Tag Archives: Immigration

2018-03-07 · 10:01 am

Perimeter protection: no tunneling

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Shadow-dog’s “cover identity” is being an ultra-soccer superstar. He’s really quite incredibly good at nudging the ball along in any direction on the inside of his ankles. He likes to carry the ball to Laudie-dog and nudge her with it. He’s baiting Laudie-dog into a game of soccer in the picture. Laudie’s not budging, having temporarily taken over Shadow-dog’s doghouse, with a smirk.

When no one is looking (Shadow-dog having perfect situational awareness), he tunnels. It’s a thing for him. There is “wall” technology that has finally been deployed to frustrate active breaching of the perimeter, old steel down-spouts from one of the Catholic churches of the diocese, just enough to add another layer of border fencing strategy.

It’s not that Shadow-dog couldn’t scale the wall, so to speak, in a nano-second, but it just something to keep honest dogs honest. Otherwise, he might get into all sorts of perceived trouble with the neighbor’s dog, with the neighbor’s gardens, with nervous humans. He’s happy to be an honest Shadow-dog, staying inside. But that doesn’t mean he can’t show me that he knows also how to tunnel out if need be. Mind you, it wouldn’t be a tunnel just to get out, but also to get back in. Shadow-dog knows he belongs here now. And he’s happy with that.

There is an analogy with how the dear Lord and our guardian angels deal with us, helping us to understand about what a sense of belonging means in heaven and while we are still in exile here upon earth.

As many others, I have my own opinions about any border wall. Animals are one thing. Human beings are another. These opinions of mine are nuanced by present realities which change everything. What we would like to be the case regarding human relations is hardly the same as what we need to do with a de facto situation.

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2017-04-21 · 11:05 am

UPDATE: NC vehicle checkpoints: imigrants, tweets, wrongheadedness

imigration dui license registration checkpoint

UPDATE: At the request of both the Latino and Anglo communities, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, I went to have a chat with the heads of the various branches of Law Enforcement. All said that sobriety checks are now extremely rare since there are so very many hurdles and logistic difficulties to overcome. In my recollection, two of the three checkpoints I went through were sobriety checks. Anyway, there certainly are plenty of licence and registration checks which can easily result in drug busts or whatever. All said that up to this point, no local law enforcement in the State of NC has been deputized as also being agents for ICE, Homeland, or whatever. That said, if there is a criminal conviction because of a stop, that info will be passed along. If ICE or Homeland happens to be nearby, that’s convenient. That said, a “normal” DWI/DUI is not a criminal offense, but, of course, it can be depending on any aggravating circumstances. That said, there are relatively very few ICE agents in North Carolina. Since this is all about criminals and convicted criminals, the whole drama about Twitter recounted below is exaggerated and wrongheaded. Let it be said: no one in the Latino community wants murderers and drug dealers and rapists around. The Latino community wants murderers and drug dealers and rapists to be deported. Period.

=============== Original article ===============

A bunch of us priests got together the other night for an awesome Easter Week meal of rib eyes and salad. These priests were from a number of states. Some of the conversation centered on checkpoint dramas. While news sources deny it vociferously, here’s what’s been going on:

The police, sheriffs, ICE, DHS, whatever, sets up a checkpoint. They can overlap, so that the stop is a “sobriety check” or a “licence and registration” check or whatever. The primary players can be local law enforcement, but there can be Feds waiting in the wings, much more numerous, to haul away the undocumented and immediately deport them depending on the situation. This fact of a checkpoint with location is immediately tweeted out to the undocumented among themselves. But local law enforcement and the Feds are on that twitter feed as well. So… Either the location of the checkpoint is immediately moved, or multiple checkpoints are set up on roads used to avoid the original checkpoint. In my parish in the mountains these checkpoints are impossible to avoid as there are only a couple of roads that lead anywhere. I’ve been through three checkpoints already.

Undocumented immigrants do themselves no favors by participating in an upcoming protest on May 1 in Charlotte where demands will be made, such as decriminalizing theft and prostitution, crimes in educational facilities, and driving under the influence. Organizers are racists, of course, in that they claim that this is what black and brown skinned people do: they steal, flaunt sex for money, smash our young students in the schools, and endanger the roads by driving under the influence, so much so that this is such a way of life that they say it is racist to punish such things as anything serious. Because it’s about those who are black as well, even primarily, I’m guessing this is a racist Delinquents Lives Matter event. How cynical of them. They are using the difficulties of the undocumented for their own selfish ends of these individuals wanting to commit more crime with impunity. That’s like a crime against humanity, a hate crime. Such racism.

