Flashpoint Immigration, Part IV

Either way, it’s no longer the time to be talking about doing things “the right way,” because either the right way is the problem or nobody wanted to do things the right way.

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This is the final entry in a four-part series. You can read the previous installments here, here, and here.

Apologies for the light posting as of late. I have been dealing with an illness, plus personal and professional obligations, so the mental bandwidth for writing just hasn’t been there. That said, I’m not about excuses and nothing wipes the slate clean better than publishing essays.

We are long overdue in wrapping up this series. That said, I don’t regret that it’s taken this long to do so, because, as I say so on occasion, there’s no harm in waiting to see how it all turns out. Some of the issues I thought would be hot talking points have since faded into the background. They’ll likely pop up as hot issues again, but for now, we have a good enough idea of where the fault lines are in America’s ongoing immigration crisis.

So, let’s get on with it. There’s a lot to talk about.

Status Update

First, how has President Donald Trump’s new hard-line approach to immigration enforcement gone?

You be the judge. According to a press release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):

WASHINGTON — During the first 100 days of President Donald J. Trump’s second term, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested 66,463 illegal aliens and removed 65,682 aliens, including criminals who threaten public safety and national security. Three in four arrests were criminal illegal aliens, putting the worst first.

Those are some big numbers, but they hardly constitute “mass” deportations, which would constitute millions being deported. Mass deportation was never a realistic policy option, so I think what Trump is doing right now is the best possible course of action. The key is to keep up the pace over the next four years and to not let up. By the end of it, it’ll still leave millions more to deport, but the objective shouldn’t be to rid the country of every last illegal resident, not really. Instead, it should be to restore order, deter anyone else from crossing that border illegally, and to remind everyone that foreigners stay in this country entirely at the pleasure of Americans.

A significant percentage of those arrested have serious criminal charges:

The criminal records of those arrested include convictions or charges for 9,639 assaults, 6,398 DWIs or DUIs and 1,479 weapon offenses.

This doesn’t include those arrested for lesser crimes, such as petty (I hate that term) theft. However, it mustn’t be forgotten that entering and residing in the country illegally is a crime. Either way, a large portion of illegal immigrants are in fact people who would’ve probably failed any audition to become citizens of the country, so it’s undoubtedly a good thing they were caught and dismissed.

What does the American public think about the Trump administration’s anti-illegal immigration policies? From a NewsNation poll:

You not only see a strong partisan split, but the public at large is still more of a sympathetic mind than not. This says that the situation isn’t perceived as anywhere near as critical as has been argued by the Right. However, the whole point is to take corrective action before it does go critical. As we see in Europe, by the time public sentiment reflects the fact that the situation is out of control, it’s too late to do anything about it. Maybe it’s already too late in the U.S., as well.

Key to understanding the political dimension of immigration is that nobody loses sleep over the fact not enough people are coming to the country. Nobody except those who commit their lives to open borders advocacy, maybe. If the immigration situation does get bad enough, however, people will lose sleep over it and will be demanding redress. It’s important to remember that just because people have strong opinions about a topic, it doesn’t mean it’s something they’re preoccupied with. That goes both ways.

For the most part, people just go about their business and don’t mind that of others. But if an issue becomes so problematic to the point where it begins to impact peoples’ daily lives, then it will become a preoccupation governments will have to deal with. Immigration is one of those things you can simply ignore when you can shield yourself from its consequences, but becomes impossible to ignore when its negative effects become a constant fixture in your daily life. It’s a lot like any other issue, isn’t it? We all think a person’s being a “Karen” when complaining about loud music next door. Then we’re the ones who have to deal with it and all of a sudden, we become the Karen. Everything’s a non-issue, except the ones which affect us most directly.

One area where the Trump administration’s policies have been undeniably a success has been the border itself. My concern was that attempting to lock down the border would be met with fierce resistance, but that hasn’t been the case.

