Category Archives: immigration

Time to Pause

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors think it’s time for ICE to pause in Minneapolis.

This is a badly mistaken position, and it’s based on a badly wrong underlying premise. Here are the key components in the editors’ error, in their own words.

Fifteen months later in Minneapolis, there isn’t much heart in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground surrounded by ICE agents, is the worst incident to date in what is becoming a moral and political debacle for the Trump Presidency.
Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, but this is how it looks to us. Pretti attempted, foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. Multiple agents then tackled Pretti, and he had a phone in one hand as he lay on the ground. An agent discovered a concealed gun on Pretti, and disarmed him. An agent then shot Pretti, and multiple shots followed.

Stripped from the context of the shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground is the simple fact that he was actively resisting arrest subsequent to his actively interfering with the arrest of the woman. The agents’ efforts to disarm him as he resisted arrest and now fought to retain his firearm—that addendum to his resistance is what led to his being shot.

And: Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, especially when they’re carefully edited for favored excerpts, or wholly withheld, as the WSJ has done in its “news” article misleadingly titled Videos Contradict US Account of Minneapolis Shooting by Federal Agents, from which the videos were deliberately not published, nor were any links to any videos provided. All that piece contained were carefully selected stills carefully stripped of all context surrounding them—other than the news writers’ personal opinion-based representations of the stills’ meaning.

Nor was Pretti attempt[ing], foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. The agents were attempting to arrest the woman, who had been obstructing the agents—not protesting their actions—resisting arrest, and in the course of the struggle resulting from her resisting, she was pushed to the ground. Pretti’s “assistance” consisted of interposing himself between the woman and the agents and actively resisting—physically opposing—her arrest. In the course of his obstruction, he was pushed to the ground and his subsequent continued physical resistance is what led to his being shot.

Contra the editors’ position, it’s time for Minnesota’s Progressive-Democratic governor, Tim Walz, to pause—actually to cease altogether—his constant egging on those present in Minneapolis to actively resist ICE operations, which only result in rioting where ICE is active (its agents acting entirely within their DOC and immigration law). It’s time for Minneapolis’ Progressive-Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, to pause—to halt altogether—his especially inflammatory rhetoric regarding ICE operations and ICE agents.

WSJ editors holding Walz and Frey, and Minneapolis’ rioters, blameless is part of a general press policy of false reporting, even as they add this:

Either many ICE agents aren’t properly trained, or they are so on edge as they face opposition in the streets that they are on a hair trigger. Either way, this calls for rethinking how ICE conducts itself, especially in Minneapolis as tensions build.

No, it calls for rethinking the way Walz and Frey incite violence and the way Minneapolis’ rioters respond to that incitement. The agents aren’t facing “opposition;” they’re facing too often violent opposition.

The editors then closed their piece with this argument:

Governor Tim Walz could have urged his citizens to avoid confrontations with ICE. Instead he made a video urging them to go into the streets with phones and film ICE agents, whether or not they are performing lawful searches under federal immigration law. His rhetoric is incendiary and describes ICE as a lawless terrorist operation. Another tragedy was inevitable, and there will be more if this continues.
Whether he likes it or not, most of the burden now lies with Mr Trump as the President who controls ICE.

No, whether the editors like it or not, most of the burden lies with Walz and Frey as the inflaming pushers of resistance.

It’s long past time for the press to stop distorting the facts of these matters, to stop misleading us citizens with their false reporting, to stop doing their bit to inflame the public, even if Walz and Frey will not stop their inflammatory words.

What’s the Deal with Little Liam?

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Recall that little Liam Ramos was seized and held by ICE agents a few days ago. Or at least that’s the narrative an intrinsically dishonest “news” media has been peddling. Some facts, though, are coming to light despite the best efforts of the core of that guild, courtesy of some few news writers who have different ideas regarding reporting news.

The Department of Homeland Security said ICE was conducting an operation to arrest Liam’s father, who the department said was in the country illegally, when the father fled and left Liam alone in a vehicle.

This is a little boy’s father abandoning his son in his own attempt to escape to continue violating US laws.

And

Agency spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said an officer stayed with Liam while others apprehended his father.

Making sure the little boy wasn’t just left to wander.

Then,

Officers made several attempts to get his mother, who was inside the house, to take custody of him, saying she wouldn’t be detained if she did so, McLaughlin said.

