By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — As two illegal aliens allegedly murdered three men in separate incidents in Arizona and Texas in late January, some U.S. Republican senators were pleased with U.S. attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch, a Democrat who pledged support for Barack Obama’s dangerous open-borders policies.
Both of the alleged murderers were known to be in this country illegally but reportedly were awaiting action on their cases while they roamed freely under the laxity of the Obama administration.
Open-borders proponents such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) strongly support Obama’s perilous policies, which the president is trying to reinforce by getting Lynch confirmed by the Senate as attorney general. As political observers have learned, Obama wants to make sure that potential administration officials closely follow his views.
Bishops and their bureaucrats refuse to acknowledge the immigration dangers, instead still trying to act as if every criminal is a member in good standing of the Holy Family journeying to Egypt.
Both when Obama illegally deferred enforcement against “dreamers” in 2012 and issued his “executive amnesty” in 2014, bishops and their bureaucrats cheered and asked Obama to do still more.
Will the bishops ever realize that alien criminals — who by their very activity are lawbreakers — flood into the U.S. because they see every reason to expect that law enforcement is under federal pressure to treat them lightly or even ignore them? What more could a criminal hope for in his chosen playground?
In last November’s elections, was there an earthquake or not by Americans against Obama’s left-wing policies, including those promoting massive illegal immigration?
The Republican Party’s tough talk only increased after the election, when Obama on November 20 lawlessly announced that he personally was awarding an unconstitutional amnesty and work permits to around five million border jumpers.
GOP politicians said they wouldn’t allow Obama to get away with this. But when they soon had the opportunity to show they meant business by rejecting Lynch as his more-of-the-same choice to run the Department of Justice, some of them started to sing a betrayal tune.
Lynch said she thought Obama’s November immigration order was constitutional, and also that everyone in the U.S. has a right to work here, regardless of how they arrived in the nation. Lynch also is a supporter of radical partial-birth abortion.
One may wonder if Lynch meant literally everyone here has a right to work, or only illegal aliens, because tens of millions of legal citizens remain unable or barely able to find any work in Obama’s destructive economy, as Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton pointed out recently in “The big lie: 5.6 percent unemployment.”
The Washington Examiner’s Byron York posted on January 29 that when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) brought up that very topic — would the Justice Department take action against an employer who hired a person here legally instead of an illegal alien covered by Obama’s amnesty — “Lynch wouldn’t answer.”
The Politico website posted on January 29 that Lynch already had two Republican members of the key Senate Judiciary Committee supporting her, and possibly a third. Assuming that all Democrat committee members also vote for her after the mid-February recess, Politico said, the two Republicans would be sufficient for committee approval.
One of the Republicans is the strongly open-borders Sen. Jeff Flake, a favorite of the Arizona big-business establishment. Flake falsely campaigned for his Senate seat in 2012 as a tough foe of illegal immigration.
The second is Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who issued a January 29 news release expressing his support for Lynch and saying she had “demonstrated her qualifications.”
The third is South Carolina’s longtime open-borders Sen. Lindsey Graham. Politico reported he was “inclined” to back her.
On the other hand, another committee member, conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), called for Lynch’s rejection.
However, the Roll Call political site reported on February 3: “Graham Dings Cruz Effort to Block Loretta Lynch.” The report said Graham said that expecting Lynch to oppose Obama on immigration amnesty is “picking a fight that we can’t win,” and that the GOP should “pick fights that are good for the country, that are winnable. . . . I don’t find Loretta Lynch an unqualified person.”
That sounded like yet another dose of Republican defeatism that voters hoped would be purged last November by giving the GOP control of both chambers of Congress. Voters didn’t give the GOP its majorities so the party would allow Obama to affirm and expand his policies.
Roll Call said Cruz pointed out that if every Republican committee member voted against Lynch, or if Republican leadership didn’t bring the nomination to the Senate floor, she wouldn’t be confirmed.
It quoted Cruz: “If Republicans mean what we say when we oppose the president’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, then we should use every constitutional check and balance we have. One of the most potent checks and balances the Constitution gives the Senate is the power of confirmation.”
As for Lynch’s support of partial-birth abortion, the website of Live Action News, founded by pro-life activist Lila Rose, commented that Graham brought up the topic not because Lynch is an “extremist who shouldn’t be a dogcatcher, let alone the nation’s top cop, but because he wants to demonstrate how bipartisan he is by supporting her anyway.”
The Live Action News story said: “This may come as a shock, senator, but you’re not there to win a Mr. Congeniality contest. Your job is to protect the rights of the people, not to sacrifice the littlest people just so the press will praise you for being one of the ‘good’ Republicans.
“The Constitution vests in you the power to confirm presidential nominees, not so you can go through the motions and get the occasional clip that’ll look good in a campaign ad, but to stop the president from putting bad public servants in charge.