In fact, the border is as quiet as it’s been. Take a look at these numbers:

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There’s no doubt: fortifying the border has a deterrent effect. We were told border security was a waste of money and time because it doesn’t work, but it’s clear we never really tried. Now that we’ve really tried, it’s working. Sure, there are bleeders - there always will be - but that’s why we have border security. What we are trying to avoid are the seas of people we saw crossing into the U.S. during the Biden administration and past years. I think we are accomplishing that.

The thing is, when nobody cares what’s happening on the border, it’s probably because there’s not a lot happening on the border. That’s a good thing, a result worth celebrating. There remains much work left to be done, however. If the people coming in are less of a problem today than they were, that still leaves the people already inside the country who need to be dealt with.

And there’s a whole lot of them.

Due Process = God’s Will

I don’t know about you, but I’m done hearing about due process. I’ve never heard people, almost all liberals, argue so fervently in favor of the rule of law except when it comes to immigration, specifically illegal immigration. Otherwise, rule-of-law is a relic of White supremacy, or something.

It’s not to say I don’t believe in the rule-of-law. But outcomes matter as much as processes. It’s a point I’m going to return to time and again, but the fact that tens of millions of illegal immigrants were able to enter and stay in the country says one of two things: either due process and the rule of law failed to serve its purpose and led to bad outcomes, or due process and the rule of law were non-existent.

Either way, it’s no longer the time to be talking about doing things “the right way,” because either the right way is the problem or nobody wanted to do things the right way. To hear the newfound proponents of due process say it, however, the results don’t matter. Only the process does, and due process is basically God’s will. You never, ever, question God’s will. It turns out the Left does have a religion, after all.

The ongoing saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a perfect illustration of what I’m talking about. To briefly summarize, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal immigrant who was deported by “administrative error” earlier this year to El Salvador. Despite being illegal, Garcia had an order withholding any deportation issued in 2019, after he applied for asylum, if my understanding is correct. Upon being deported by the Trump administration, the Left pounced, as it often likes to speak of the Right, ferociously advocating on his behalf, to an extent they’ve never advocated for any American.

As he was residing in Maryland, state senator Chris Van Hollen, among others, went to El Salvador, lobbying for his return. Personally, I think the Trump administration was making matters worse by not simply having Garcia returned, processed, and sent back to El Salvador, but I can also understand that the U.S. doesn’t have any special obligation to Garcia because he’s not… wait for it… a citizen.

Critics like Van Hollen have accused Trump of risking a constitutional crisis by defying court orders to facilitate Garcia’s return, but according to more knowledgeable observers, this is all just political hot air. Again, the fact that Garcia is neither a citizen nor even a legal resident undermines any argument that America has any obligation to him.

For a better understanding, consult Yale Law School Professor Jed Rubenfeld’s explainer on the case. It’s only 16 minutes long, so make time for it. As I often like to say, if you want to get angry about something, learn about it first:

Here’s a written explainer, also by Professor Rubenfeld:

First, Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains detainable and deportable, even if he is eventually returned to the United States. In principle, he could be deported to any country other than El Salvador—and he might even be deported back to El Salvador if a court determines that the 2019 withholding order is no longer valid. (There is an argument that the withholding order has been invalidated by the fact that MS-13 is now a designated terrorist organization.)

Second, this case is not the bombshell threat to due process that Trump opponents are claiming. Garcia has had a lot of process—several different immigration hearings. Contrary to what you may have read, this is not a case where the administration is claiming a right to deport anyone it chooses without ever giving that person a right to be heard. The administration should not have deported Garcia to El Salvador contrary to the withholding order, and once this ‘administrative error’ was discovered, the administration should have owned it and corrected it.

Nevertheless, this case involves an acknowledged illegal alien who was found by an immigration judge to be a member of a criminal gang now designated a terrorist organization, and that judge’s finding was upheld on appeal.

Bottom line: even if Garcia were to return, it’d be to more formally facilitate his deportation. This makes the Left’s fervent advocacy on his part and other illegals deported to El Salvador all the more bizarre - why expend so much capital trying to bring people back, only to have them deported again? The only reason I can imagine is because having millions of illegals in the country is the Left’s objective. If they can get Garcia to return, they can argue for all other deportees to be returned, also, thereby undermining the Trump administrations effort to restore order to immigration.