Again, I suggest to our Latino friends that they ought best to dissociate themselves from such an even and let the Brat Lives Matter crowd embarrass themselves. Otherwise, you will paint yourselves as being out of control criminals who have a licence to kill.

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2017-02-11 · 7:38 am

On Immigration: bait and you’ll receive

saint-jose-luis-sanchez-del-rioSaint José Luis Sánchez del Río, soldier and martyr, because “all those Mexicans are the same!” Oh, I forgot, I was supposed to pick on someone who wasn’t yet canonized, you know, someone undocumented and who, say, committed a non-violent crime years ago but was still in the system at the invitation of the system, so that we could kick all Mexicans in the face with impunity.

As it is, there were some spectacular and well reasoned comments on ICE deports undocumented working tax-payer contributing mother / wife to spread fear among undocumented, which I very much appreciate. Thank you.

But then another comment came in that was ranting away, with the author apparently having skipped reading those comments, very much upset. Here’s part of a very long comment. Pardon my emphases and [sometimes sarcastic comments]. And if I’m a bit rough here, please know that this person is a friend who I think can take this reprimand.

“I have no sympathy here. There are plenty of people who desperately want to come here but wait to do so legally. [This is continuously more difficult, next to impossible as the years, months and days go by, with contradictory, complex laws, layers and layers of labyrinthine mazes. As one commenter put it, this is somewhat our fault. We should streamline the process without foregoing safety. The thing is, we bait people to be illegal by baiting them to skip the line but also nevertheless to be in the system, checking in with ICE, paying taxes, etc.] I also have issue with the number of mexicans who are setting up their lives here with no intention to assimilate. [So, you know all of them? Can you name them? Even one? Did they tell you they have no intention?] It makes me crazy [!] when I enter into commerce [When you’re at the cash register? Who says to the cashier: “May I enter into commerce with you?” While that’s English, no one speaks that way. It smacks of a foreign speaker. What are doing in this country? You foreigners are all the same. You should be deported! ;-) ] at a place where the staff is speaking another language while waiting on customers who speak English. [Did you try to speak English or were you just offended? Did you greet the cashier in English or just fume about it?] I complained at a big box store because the cashier spoke in another language to an employee [Esperanto? Latin? Swahili? French? German? Russian!?] who was standing around [as security because of the presence of crazy people? as a cashier manager? as someone giving lessons in laziness?] and also to a customer [who spoke the same language? That’s polite, isn’t it?]who was dressed in a similar manner [So, you’re a writer for Saturday Night Live? What does that even mean? What are you really angry with? Do “they” have better taste than you? Are they more stylish? More “with it”, “up to date”, “mod”, “hip”? You’re envious?]. She uttered not a word to me the entire transaction and was solely focused on her two compatriots. [I often go through a checkout on the phone, which is really annoying, I know, but sometimes things can’t wait. An accident has occurred and a priest is needed, etc. I might speak in whatever language. At any rate, maybe they didn’t say anything to you because you didn’t say anything to them because you were too taken at looking at them all aghast at your own lack of style. Did you look angry? Impatient? Were they talking about trying to arrange a welcoming party for, say, local Russians to the neighborhood? Maybe they were talking about signing up for classes to perfect their English? Our Spanish speakers here put on a number of events for the local law enforcement. They arranged that in their native tongue.]

That’s not how the typical transaction goes in this country. [Try smiling.] She was also moving very slowly [like all those damn Mexicans, right?] at a busy time of year [like, what, Christmas? Kwanzaa? New Year’s? The Feast Day of the great third century Bishop and Martyr Saint Valentine? The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes?] which was problematic because the long line wasn’t diminishing.” [Because they were having a good time speaking to each other and being human instead of fuming and crawling out of their skin? You’re just angry because you had to stand in line, right? Because no one else had a right to stand in line, right? Or are you really just racist? Or just a bad day? Lighten up. Jesus loves you too.]

Did I purposely write about Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos to guage reaction? Yes.

