A Rejection

The “caravan” wants no part of sanctuary in Mexico.

Several thousand migrants—traveling in a large group from Central American countries to the United States—have turned down an offer by Mexico to help them find shelter and work in the country, The Associated Press reported Saturday.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto addressed the mass of people directly:

We know very well that what you’re seeking is an opportunity, you want to build a new home and a better future for your family and loved ones. Today, Mexico lends you a hand[.]

The lended hand was via an aid program called, aptly enough, You are at home.

That mass of people rejected the offer and restated their intent of “heading north.”

Now why would they do that?  By their own statement, it’s clearly not sanctuary or refugee status they want.  What’s the real motive here?

A Deported High School Student

Recall the first debate between Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) and Beto O’Rourke, Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Texas Senator.  Ol’ Beto told the tale of a mistreated Dreamer [emphasis added]:

the salutatorian at tiny Booker High School in the Texas Panhandle, recently deported to his country of origin, not even speaking the language.

Oops.

It didn’t happen [emphasis added].

The honor student in question was actually the valedictorian.
She spoke the language.
It happened a decade ago, not recently.
And most importantly, said Yamile Guerrero Rosales, “I wasn’t deported….”

Oh, the lady was, at the time, here from Mexico, and she had to deal with six months of paperwork concerning her then baby, still stuck in Juarez.  But she’s now a naturalized citizen (tough to achieve after having been deported) and an accountant for a Booker area company.

Aides insist that O’Rourke was operating on second-hand information.  But come on, even the Dallas Morning News checks this kind of information, why didn’t O’Rourke?  Even if this was nothing more than an honest mistake—I’ll spot him that, tentatively—he’d repeated that tale on the campaign trail several times before he got to the debate and got fact checked.

Nor is this the first serious…error…O’Rourke has made (he now claims that an unidentified passenger in his own vehicle corroborates his claim).  It likely won’t be his last.  Is this the level of “carelessness” we want representing us in Texas?

Remember this, this fall.

“I’m Confused”

Here’s an exchange (edited slightly for spacing) between Senator Mazie Hirono (D, HI) and ICE Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Matthew Albence as the latter testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary last Tuesday.

Albence: I think we’re missing the point. These individuals are there because they have broken a law.

Hirono interrupted, insisting that the illegal immigrants being held in the detention centers “have broken a law only as deemed so by” President Donald Trump.

Albence: No, Ma’am—they are there for violation of Title VIII of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, OK?  That’s illegal entry; it’s both a criminal and civil violation. They are in those [detention centers] pending the outcome of that civil immigration process. They have broken the law.

Hirono: My understanding is that under zero tolerance these are no longer civil proceedings, but in fact are criminal proceedings. Is that so?

Albence: They were criminal proceedings when the Border Patrol prosecuted them. But at the conclusion of that process—once the individual came into ICE custody—they would go through administrative proceedings.

Hirono: I’m confused.

That law, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, is 66 years old, and it’s been enforced with varying degrees of diligence for all of those two-thirds of a century.

Hirono knows this.  Her pretended confusion says volumes about her; sadly, it adds not a syllable to any necessary discussion about our immigration laws and the appropriate disposition of those who break them.

Misunderstood

A 13-year-old Huntsville girl was beheaded after she witnessed her grandmother assaulted with a knife and left to die on the ground in a cemetery, court testimony revealed.

A child.

The butchers were members of the Sinaloa cartel; apparently, they were disgruntled with the grandmother’s handling of a drug delivery.  It’s also…interesting…that the thugs chose to take the child along with the grandmother to the site where murder occurred, supposedly just to remonstrate with her before “[t]he argument escalated.”

These are the beasts that the Progressive-Democrats insist are not animals, just misunderstood yout’s.

The Supremes Get Another One Right

Sort of.  Mostly.

A deeply divided Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s latest ban on travel to the US by people from several Muslim-majority countries, in a ruling Tuesday that hands the White House a victory on one of its most central—and controversial—initiatives.

Small point, and it’s on The Wall Street Journal, not the Supreme Court: it’s not a ban on travel, it’s a moratorium.  The moratorium will be lifted on each of those countries when it becomes possible to accurately vet travelers from those countries.  A ban is broad and permanent.

A failure of the Court came from the liberal wing.  Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote, for instance,

A reasonable observer would conclude that the [ban] was motivated by anti-Muslim animus….

And

The majority…turn[s] a blind eye to the pain and suffering the [ban] inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens.

This is rank, deliberate emotionalism at the expense of rational thought and objective analysis.  Sotomayor chose not to demonstrate where the animus exists in the Executive Order, choosing instead to bring in outside material not part of the case or of the EO in question.  Campaign rhetoric, which she chose to consider instead of the text in the present case, ceased to have relevance to anything once the election was completed.  Even more, bringing in outside material, evaluating a case on things other than the text of the EO, the law, the Constitution is a violation of the Justices’ oath of office: they’re sworn to uphold the law, the Constitution (and EOs executed in accordance with the Constitution), not to uphold other things convenient to them.

Sotomayor also chose to ignore the “pain and suffering” unvetted entry of terrorists and violent criminals “inflict upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens.”

The larger failure is that this should have been a unanimous decision.  The liberal wing of the Court, though, remained mired in their ideology that the text of an Executive Order (or of a law or of the Constitution) is not the only thing before them in any case: extraneous material convenient to their predetermined opinion also must be brought in for support.