In February a debate erupted over the City of Richmond’s approach to dealing with illegal immigrants. Mayor Levar Stoney issued a directive reiterating a city policy prohibiting police from asking people about their immigration status in the normal course of business.
But that wasn’t good enough for protesters who called for the city to declare itself a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, Muslims and African Americans. Under state law, Richmond authorities are supposed to send the immigration status of jail inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Protesters demanded that the city deny ICE officials access to the jail unless they have a warrant from a judge.
It’s not clear how LGBTQs, Muslims and African Americans would benefit from sanctuary-city status, but let’s not let this ritualistic invocation of other victim groups detain us here. And let us not get dragged into a discussion of President Trump’s polarizing rhetoric regarding illegal immigrants or the wisdom (or lack of it) of building a big, beautiful wall. Let us turn our attention to the very people the protesters profess to be concerned about — immigrants.
In an excellent piece published over the weekend, Mark Bowes with the Richmond Times-Dispatch provided detailed data on the number of illegals held in Virginia jails. Since 2008, local and regional facilities with the ten largest illegal-immigrant populations have held nearly 13,800 illegal immigrants, of whom 4,700 were set for deportation. These numbers do not include inmates whose immigration status could not be determined,
Bowes interviewed Juan Vega, a naturalized citizen who was born in Nicaragua and came to the United States with his family as a young boy. As a Spanish-speaking Chesterfield County prosecutor, Vega interacts daily with the county’s growing Hispanic community that included more than 27,000 legal and illegal residents in 2005.
“Many politicians and other people in the community throughout the nation are really going out on a limb for these violent individuals, to keep them here, and I thought, this is kind of disturbing where I am coming from, with what I see here in the courtroom every week,” the prosecutor said.
He feels a responsibility to speak out, Vega said, because a non-Latino would be labeled a racist.
Academics can argue back and forth over whether illegal immigrants are more or less violent than native-born Americans — there is evidence cutting both ways — but there is no denying that some illegal immigrants are violent. And when Hispanic illegals come to Virginia, they live amidst other Hispanics. Said Vega: “They go to those Latino communities where there are a lot of legal Latinos, who they prey upon.”
In the article, Bowes highlighted several high-profile Chesterfield County crimes involving illegal immigrants. Broadly speaking, these crimes fall into two categories. One consists of drunk driving, in which victims appear to be random members of the community. The other consists of robbing, stabbing, raping, shooting and general criminal mayhem, in which the victims are usually known to the perpetrators — in other words, the victims are usually other Latinos.
For example, in 2011 Melecio Hernandez, an illegal Mexican immigrant, was convicted of crawling through the window of a female neighbor and sexually assaulting her. In 2012 Felix Carillo-Fuentes, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, cut his pregnant fiancee and stabbed 16 times a man he believed to be a romantic rival. In 2015, a mob led by an illegal immigrant from Mexico attacked Salvador Garcia-Cruz, a legal immigrant, outside a nightclub, punching him, kicking him and stabbing him above the eye.
“Every single victim of mine — whether they’re here illegally, or are citizens or have work permits — has said it’s a good idea to deport other violent illegal immigrants,” Vega said. “They’re scared there’s going to be some kind of retribution (after the felons) serve their time and leave prison.”
Bacon’s bottom line: It is a core belief of the Left that America is a hopelessly racist, misogynist, homophobic society. The Left is always on the lookout for victims who fit that narrative. Thus, we see black high school students who disrupt the educational experience of their classmates elevated to victim status on the grounds that they are suspended at disproportionate rates compared to other races. Similarly, we see illegal-immigrant criminals elevated to victim status on the grounds that… frankly, I’m not sure what grounds… Because racism. Because Trump. It makes no sense to me.
Whatever the logic or illogic in spinning these narratives, lefties ignore the invisible victims, be they black students who find themselves in classrooms where no one can learn or legal Latino immigrants who are preyed upon by the criminals in their midst.
Thus the real racists — racist in the leftist sense of propounding policies that have disproportionate impact on minority groups — are the leftists themselves. In the case of Richmond as sanctuary city, those who would keep illegal-immigrant criminals here in Virginia are allowing them to continue abusing law-abiding Latinos (whether here legally or illegally). If the goal is to help the poor and downtrodden, Richmond should not only reject sanctuary city status, it should do precisely the opposite — declare its intention to cooperate fully with the ICE and deport the bad actors.
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