Don’t forget the purpose of this blog, noted by the title and blurb in the header:

  • “Arise! Let us be going!” which refers to Jesus’ command to the sleepy Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of the betrayal by Judas: “See, my betrayer is at hand.” That kind of sets the tone of intensity. But if anyone was mistaken about this, thinking that to just be pious piffle, the rest of it says:
  • Evangelizing the darkest of mankind’s existential peripheries that together we humbly thank the Lord. If you have good eyes, you can see a modern Hebrew script version of the motto of המוסד which is balanced by the death of our Lord and the Holy Spirit hovering over a scene of terrible violence between two societies.
  • There are some further words about goodness and kindness for the greater glory of God, something to do with the Jesuits, of which Pope Francis is one. I’m Catholic. And I’m a priest. I wan’t people to come to know Jesus, not just be comfortable in their mistaken ideas of who they think Jesus is.

Look. We’ve all crucified the Son of the Living God with original sin and our own personal rubbish. Smashing people down because they talk differently from you or just because they dress differently from you [more stylish!] won’t gain you many points at the final judgment. We’re hoping that people get to heaven, right? Eternity is a long time. Do you think they will want YOU there, ragging on them all the time, fuming about them? What if Jesus says “Shalom!” to someone else there, or to you? Will you throw a tantrum then?

And if you want to know my generalized impression of illegal immigrants, I’ll tell you, even though these are generalizations and therefore “racist”: I find that as a whole, these are the hardest working, most polite, piously Catholic, family oriented, peace loving, community minded, always but always helpful people I have known in my life. And I’ve been on so many continents and so many countries in so many cultures. And I also have an anecdote. Be warned of provocative language:

There was a young woman here who broke up with her white trash American boyfriend, who was always drugged up and always beating on her, leaving her a smashed up wreck continuously. Her father heard that she had started dating a Mexican and was planning on getting  married to him. The father immediately was enraged and hunted down the Mexican so as to beat the living tar out of him. Of course, he instead got the living tar beat out of him, because he just kept up the attack, but he kept getting pummeled, rightly, in self-defense, until an ambulance had to come. The EMT guy reprimanded the father to say that his daughter had lived a living hell with her white trash boyfriend, but was treated like a queen by the Mexican guy, who, in fact, was born in these USA and is an American citizen in good standing. We just need to slow down a bit. Changing circumstances can show us a bit about ourselves, and that’s a good thing. It’s then an occasion to be closer to the Jesus, the Way, Truth and Life. And that’s a good thing. We’re not against each other! We’re against the devil who wishes to work havoc among us.

  • Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.
  • Saint José Luis Sánchez del Río, soldier and martyr, pray for us.

Anyway, I want a sombrero like our Cristero saint above. I’m envious. But no frills:

benedict-xvi-sombrero

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2017-02-10 · 1:45 pm

Goodbye Anatevka

Saint Paul summarizes this well: “As long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.” It is a mistake to get used to certain places in the sense of pretending to enjoy a kind of security by way of familiarity, for this is also what Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth, the Preacher, would say is vanity. Vanity of vanities! All is vanity! We must be ready to leave even the body at any moment whatsoever to go to be with the Lord. We had better not congratulate ourselves in our “security”, the eat, drink and be merry thing.

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2017-02-10 · 7:44 am

ICE deports undocumented working tax-payer contributing mother / wife to spread fear among undocumented

guadalupe-garcia

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, her crime being that she is without proper papers, but having been here for decades, having raised a family (two now teen-aged children with a husband), who worked, paid taxes, stayed within the rules of checking in with ICE every six months, being totally within the present system of becoming documented, a productive, peaceful, contributing member of American society, was arrested when she followed the rules of checking in with ICE, and, without letting her even say goodbye to her family, was immediately deported, going to who knows where in Mexico, leaving her family with an uncertain future.

ICE said that they would “continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts.” But, obviously, she was purposely chosen, precisely because she is totally innocuous, to be an example of what is now happening, again, not because of the refugee Executive Order, but because of the mostly southern border Executive Order, two different things altogether.

People are all a flurry about the refugee Executive Order, not mentioning that effectively the Obama Administration basically barred Christians from being refugees. That ban effects relatively speaking a tiny percentage of people. Meanwhile, the immigration Executive Order could effect tens of millions, who, mind you, are almost all Catholic.