Let’s take a closer look at Garcia himself, because I think it’s important for everyone to understand exactly whom the “rule-of-law” advocates are burning all their energy trying to bring back to America. Long story short, this isn’t some guy whose only crime was to cross the border illegally in search of the American Dream. Media coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable towards Garcia, which is itself no surprise. The Wikipedia article on his case is equally biased in his favor, including a lengthy section on his legal status, which is nowhere near as complicated as the entry suggests. You’re either here legally or not; everything else is just window dressing. I often make the point that when facts have the effect of obfuscating rather than clarifying, obfuscation is the point.

Though his wife, a U.S. citizen, now devotedly defends her husband, she apparently didn’t feel this way towards him not so long ago. From the NY Post:

Alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia once boasted he could kill his wife and “no one could do anything to him,” according to a request for a motion for a protective order she filed in 2020.

“I also have a [recording] that [he] told my ex-mother-in-law that even if he kills me no one can do anything to him,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wrote in the document she filed with the District Court of Maryland for Prince George’s County on Aug. 3, 2020.

The newly surfaced document preceded a 2021 protective order request she filed against her husband. In that document she alleged he had punched, scratched and grabbed her — with some of the alleged abuse so severe, she was left with bruises and bleeding.

There even exists an audio recording purportedly of the wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, pleading with a judge for a restraining order. So, what happened these last four years? Was this all a lie on the part of Garcia’s wife? If so, she has a lot to answer for. More importantly, why is the feminist, anti-violence-against-women Left defending someone accused of domestic violence? What happened to “Believe All Women?” Obviously, we know the answer - this is the victim-hood hierarchy in action - but the point is that the Left doesn’t have much to gain from defending Garcia like this.

There’s more on Garcia. As reported by Ali Bradley of NewsNation:

NEW: DHS sources confirm that Abrego Garcia was stopped by Tennessee Highway Patrol back in November of 2022 for transporting 8 illegal immigrants from Houston to Maryland but wasn’t arrested or charged in this incident because everyone in the vehicle claimed to be going up there for work. DHS has maintained that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking/smuggling.

There exists footage of the November 2022 traffic stop in question:

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Much has been made of Garcia’s supposed connection to the notorious MS-13 gang. Whether he was or wasn’t part of the gang isn’t all that important, in my view, because he has already done quite enough to undermine his case for staying in the country.

The problem with the rule-of-law argument is that it expects us to accept a logical absurdity: millions can enter the country illegally, often with the government’s complicity, but we must follow the law to the letter if we want to remove even a single one of them. Sure, criminality doesn’t justify taking unlawful measures in order to correct. But there are always exceptions - liberals are often the first to say so - and there are times when following the law to the letter doesn’t make sense.

For example, during a state of civil unrest, we generally accept that simply being present at a riot incurs a legal hazard. It’s simply not possible for police to give everyone the courtesy; the first priority is to restore order. If that means arresting everyone present, then that’s what it takes. Eventually, everyone will either be released, or they’ll have their day in court. But restoring order comes first. It’s the same thing with illegal immigration - it’s a state of disorder. Under such conditions, it’s simply not possible to give everyone the privilege (yes, it’s a privilege) of due process.

The value of satire is that it illuminates the insanity of it all:

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Sure, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. But the idea we must provide illegal immigrants, all how ever many million of them, the full range of legal options, is a non-starter. Legal or illegal, non-citizens don’t receive the same privileges as citizens do. And they shouldn’t - citizenship is supposed to have its benefits, after all.

Concerns that the Trump administration’s actions could eventually be turned against citizens has also proven overwrought. The worst that’s happened yet is that a few citizens have been detained, but I’ve yet to find any citizens who’ve been deported. No, children of illegals don’t count and it’s incredibly dishonest for anyone to suggest that minors leaving the country with their illegal immigrant parents is the same as citizens being deported.

