackdown,” and The New York Times declared that the arrest “quickly provoked outrage and fed into a growing anger toward ICE and the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration policies.”

The Huffington Post pushed another ICE-bashing angle, quoting Emilio Amaya García, director of the Community Services Center of San Bernardino, who is representing Arrona-Lara. García insisted ICE “not only could … have endangered the life of the mother, but also that of the child, who is a citizen of this country.”

Which brings us to another reality that angers millions of Americans. Arrona-Lara and his wife, Maria del Carmen Venegas, have lived in America illegally for a dozen years, but their five children are U.S. citizens. That is thanks to the “anchor baby” fiasco.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, there are approximately 4.5 million anchor babies in the United States under 18 years of age. As Mark Alexander wrote of the misinterpretation of the Constitution to provide for “birthright citizenship” for illegals, “In the very words of the 14th Amendment’s authors … ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ clearly and plainly referred to those who were legal citizens. It did not and never has implied any legal standing for the children of illegal immigrants.”

In the meantime, a compelling incentive for sneaking into America remains operative. It is an incentive made even more attractive by the legions of leftists and their media apparatchiks who invariably insist the illegal parents of those anchor babies are themselves sacrosanct, because enforcing the law would “break up families.”

Even an outstanding homicide warrant fails to elicit anything resembling common sense.

Moreover, in many leftist enclaves, progressives who once insisted the only justifiable arrest of an illegal was the commission of a crime in addition to being in the country illegally, have defined deviancy down. In New York City, a bill passed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council in 2014 prevents the transfer of an arrested illegal to ICE custody “unless the feds have a warrant, or the suspect is on a terrorism watch list or has committed a violent crime, such as rape or murder,” the New York Post explains.

Other crimes, even felonies? Irrelevant.

New York is hardly an outlier. Few things epitomize the American Left’s contempt for the Rule of Law more than the hundreds of locales around the nation that have declared themselves “sanctuary cities.”

And when illegals commit crimes, including rape and murder because these cities refuse to cooperate with ICE? We get progressive rationale in its most bankrupt incarnation: Illegals commit crimes at “lesser rates” than their American counterparts.

Those who abide the despicable rationale that a certain number of wholly avoidable crimes is “reasonable” have more blood on their hands: University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts was allegedly murdered by illegal alien Cristhian Rivera. Elizabeth Warren paid brief lip service to Tibbetts before attempting to hammer the Trump administration for the same family separation policies practiced by the Obama administration.

Remorse? “Likely coming to a Trump rally near you…. Investigators: Suspect in Mollie Tibbetts death is in custody, subject to immigration detainer,” tweeted AP White House reporter Zeke Miller.

It’s not just people attempting to sneak across the border who’ve noticed the Left’s utterly twisted worldview. In 2017, more than 700,000 foreigners overstayed their temporary visas, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS framed this as a good thing, because it represents only 1.33 percent of the 52,656,022 people who entered the nation and departed as expected. The agency also noted that another 100,000 likely departed as well, leaving “only” 600,000 who remained here illegally.

Unfortunately, reality bites: That number is double the 300,000 people apprehended trying to cross the border that same year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

And once again, they’re incentivized by reality: archaic computer systems, many of which are 15 years old, make it exceedingly difficult to keep track of overstayers. Bureaucratic inefficiency is also part of the infuriating mix, as there are at least 27 DHS systems and databases that support visa-related investigations, requiring between 10 and 40 passwords to access them, a report by the DHS’s inspector general reveals. Lockouts ranging from minutes to several days also afflict the system. “As a result,” the IG’s office explained, “it may take months for ICE to determine a visa holder’s status and whether that person may pose a national security threat.”

Bureaucratic ineptitude is abetted by Congress, where members of both political parties have made it clear they prefer a globalist-oriented, open-borders agenda more than protecting national sovereignty and national security. Nothing speaks to that reality more forcefully than “boob bait for the masses” assertions that any immigration reform passed by Congress must be “comprehensive.”

That’s orchestrated gridlock, courtesy of hopelessly corrupt Democrats and a duplicitous Republican majority that refuses to enact piece-by-piece legislation, relying mostly on the excuse that they can’t get 60 Senate votes they claim are necessary. Yet it was former Democrat Senate Majority leader Harry Reid who invoked the nuclear option when it suited his party’s interests.

But Republicans won’t serve America’s interests by invoking the nuclear option to end the de facto invasion of our nation?

While Congress intentionally dithers, thousands more cross the border, or overstay their visas. More than 20 illegal-alien children per day skip deportation hearings, adding to the more than 200,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) that have been released in America, the overwhelming majority of which will remain here illegally.

Nonetheless, according to the San Bernardino Sun, it’s ICE that “faces questions” for detaining a suspected murderer. And according to a soulless White House reporter, the murder of another innocent American is nothing more than a rallying cry for “deplorables.”

The endgame? An exceptional America that has been a magnet for those fleeing dysfunctional and corrupt countries becomes more like those countries — all while shameless Democrats cheer the “fundamental transformation” and spineless Republicans sit on their hands.

Decent Americans? Forced to cope with the damning reality that we are becoming a nation of laws — in name only.