Anyway, a Mexican priest friend, now an American citizen, told me that he is telling his Mexican countrymen to pack up and go back to Mexico. Perhaps they will have just enough time to sell their homes and immovables so that they don’t lose absolutely everything. He said that it’s still possible simply to load up a huge trailer and go across the border to Mexico. This is the way to avoid one’s family being split up. Think of the nightmare. Are they undocumented? Yes. But they work within the system at the invitation of the system, right? You just can’t say: “I heard that el Chapo is mean, so therefore the Mexicans are all like him.” Goodness. These are your neighbors!

One of our law enforcement officers with 25 years experience as a LEO, and a member of the parish here in Western North Carolina, told me a few days ago that if this Executive Order on immigration is actually enforced, he fears major disruptions in these United States.

Remember, it’s no longer the Priorities act (catch and release). Everything goes back to (1) the Secure Communities act under which Obama deported some three million Mexicans. Add to this (2) unlimited profiling and (3) the use of local law enforcement as directed by the Executive Order and you have a recipe for mayhem.

Some background on the Executive Order on Immigration:

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2017-02-03 · 2:09 pm

More on draconian immigration law

Officer Daniel Segura of Fort Worth insists that because Fort Worth doesn’t depend on Federal handouts, the police never have (and apparently never will in his view) enforce Federal law on undocumented immigrants so as to have them deported.”Great!” say the undocumented Latinos.

But while his intention may have been to calm people down, all he did was draw attention to Fort Worth in the national media to the point that he was publicly reprimanded by his higher ups who said that the local police do indeed enforce federal law. Officer Segura’s point was to say what I said the other week, but in reverse. Segura invited people to go ahead and call the police for help if they are a victim of a crime or want to report a crime, and this without fear of being deported themselves. I said the opposite, that it was told to me that Law Enforcement will stop any violence, but will then deport the victim if undocumented. Officer Segura is very sadly mistaken. I terribly regret that he is mistaken. It should be known that he has misled people into thinking that they are not sitting ducks for crime. They are.

I must say I was also reprimanded by a non-Latino parishioner who, however, had not read the executive order. It’s important to know what is in the Order.

By the way, Officer Segura actually was agreeing with me in what I said about the Executive Order. The only difference is that he was simply saying that in Fort Worth it will not be implemented. He implied that Fort Worth was a sanctuary city, and he had to retract this. Fort Worth is NOT a sanctuary city. Officer Segura and I agree entirely on the plain reading of the clear content of the Executive Order. It’s not the interpretation that is controversial. Everyone has the same reading IF they have read the Executive Order.

The question now is whether there will be mutiny among the ranks regarding execution of the order.

P.S. Let’s make the distinction, please, on the Executive Order on Immigration (signed on a Wednesday) and the Executive Order on Refugees from Islamic Countries (signed on the following Friday).

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2017-01-27 · 6:23 pm

Sean Spicer confirms that Trump’s Immigration Executive Order makes it open season on the undocumented

I wrote about the open season thing in detail here: Trump’s Immigration Executive Order: Open Season on the Undocumented. The way Spicer confirms this plain reading of the Executive Order is to mention that the Priority Enforcement Program now in force (which is Obama’s weak replacement of the previous program) is now itself to be replaced by its predecessor once again, which was/is called Secure Communities Program (which was and is again much stronger about the removal of individuals). This is iterated in Section 10 of the Executive Order itself.

But that’s just housekeeping, making the things a bit more consistent with the Executive Order, itself much more robust than anything previously seen in these United States.

There are two sea changes in the Executive Order:

  • Local Law Enforcement is enlisted
  • Profiling is encouraged with no restrictions

Catholics were removed from their properties in England under Henry VIII so that he could give those properties to his loyal supporters. Jews were removed from their properties everywhere by the Nazis and their properties were given to card carrying members of the Nazi party, of which there were many. Today, when (mostly all) Catholics are removed from their properties, who are those properties going to go to? And I wonder who will move into our Parish Church and Mission Church. The undocumented make up a sizable percentage of this, the tiniest parish in North America.