Nevertheless, if there’s impropriety in any case, I’d sincerely hope the authorities are examining these incidents and ensuring steps are taken so they never happen again. Nothing will undermine the Trump administration’s otherwise valid strategy than for American citizens to get caught up in the dragnet.

However, in any attempt to fix an out-of-control problem, we must come to terms with the fact there will be collateral damage. The reality is, the time for a “surgical” approach has come and gone. We had decades to get immigration under control the “humane” way, but we didn’t. When a mold infestation takes over the house, you need to tear the walls down. That’s what’s happening here.

It’s one thing for collateral damage to occur because the government decided to do something which undermines peace and order, like letting in millions of illegals. It’s another thing for collateral damage to occur in the process of the government attempting to perform its duty to the citizenry. Good intentions don’t justify bad outcomes, but if you get too carried away with the argument, it turns into one in favor of the government being derelict in its duties.

Similarly said:

What about the slew of non-citizen deportees who were in the country legally? I’ve yet to see a case where a green card-holder was deported without due process, so the argument is over whether it’s okay to tell them to leave, period. Advocates for these deportees are arguing on the basis of civil rights violations and there’s tremendous disagreement on whether or not civil rights applies to non-citizens just as it applies to citizens. What’s for absolute certain, however, is that non-citizens are held to a different standard than citizens, which is the way it ought to be.

Brianna Wu, not a conservative, explains in the context of a green card holder who was supposedly deported for speech:

Let’s try this again, in good faith.

She’s here on a green card, where it is EXPLICITLY said in law YOU ARE NOT fully protected from deportation. Serious crimes or immigration violations can still get you deported.

She did that. She took over a building, people got hurt, and it was for Hamas, which is EXPLICITLY designed a terrorist group.

She was arrested in a polite and non-violent way. What am I missing? Why are y’all so upset by this?

Here’s the thing about having a green card: it’s like being a probationary employee. Anyone who has had a job knows that being a probationary employee means you’re given less rope to hang yourself with than a permanent employee. You can be fired for something a permanent employee might simply be disciplined for. It makes perfect sense: if citizens and green-card holders have the same rights, then what use is citizenship?

Going back to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, not only did he not even apply to be probationary citizen, his conduct while in country undermines any case he might’ve had for staying in the country on a more permanent basis. At some point, even the most shameless liberals have to admit that going this far to defend the rights of such awful people out of principle makes no sense.

Unless, of course, bringing in millions of migrants into the country was the whole point all along.

Misjudgment

One of the biggest revelations of the second Trump administration is the extent to which judges are turning out to be not only an impediment against its immigration policies, but are also facilitating lawlessness in America. Longtime readers will be familiar with the term “anarcho-tyranny,” a phenomenon I’ve commented on frequently on this blog. State complicity is the key feature of anarcho-tyranny, where the government aids and abets criminality both for ideological reasons and as a cheap method of maintaining order by terrorizing the citizenry into submission.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s the only explanation for how behind every criminal who was free on the streets to continue committing more crime, there’s a judge who let them roam free. In some cases, the judges go as far as providing quarter for them.

In New Mexico, a judge and his wife were arrested for providing shelter to a member of the dangerous Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua.

As reported by KFOX14:

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (KFOX14/CBS4) — Court documents highlight photos and text messages that Homeland Security Investigations claims prove the undocumented Venezuelan living in the Las Cruces home of a former Dona Ana County Magistrate judge is a Tren de Aragua gang member.

According to court documents, HSI has evidence that Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, who was arrested after being found living in the home of Dona Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano, 67, and his wife, Nancy Cano, 68, is a Tren de Aragua member.

Ortega-Lopez was charged with being in the country illegally and possessing a firearm.

Whether he was a Tren de Aragua member or not, there seems little doubt the house guest was in the country illegally. Why is a judge providing quarter to an illegal immigrant?

Then there was the case of Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, who aided an illegal immigrant in escaping detention by ICE. In response, she was arrested by the FBI for obstruction of justice.