“Graham’s endless need to pander to moderates must be pathological, because evidence sure didn’t get him to his cockamamie theory that rubber-stamping Democrat nominees will get them to return the favor,” Live Action News continued.
“Pro-aborts never compromise with pro-lifers to begin with, and they’ve never put politics aside for Republican nominees, from potential judges to all of George W. Bush’s own AG candidates.”
1,000 New Crimes
Meanwhile, the January 22 shooting murder of 21-year-old convenience store clerk Grant Ronnebeck for a pack of cigarettes in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa left about everyone here aghast, even those hardly considered to be conservative.
The accused murderer, illegal alien Apolinar Altamirano, had been free to walk the streets for two years while awaiting a deportation hearing. He reportedly had a burglary conviction and two injunctions of harassment against him. He even had been ordered to stay away from the store where Ronnebeck clerked.
After a high-speed chase, a news report said on January 22, “Altamirano was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, armed robbery, burglary, unlawful flight, and misconduct involving weapons because he is a prohibited possessor.”
A columnist for Arizona’s largest daily paper, Laurie Roberts of The Arizona Republic, posted on January 27: “President Obama has said he’s targeting criminals for deportation yet thousands of convicted criminals — murderers, even — have been released to the streets while awaiting deportation proceedings. Well, here is the result. . . .
“[T]he courts should have a system whereby a member of the Mexican mafia who is here illegally and committing crimes in our country can be thrown out of the country ASAP. And the border should be secure enough to keep him out once we throw him out,” wrote Roberts, who is hardly considered a conservative.
The outrage continued to grow. The following week, the murder was the top story on the February 3 Republic’s page one. This story said critics noted that Altamirano’s being free was “part of a larger problem of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] releasing tens of thousands of convicted criminals under President Barack Obama’s immigration-enforcement policies.”
The February 3 Republic quoted open-borders Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.): “It’s a manifestation of the administration’s failure to enforce the laws and deport people who come to this country illegally. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if you see more tragedies such as this one.”
On January 30 The Washington Times posted a story about releases by ICE headlined, “Illegal immigrants released from custody committed 1,000 new crimes.”
The story began: “One thousand of the 36,000 illegal immigrant criminals the government released in 2013 have gone on to commit other crimes, including child sex abuse, hit-and-run and child cruelty, according to new data released…by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. . . .
“Those [36,007] illegal immigrants had amassed nearly 88,000 convictions among them, including 193 homicide convictions, 426 sexual-assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions, and 16,070 drunken or drugged-driving convictions,” the Times said.
In this light, Obama’s demands that in order to protect the nation, Congress must fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, including provisions for his “executive amnesty,” should make anyone collapse in hysterical laughter.
As for long waits before aliens’ cases can be heard in court, The Wall Street Journal posted a story January 28 headlined, “U.S. delays thousands of immigration hearings by nearly five years.”
Noting that the number could reach tens of thousands, the Journal wrote, “Officials have begun sending out notices that thousands of immigrants awaiting hearings will have their cases pushed back nearly five years, a fresh sign of the pervasive backlogs and delays in the U.S. immigration court system. The delay makes room for higher-priority cases caused last summer by a surge in unaccompanied minors and families crossing the border with Mexico.”
And the Associated Press said, “The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department body that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, could not say precisely how many hearings had been canceled. But it said more than 415,000 immigrants who are not in detention have cases pending.”
Crime And Chaos
In a Texas case of fatal gunshots to two victims, Houston news reports in early February said one illegal alien, identified as Victor Manuel Reyes, 31, was believed responsible before a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed him.
KHOU, Channel 11, posted on February 1 that local musician Spencer Golvach, 25, waiting at a stoplight, was one of two men fatally shot in less than an hour on January 31. The other victim was identified as Juan Garcia, 28.
In a February 2 post, KPRC, Channel 2, said “court records show Reyes was sentenced to 5 years for drug possession in 2010 and there was an immigration hold listed because he was here illegally.”
The KPRC report said, “‘I want to know why a convicted drug pusher who served time in prison that’s not a legal citizen was unleashed upon our streets,’ said Spencer’s father, Daniel Golvach….
“Juan Garcia’s family told KPRC2 he was a good and hardworking man and they also believe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, targeted by Reyes for no reason.”
The Daily Caller national website said on February 3, “An illegal immigrant who had already been convicted on narcotics charges ended up killing two innocent bystanders in Houston. . . .
“It is unknown if he was deported or if he crossed back over illegally and was ignored by immigration authorities,” the Daily Caller said.
No matter how good or innocent the original intentions of U.S. bishops and their bureaucrats may have been in promoting massive illegal immigration, they know by now that they share in moral culpability for the crime and chaos of porous borders.
That certainly includes the prelates at Ground Zero for many border violations, the Arizona Catholic Conference’s bishops and its executive director. It’s well past time for them to start making amends for grave errors.
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