Several attempts. Because the little boy’s mother was more worried about her own neck than she was about her son. Today, both the little boy and the man who may be his biological father but who has in no way acted in that role are being held in a Texas facility that’s set up to handle both adults and children. The boy is there because, ultimately, his biological mother refused to take him, despite those repeated ICE attempts.

Keep in mind that ICE is the agency that took care of a little boy who’d just been deserted by his parents and which a leading Minnesota candidate for the US Senate, along with incumbent Congressional Progressive-Democrats, want to completely defund and abolish.

This is how little Progressive-Democrats and their Leftist supporters—all of whom have become mainstream left, no longer being an extremist fringe—care about facts. This is how little those folks care about a little boy, all of five years old, mind you, who was deserted by his parents.

The Racism of the Mayor

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And the straightforwardness of one recruit. Progressive-Democrat Mayor Karen Bass is upset that so many Americans of Latino background are enlisting in the Customs and Border Patrol along our southern border. Bass responded to a report that [a]pplications up 70% from last year as over half of southern border agents are now Hispanic.

Well, in a way, I think it’s sad. I think that those Border Patrol agents are going to have a difficult time when they’re out in the field and they see what actually happens in real life separate from their training.

Not so much. Maybe Bass ought to travel along the border without her entourage screening her and see for herself.

On the other hand, here’s a young recent recruit to the CBP:

Juan Peralta, a 20-year-old who said friends back home were surprised that he’d joined up and would say things like, “How do you feel about arresting your own kind?”
“And how do you answer that when you hear that?” [CNN‘s David] Culver asked.
Peralta responded, “They didn‘t come in the right way. So, they aren‘t my kind.”

A Step in the Right Direction

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Against the backdrop of the multi-billion dollar Medicaid fraud being pulled off in Minnesota and so far only partially uncovered (for all the dozens of indictments and convictions), a fraud that centers on sending those billions of dollars overseas, comes this move by Missouri’s State Treasurer Vivek Malek:

Missouri State Treasurer Vivek Malek told Just the News he is teaming up with the state legislature to impose new requirements that remittance payment businesses ensure that customers are lawfully in the United States before they can send money to foreign countries….

It’s not just Somali immigrants and illegal aliens resident in Minnesota, either.

“It has been found that at least $4.4 billion in remittances sent to Mexico have been tied to cartel money laundering through small wire transfers,” [Malek] said. “Cartels don’t sneak money across the border or throw the bag across the border. They wire it. And if we are serious about crushing cartels, we have to shut down their financial arteries.”

This is a strong move, and it’ll be instructive to see which States—Progressive-Democrat-run vs Republican-run—start taking similar steps. State by State legislation, though, is patchy, incomplete, and slow. What’s needed is the same move done at the Federal level. Treasury should monitor such transmissions, blocking those sent by inappropriate senders—illegal aliens, for instance. Treasury has ample authority under our Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations….

Remissions of US money to foreign relatives of those present in the US, whether legally so or illegal alien, is pretty clearly Commerce with foreign Nations.

Another Progressive-Democrat Foolish Lawsuit

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Blue State AGs don’t like President Donald Trump’s (R) Executive Order imposing a $100,000 fee on H1B visa applicants.

A group of Democratic state attorneys general on Friday filed a challenge to President Donald Trump’s imposition of a $100,000 fee to apply for an H-1B visa.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, lead AG on the case, based it on this:

Oregon’s colleges, universities and research institutions rely on skilled international workers to keep labs running, courses on track and innovation moving forward. This enormous fee would make it nearly impossible for these institutions to hire the experts they need, and it goes far beyond what Congress ever intended. This threatens Oregon’s ability to compete, educate, and grow.

It may make colleges, universities, and research institutions efforts to hire certain skilled workers more difficult. That, though, is a business model question, not a legal one. No enterprise has an inherent right to pursue the business model of its choice, and government has no obligation whatsoever, to comport laws or regulations to the requirements of any business model. Those entities must alter their business models to accommodate changing legal environments, just as they must with changing market environments.

The only thing threatening [Oregon’s] ability to compete, educate, and grow is those institutions’ insistence on their entrenched models as they are, rather than adapting them. The question of whether the EO goes beyond Congressional intent is a separate matter, and the AGs’ claim of that is wholly conclusory.

This frivolous and foolish lawsuit is just another instantiation of Party’s dislike of all things Trump, independent of merit or lack regarding a Trump move.