Dr. Todd Grande, my go-to for even-handed takes on hot issues, offers just that in the following video. He provides a detailed overview of the chain of events leading to Dugan’s arrest:

Grande’s views mirror mine and there isn’t a whole lot of nuance in this case. He concludes, correctly, that Dugan engaged in obstruction and that her behavior during the incident shows she knew exactly what she was doing. Still, I think Grande tries a little too hard to blame both sides, though that may be due to Grande not wanting to be perceived as agreeing too much with Trump. He also thinks Judge Dugan shouldn’t be charged, which I not only completely disagree with, but is at odds with Grande’s own conclusion that Dugan quite blatantly broke the law and engaged in conduct unbecoming of her office. That said, she’ll likely never get to be a judge ever again, so the loss of status is probably more of a punishment than jail time would ever be.

In fact, as a psychologist, Grande is a bit out of his lane in his legal assessments, informed as they may be. In 2020, Reuters explored cases of misconduct on the part of judges, many of whom were arrested, but most of whom were allowed to return to the bench. In that sense, yes, maybe Dugan getting away with it would align with precedent, but what does that say about the credibility of the judiciary? How many judges need to get away with misconduct before we finally decide that this is actually a bad way to run society? Note that this isn’t the first time a member of the judiciary aided an illegal immigrant in escaping detention - a similar incident occurred in 2017 in Multnomah County, Oregon, during the first Trump administration.

As with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, it’s worth understanding exactly who Judge Dugan was trying to aid in escape. This was the case he stood before Dugan for:

At his West Vliet Street residence in Milwaukee, Flores-Ruiz allegedly attacked his roommate during a dispute over loud music, punching him approximately 30 times, knocking him down, and grabbing his neck. When the roommate’s girlfriend intervened, he struck her forehead and arm, shoving her into the kitchen. Both victims required hospital treatment. A third individual was reportedly assaulted, though details are sparse.

Like Garcia, there’s no argument to be made for letting someone like this stay in the country. Dugan’s actions make sense, however, in the context of her history as an activist in leftist political causes:

Judge Dugan, a prominent figure in Milwaukee’s progressive circles, has a well-documented history of Democratic political activism and social justice advocacy, particularly on immigration issues. Before her judicial appointment, she served as executive director of Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin, overseeing a refugee resettlement program. Her immigration activism clearly influences her courtroom actions.

The activist-to-public official pipeline is destructive both to the credibility and functionality of our governing institutions. Nobody really trusts the institutions, not anymore, but we don’t really have an alternative at the moment. We just hope that we never have to rely on these institutions to solve our problems, which they demonstrably cannot.

Dugan deserved to be arrested and she further deserves to be charged and convicted. Local authorities don’t need to assist federal authorities in enforcing immigration law. That much is true. But local authorities cannot obstruct federal authorities from enforcing the law. This is 100 percent illegal. Liberals, lying by omission as they do so out of habit, made this a simple matter of “arresting judges,” as though this were part of some grand authoritarian takeover by Trump. We all know that wasn’t the case and we can also only hope the Left’s bloviating is going in one ear and out the other at this point.

These are cases related just to illegal immigration. There are countless other instances of judges aiding and abetting criminality which are beyond the scope of this column. There’s a debate to be had over how much power judges really should have to constrain the powers of the executive - who really controls the country, anyway? - but this isn’t about that, not really. There’s no argument to be made for judges harboring illegals and obstructing the law.

When the history of the collapse of America is written, the role judges played in creating chaos and sowing disorder is worth its own chapter.

A Migrant Insurgency?

I noted earlier that the people already inside the country are now a bigger problem than the people. A thought that has crossed my mind is that illegal immigrants, specifically those affiliated with criminal groups like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, both of whom have since been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), have the potential to wage an insurgency from within the U.S.

