5/2/2018 - Betsy McCaughey Townhall.com
New York's Governor
Andrew Cuomo is threatening to sue the federal Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency for its ongoing raids to detain illegal immigrants wanted
for serious crimes like assault and rape. A staggering 80 percent of those
apprehended in recent ICE raids in New York were either convicted criminals or
charged with crimes. But Cuomo's siding with criminals over crime victims. He's
playing politics. Faced with a challenge on his left flank from "Sex and
the City" star and gubernatorial hopeful Cynthia Nixon, he's desperate to
prove his liberal bona fides. Public safety be damned.
The ambitious New York
Governor is parroting Democrats across the nation who claim ICE should be
abolished because it's breaking apart families and peaceful communities. The
facts prove otherwise. Eighty-eight percent of the illegal immigrants arrested
in recent Los Angeles ICE raids and 81 percent arrested throughout California,
according to the latest ICE data, had criminal convictions. These are bad guys.
So when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., claims that "unjust
and cruel" ICE raids "terrorize innocent immigrant families,"
don't buy it.
Cuomo's making the same
bogus claim. Last Thursday, Cuomo denounced an ICE raid on an upstate farm
looking for Marcial DeLeon-Aguilar, a three-time prior deportee convicted for
felony aggravated assault. The governor complained that Aguilar's children had
to watch their father being pinned by officers to block his escape.
Nice try, governor.
What about families victimized by violent illegal immigrants?
Since January 2016, at
least 25 Long Island youths have been executed by the MS-13 gang of Central American
illegal immigrants. Some of the victims are left so mutilated they can hardly
be identified. MS-13 beats the youngsters with baseball bats, puts plastic bags
over their heads to suffocate them, and then slices off their noses, ears and
lips with machetes. No one read these victims their constitutional rights.
ICE's Operation Matador
targets MS-13 gang members. Yet Cuomo seems angrier at the ICE agents than at
the MS-13 butchers.
Laughably, Cuomo issued
a "cease and desist" letter to ICE last week, ordering federal agents
to touch base with local police before taking enforcement action. Cuomo doesn't
have a constitutional leg to stand on. Check the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.
Constitution. Uncle Sam doesn't need Andrew Cuomo's permission to enforce federal
laws.
Why the surge in
visible, violent sweeps? ICE is forced to conduct sweeps out in the community
because New York's sanctuary laws are preventing the agency from taking custody
of criminal aliens before they're released from jail, like the agency used to
do. As ICE's Deputy Director Thomas Homan points out, these sanctuary policies
are needlessly exposing New Yorkers to violence.
Cuomo's mimicking
California Democrats, who are in open rebellion against federal law
enforcement. In February, Oakland California Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a public
alert about a planned ICE raid in her city before it took place, tipping off
hundreds of wanted criminals to scatter. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions
said to Shaaf, "How dare you needlessly endanger the lives of law
enforcement just to promote your radical open borders agenda?"
Political pandering is
driving this agenda. An amazing 27 percent of California's population are
immigrants. Immigrants disproportionately favor big government. California
hasn't elected a statewide Republican since 2006. New York is moving in the
same direction, with 23 percent of its population foreign-born and Democrats
gaining increasing control of state government.
Cuomo and other
Democrats resist the federal crackdown on immigrant-related crime, and call for
increased spending on after-school music and sports programs to provide an
"alternative" to gang activity in immigrant communities. That's
nonsense. Brutes willing to torture and mutilate a human being with a machete
will not be dissuaded by learning to play the flute.
Donald Trump calls them
"animals" who have turned peaceful neighborhoods "into
bloodstained killing fields." He's got the right plan: "We will find
you. We will arrest you. We will jail you. And we will deport you."
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