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2017-01-27 · 9:46 am

Trump’s Immigration Executive Order: Open Season on the Undocumented

trump-executive-order-immigration

Trump signing Executive Order on Immigration

I’ll update this post as I get some reaction from the local undocumented people. There are many. //

Trump’s Executive Order on Immigration effectively declares open season on the undocumented. They cannot call the police if any of them are being assaulted, raped, murdered, are having their houses burned down, or whatever other violent crime. Nor can they report any crime. Not unless they themselves want to be deported for being undocumented. They don’t want to be deported. So, they won’t report it. So, it is an invitation, an encouragement, an open season for criminals, whether citizen-criminals or undocumented criminals, to do home invasions and commit whatever other crimes they want against the undocumented. The undocumented are now sitting ducks. People can commit crimes against them with impunity.

Here are just a few bits of concern in the Executive Order:

Sec. 2.  Policy.  It is the policy of the executive branch to:

(b)  detain individuals apprehended on suspicion [this tolerates and encourages profiling to the max, you know, brown skin, ability to speak Spanish and all that] of violating Federal or State law, including Federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations [such as being undocumented];

(c)  expedite determinations of apprehended individuals’ claims of eligibility to remain in the United States [This takes about two seconds: Do you have papers? No.];

(d)  remove promptly those individuals whose legal claims to remain in the United States have been lawfully rejected, after any appropriate civil or criminal sanctions have been imposed [You have no papers; therefore you are guilty as charged]; and

(e)  cooperate fully with States and local law enforcement [This includes the Sheriff and Police Departments] in enacting Federal-State partnerships to enforce Federal immigration priorities, as well as State monitoring and detention programs that are consistent with Federal law and do not undermine Federal immigration priorities.

Sec. 6.  Detention for Illegal Entry.  The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country to the extent permitted by law [in other words, this establishes hiring of bounty hunters].  The Secretary shall issue new policy guidance to all Department of Homeland Security personnel regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as “catch and release,” whereby aliens are routinely released in the United States shortly after their apprehension for violations of immigration law.

Sec. 10.  Federal-State Agreements.  It is the policy of the executive branch to empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law [This includes the Sheriff and Police Departments].

(a)  In furtherance of this policy, the Secretary shall immediately take appropriate action to engage with the Governors of the States, as well as local officials, for the purpose of preparing to enter into agreements under section 287(g) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1357(g))  [Commissioners, mayors…].

(b)  To the extent permitted by law, and with the consent of State or local officials, as appropriate, the Secretary shall take appropriate action, through agreements under section 287(g) of the INA, or otherwise, to authorize State and local law enforcement officials, as the Secretary determines are qualified and appropriate, to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary.  Such authorization shall be in addition to, rather than in place of, Federal performance of these duties.  [This includes the Sheriff and Police Departments].

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Some repercussions:

  • Crimes against the undocumented will skyrocket
  • As crimes against the undocumented skyrocket, with no recourse to official Law Enforcement possible for the undocumented victims, vigilantism will arise among the undocumented, and criminals, whether citizens or undocumented, will simply be killed forthwith by undocumented vigilantes, having learned about violence from El Chapo, the American puppet
  • An outcry will arise, you know, my citizen son meth-head killed those undocumented people, going “deer-hunting” for them every night, but that’s no reason for my son to have been killed by those undocumented vigilantes
  • Then it will be a war between law enforcement and undocumented vigilantes, with undocumented hard-working, tax-paying families who are not vigilantes caught up in the middle of the violence

==================

In case anyone thinks I’m just spouting off sensationalistic non-sense, I have to say that I did do some consultation with some LEOs high up the ladder in the greater Western North Carolina region, and what I’ve written above I believe to be consonant with their getting ready to enforce the Executive Order should it come to that. The only worry was getting personnel to carry it out, but that aspect is also covered in the Executive Order.

On a happier note, I spoke with other first responders, who said that they will provide, for instance, medical assistance with zero risk of anyone being turned over to authorities. Of course, if it is a scene of violence to which they are called, you have to know that the police will also be on the scene and, therefore, all the undocumented will be deported, perhaps after receiving some medical attention.

Just to say, there are violent undocumented gangs even around here. Just to say, I wouldn’t want to make them angry with myself.

Again, I recall a conversation I recently had with someone wanting to just get out a gun and start gunning down anyone with brown or black skin.

Involving local law enforcement is a big problem.

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