It’s only a theory on my part, for now. But I have my reasons for concern. Analysis by former CIA agent Gary Berntsen explains why:

According to Berntsen, Tren de Aragua is no longer just a violent street gang. While they may wear the face of criminality, their core leadership and operational cells have undergone paramilitary training under the guidance of Venezuelan intelligence and military officials, aided in part by Cuban intelligence operatives and narco-terrorist networks throughout Latin America.

Quoting Berntsen, Miami Herald journalist Antonio Delgado wrote:

“The Venezuelan regime has assumed operational control of these guys [Tren de Aragua] and has trained 300 of them; they have given them paramilitary training, training them to fire weapons and how to conduct sabotage. They have given them all like a four- to six-week course. They put these 300 guys through that course, and then they were deploying them into the United States to 20 separate states.”

Berntsen explained that sabotage includes acts such as arson, and that recent patterns of mysterious industrial fires, wildfires, and urban blazes—notably in Los Angeles and other key areas—could plausibly be linked to these foreign-trained operatives.

“Many of these wildfires, industrial fires, the Los Angeles fires, taking advantage of wind and the local conditions, were started by arsonists. How many of them were paid or coerced by TdA or their surrogates?” Berntsen asked.

I’m not ready to declare that the immigrant population is capable of waging insurgency, not at this point. The evidence for it is limited. But there’s no question groups like Tren de Aragua possess the capability and opportunity for doing so. All that’s missing is the intent. This isn’t immigrant fear-mongering, either. Foreign populations quite frequently end up becoming national security threats in countries all over the world. In Europe, Britain and France specifically, Islamists have waged a low-intensity insurgency for years, it’s just that the regimes of these countries have had to pretend otherwise for political reasons.

We’ll have to see how things unfold. What I know for a fact is that a large portion of immigrants already here refuse to leave. As the screws are tightened on them, will they cave? Or will they lash out?

What About Mexico?

When I started this draft months ago, I had a lot more to say on Mexico than I do now. Earlier in the year, America’s relationship with its southern neighbor was a hotter topic. It wasn’t just on the matter of drugs and immigration, either. It also concerned economics. Since then, however, public discord seems to have died down, which can honestly only be a good thing. Mexico is a neighboring country and we are always better off getting along with our neighbors than not.

That said, we need to remember a few things. First, Mexico is a friend when it needs to be, a foe otherwise. In other words, it’s a “frenemy.” This isn’t the worst thing in the world, not really. It actually simplifies relationships and makes it easier to do business when it’s time to do business. I think this is a big reason why the public row with Mexico we saw in the early weeks of the current Trump administration faded rather quickly, while our issues with Canada, a country we’ve had a much better relationship with, proved to be stickier to resolve.

That said, make no mistake: Mexico is a problem state. It has an ongoing low-level civil war, which is crazy to think about, given that it borders the world’s most powerful country. According to one source, over 2,600 have already died this year, making Mexico one of the world’s most active war zones.

Incidents like these occur so often throughout the year, it’s become a part of the Mexican social landscape:

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexican authorities have arrested 17 suspected drug cartel members and seized 14 rifles, including three with grenade-launching adapters, and three grenades.

The arrests this week in the western state of Michoacan come in the wake of two April 25 shootouts between civilians and the Mexican army that left six alleged cartel members dead near the city of Apatzingan.

A second shootout was reported in the early hours of Thursday, leaving six police officers injured. Mexico’s TV Azteca aired a video of the aftermath of that encounter..

Mexico-based journalist

Katarina Szulc

runs her own Substack where she discusses the Mexican drug war in great detail. The gist of it is, the situation is worse than you think. According to Szulc, the cartels aren’t just criminal syndicates. They pose a military threat.

Here’s a brief from Szulc:

In the heart of Mexico’s tumultuous landscape, an arms race unfolds—not between nations, but among the country’s most formidable criminal organizations. The cartels, once primarily traffickers of narcotics, have evolved into paramilitary forces, wielding an arsenal of high-powered weaponry, drones, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), all while weaponizing digital platforms for recruitment, intimidation, and propaganda. What began in the 1980s with handguns and bribes has escalated into a full-scale insurgency, and the contrast between then and now is nothing short of staggering.

