The open borders lobby consistently relies on disingenuous arguments to advance its agenda. Chief among those fallacious claims is the notion that enforcing U.S. immigration law somehow constitutes a “human rights” violation. And the Huffington Post has published yet another puff-piece by an American immigration attorney feigning righteous indignation at the “civil liberties abuses” allegedly suffered by illegal aliens.
Titled “The Republicans Reclaim America by Cleansing it of All Noncitizens” it was authored by Juan Cartagena, President and General Counsel of “Latino Justice,” at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF). And it is filled with legal mischaracterizations so egregious, they read like 1950s era Soviet anti-American propaganda.
Mr. Cartagena begins by claiming that President Trump is trading American values (particularly due process of law) in order to “cleanse” the country of illegal aliens. Apart from the outrageously offensive implication that the current administration is a white supremacist organization bent on ethnic cleansing, he’s just plain wrong. The Trump administration hasn’t suggested, in any way, that it wishes to see aliens deprived of due process. In fact, it is patently obvious that Team Trump sees fair and open deportation proceedings as one way of vindicating its claims about the deleterious effects of criminal aliens and uncontrolled mass migration by job seekers.
Cartagena follows up with the absurd claim that the president is attempting to create a “police state that will make Latinos, Asians, and Africans disappear just on suspicion of probable cause.” How exactly will this happen? A Federal District Court in California – whose holdings are only supposed to be applicable within the district over which it has jurisdiction – unilaterally flouted 150 years of precedent and blocked the implementation of the Trump immigration/national security Executive Order. That seems more like a state that is overly sensitive to minority rights than it does a police state where people disappear.
And what exactly is “suspicion of probable cause”? By definition, probable cause is a form of suspicion. It is the reasonable belief, by a law enforcement officer, that a violation of law has been committed. The Trump administration hasn’t changed the applicable laws, or legal standards, pursuant to which illegal aliens may be arrested (nor does it have any authority do that). The mere fact that President Obama abdicated his constitutional duty, under the “necessary and proper” clause, to enforce immigration law doesn’t render it a civil rights violation when President Trump fulfills that duty.
The absurdity continues: “Get ready in a few years’ time for an American landscape with virtually no one to pick crops, chop livestock, construct homes at minimum wage, landscape, nanny or work the kitchens of our finest restaurants.” This is a man who gets paid to advocate on behalf of aliens and the extent of his hopes for new arrivals is mass amnesty and condemnation to the lowest rung of the economic ladder? His arguments begin to sound less like any reasonable plea for “Latino justice” and more like a request for an endless supply of illegal aliens who Mr. Cartagena can profit from defending.
In 1918 U.S. Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said, “The first casualty of war is truth.” Once upon a time in America, integrity and honesty were values treasured by the practicing bar. But in the current war on immigration enforcement, ethnic grievance lawyers are more than willing to kill the truth whenever it conflicts with their political agenda. Welcome to open borders fantasy land!