I’m on the record as comparing the threat posed by the cartels to the threat posed by groups like Hezbollah. They may lack the ideological and even political component of most militant groups. This doesn’t mean they’re any less dangerous, however. To call them mere criminals is to grossly understate the threat they pose, both to Mexico and the U.S. The fact they’re not ideologically driven also means they often make themselves available for hire to other malicious actors, like Islamist terrorist groups.

We mustn’t let the Mexican government off the hook, either. As I said before, Mexico is, ultimately, an adversarial state who cooperates with the U.S. only when it has to. We must also come to terms with the fact the Mexican government may be at the mercy of the cartels.

President Trump’s nominee to head the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made troubling allegations against the Mexican government during hearings to assess his candidacy:

“What percentage of the country of Mexico would you say is dominantly governed by cartels?” asked committee member U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.

“I would say a majority,” Cole responded at the hearing. “I left DEA in 2019 from Mexico City and saw the dominance the cartels had at that time. (The Jalisco New Generation Cartel) controlled 24 of the states in Mexico.”

Graham stopped him to emphasize the point.

“You’re telling us that our neighbor in Mexico, when it comes to law enforcement and other activities, is pretty much controlled by cartels?” Graham asked.

“They work hand in hand. Yes, sir,” Cole responded.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum never challenges such allegations, which aren’t new. She engages in “whataboutism” instead:

Mexican leaders have long taken umbrage at suggestions from American politicians that their country is run by criminals. President Claudia Sheinbaum last February told them “start with your country.”

“Of course we will coordinate and cooperate, but never subordinate,” Sheinbaum said. “They have a lot to do in the United States. What happens after the drug crosses the border? Who distributes the drug, who sells the drugs that have provoked this tragedy in the U.S.? Where does the money from the sale of those drugs go in the United States.”

Sheinbaum does what she’s supposed to do: deflect the heat away from her country. But we should never, ever, look southward and think we’re dealing with a friendly regime in Mexico City. At the risk of exaggerating, they’re about as friendly to us as Lebanon is to Israel.

Sheinbaum also recently revealed she had rejected Trump’s proposal to have the U.S. Army operate in Mexico to deal with the drug cartels. That happening was as likely as a screen door of a submarine, but what’s notable is Sheinbaum’s consistent invocation of sovereignty and the refusal to be subordinate in its relationship to the U.S. Again, that’s all fine, but what about American sovereignty? What does she consider illegal mass immigration to the U.S., including by her own people? And though it might not be accurate to describe the relationship as zero-sum, Mexico has benefited more on the whole from being our neighbor than we have from being theirs. We haven’t been thanked for it. The least they can do is not give us grief. But this is international relations, and apparently, good manners go only one way.

All said, it’s important to live in the real world and grasp the fact that things aren’t as bad as they could be. I’m sure there will be more to say about Mexico in the coming months and years. You can bet on it. But for now, the situation with our southern neighbor seems stable. Stable as can be, anyway. The drug cartels pose an unquestionable national security threat to the U.S. and we are impacted by their activities more regularly than we are by China and Russia’s activities. Establishing boundaries, both figurative and literal, is key to maintaining a functional relationship between the U.S. and Mexico for years to come.

Resist Emotional Blackmail By Remembering Why We Do This

It came as no surprise the Left and other pro-immigration activists resorted to emotional blackmail to try to shift public opinion to their side. The examples are endless; I’m not going to give them air time here. There’s tremendous dishonesty involved in their claims, but whether there is or isn’t, taking advantage of the kindness of others, weaponizing empathy, these are all the behavior of abusers. When emotional blackmail fails to register the intended effect, physical violence isn’t far behind.

Still, it’s important to stand our ground and resist attempts to blackmail us emotionally. It’s not that we hate or can’t see the humanity in immigrants. It’s that we simply prioritize our fellow countrymen over foreigners. If that makes us bad, well, then most people of the world are bad. Most people of the care more for their own than others. It’s only in the West that we are expected to care more about others than our own.

I’ve emphasized this point time and again throughout this column, but the problem with the defense of due process is that it far too often leads to terrible outcomes. This July, a twice-deported illegal immigrant serving a 10-year prison sentence who killed two 19-year-olds in Orange County, California after speeding will be released after serving on three-and-a-half years of that sentence. Back in March, two illegal immigrants with over a dozen arrests each shot and killed a husband and father of two in Inglewood, California after he attempted to stop them from stealing a catalytic converter from a neighbor’s car. A few weekends ago, three illegals from the country of Georgia brutally killed a man during a home invasion and robbery in Woodland Hills, also in California. In Charlotte County, Florida, an illegal from Mexico was arrested for raping a minor; the immigrant had been caught, then released back in 2022, during the Biden administration.

The examples go on and on. How many more are needed before people understand that not only is the system incapable of fixing the problem, the authorities are complicit as well? If this is what due process delivers, then what difference is anarchy? Is Chris Van Hollen going to try rescuing these invaders from deportation as well? What else do you expect from people like him, who overwhelmingly voted against the Laken Riley Act earlier this year?

These are all rhetorical questions, at the end of the day. That’s possibly what’s most infuriating - that there’s no answer at all, except to take drastic measures like the ones the president is currently taking. There are hazards to his approach, but business as usual is simply not an option at this point. Business as usual is what got us here and the rule of law, as far as I’m concerned, has been suspended ever since the Regime decided, many years ago, that there’s nothing to be done about illegal immigration. We’re past the point of still thinking we’re all on the same side at the end of the day, just with different opinions. There are two sides and you’re either on one or the other. People like Chris Van Hollen have made it clear which side they’re on, along with the fact there’s no limit to the number of Americans they’re willing to sacrifice to demographically alter the country.

Being angry is understandable. We ought to be. But we must also remember that we don’t do this because we hate the foreigner. We do it because we love our people. We love Americans. We must always remember to balance out the righteous anger we feel with the love which drives us. One way to do that is to remember and honor the memory of those whose lives were lost because of illegal immigration.

At the State of the Union address, President Trump set an example with an incredible gesture, likely the most decent thing he’s ever done in his political career.

Watch this incredible moment:

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Symbolic moments like these matter. A lot. Our culture has spent so much time valorizing the wrong people. We’ve forgotten who really matters to us. Our children matter. That’s what all this is for. Not the whole world. I realize this goes against everything we’ve been taught our whole lives, but all that means is that we’ve been taught to invert our priorities.

America exists for Americans. To quote a famous English poem, dedicating part of this country to Jocelyn Nungaray ensures that a part of this land is forever her.

Of course, not all of us have the power to name a large stretch of land after the deceased. But we all have the power to resist emotional blackmail. Again, it’s not about hating foreigners. At the very least, you can’t allow yourself to be bothered to care, because it’s our empathy they use to attack us. Regimes can force us to do lots of things, but the hardest thing for them to do is to control how we feel and think. We mustn’t allow them to do so.

So the next time you feel our heart-strings being tugged, it’s important for all Americans to immediately call to mind the names and faces of Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, and all the other victims of illegal immigrants, of which there are many. They are a diverse group, representing a cross-section of America. They were our friends. They were our neighbors. They were our family. Remember these names and faces when you’re made to feel guilty for wanting to protect our people.

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Then, it won’t feel so bad.

I know this was a long essay, the longest in months, but I had to wrap up this series any way I could. If you’re still reading, thank you for sticking it out! As for the others, I hope they’ll find time to finish it if they cannot manage to do so in one sitting.

Enough from me, over to you. What do you think of Trump’s immigration actions so far? What shall they do with Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Is the rule of law worth following to the letter? Or are we in a crisis which can be undone only through drastic action? What are we to do about judges so flagrantly undermining the rule of law? What about Mexico? Finally, how can we resist emotional blackmail and honor the memory of the victims of illegal immigration?

Talk about it in the comments section.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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