Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge

by Jeanine Pirro

  • Allow asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their immigration claims were processed, instead of waiting in the United States.

  • Expand the implementation of the Migrant Protection Protocol, also known as the “Remain in Mexico Plan,” which provides incentives for migrants to stay in Mexico instead of crossing the border.27

  Finally, Mexico had been forced to act. For years they had been ignoring the problem, counting the money they were raking in from exports to the United States, as well as money sent back home by illegals working here, and letting US law enforcement clean up their immigration mess. And why not? For them, it made perfect sense. Why send their military to the border when the United States was patrolling it with their own border agents, spending millions of dollars a year to make sure migrants who’d come through Mexico couldn’t get across? Why waste any resources at all with the United States footing the bill? Like so many of our so-called allies, Mexico had been taking advantage of the United States for too long. President Trump made it as clear to the Mexicans as he made it to our NATO allies: those days are over.

  The Do-Nothing Congress—Fire Them All

  You may be wondering why I made no mention of the role played by the fine men and women in Congress in this stunning foreign policy achievement. It’s simple. They had no role. Throughout the entire negotiation, only a few Republicans in Congress lifted a finger to support their president. They were happy to let Trump go into the fight alone, then jump on board the ship of success or castigate him if he failed.

  Do nothings and cowards all. I ask again, what are we paying these people for?

  Well, I shouldn’t say they did nothing. While the president was negotiating with Mexico, the Democrat House voted on two bills they thought were important. There was even one about illegal immigration.

  On June 4, 2019, they voted on a bill that would allow full amnesty to about 2.5 million DREAMers, after rejecting a similar offer from President Trump just a few months earlier.28 They passed the bill days before the deadline to undercut the president. Congress knew damn well what they were doing. While President Trump was telling Mexico that we would no longer be pushed around, Congress sent an invitation to push us around even more—and even harder.

  Oh, and they moved forward with one more piece of legislation that day: one that would give them—get this—a pay raise!29

  Can you believe the gall of these people? It’s one thing to throw your constituents under the bus and do nothing about illegal immigration—or anything else for that matter—purely because you hate the president. It’s quite another to ask for a raise for doing nothing! Have they no shame at all?

  If anything, these people should get a pay cut. Or, maybe we should pay them by the hour, based on the hours they actually spend working instead of promoting hoaxes, going on junkets, and trying to destroy the president. I’d say someone should pass a bill that pays them based on how many bills they pass, but they probably couldn’t get that passed either!

  The far-Left House will pass anything they think will expand their power, no matter what it does to the country. It doesn’t matter if it’s sanctuary cities, prison voting, or a bill to confiscate every gun in the United States. But when it comes to supporting anything the president does, no matter how much good it will do for the country, forget it.

  When Nancy Pelosi was asked about President Trump’s successful border agreement with Mexico on immigration, she brushed it off as nothing, parroting her pals in the liberal media by calling President Trump “reckless.”30

  Nancy, I’ve got news for you. You and your Democrat gang are the reckless ones. Taking a vacation to Hawaii during the longest partial government shutdown in American history? That’s reckless. Opening the door for gang members and drug dealers to come in and declare open season on American citizens? That, Madam Speaker, is reckless. What President Trump did was bold and good for America.

  President Trump built a multibillion-dollar business largely because of his negotiating skills. He literally wrote the book on negotiation. It was a number-one New York Times best-seller called The Art of the Deal. When he brings pressure in a negotiation, it’s not reckless. Unlike Congress with its 20 percent approval rating,31 he knows what he is doing.

  Think of it in terms of sports, Nancy. If you or I were to suit up during a playoff game and go running across Giants Stadium with a football under our arms, that would be reckless. We aren’t professional football players. We don’t know how to protect the ball or outrun defenders. Like almost anything your party is doing now, it would end badly.

  But when Saquon Barkley tucks the ball and runs, it’s not reckless. It’s just the opposite. It’s a skilled professional doing what he’s supposed to do. Is there some risk? Sure. But his team usually wins when he takes risks, just as America does when Donald Trump takes them.

  So, the next time you’re sitting with your feet up in Hawaii watching your president make “reckless” moves on television, maybe stop and think about it before you open your mouth. President Trump has been making deals since before you started running unopposed for the safest Democrat seat in the country. He knows what to offer, what to threaten, what to give up, and when. You, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, do not. So, either get on board and help President Trump fix the country, if only for the sake of your own constituents, or get out of the people’s House and make your schoolyard taunts from the sidewalks of that liberal hellhole you represent. Just watch out for the human feces and used needles.

  Either put up or shut up, Nancy. We’re all getting tired of listening to you.

  If you ask me, we should fire the whole lot of these lazy, entitled blowhards and see how they hack it in the real world, where results matter and “resistance” gets you nowhere. I don’t imagine they would last very long.

  A Tale of Two Immigrants

  I’m going to tell you about two immigrants who came to live in the United States. You tell me which one you think Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the rest of the radical liberals in Congress care more about.

  The first one, Immigrant A, is an aspiring doctor from El Salvador. From the time he was old enough to work, he saved his money. Eventually, he applied for a student visa and used it to attend college in the United States. He did well in school, applied for and received an extension on his visa to go to an American medical school. After graduating, he got his dream job at an American hospital, which sponsored his application for a green card. Immigrant A hired a lawyer at his own expense, learned the English language and our nation’s history, and filled out every form required of him by our government agencies. He took the citizenship test and agreed to pay taxes to our government. It took almost a decade, but in the end, Immigrant A became a US citizen at a swearing-in ceremony in front of a judge. He now contributes enormously to America, economically and otherwise.

  Both when I was district attorney in Westchester, New York, and as Westchester County court judge, I had the privilege of watching hundreds, if not thousands of hardworking men and women like Immigrant A stand up and take their oaths of citizenship. It was a great honor to watch people, some with tears in their eyes and lumps in their throats, recite the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time as US citizens.

  I always knew that they appreciated the awesome responsibilities that come with being a citizen of the United States. If they hadn’t understood those responsibilities, they wouldn’t have been there to be naturalized. When I hear the word immigrant, these are the people I think of. The hard workers, the strivers, the people who pay their own way, respect our flag, and follow the law to achieve the American dream.

  Now let me tell you about Immigrant B. He grew up a few streets away from Immigrant A. Back in El Salvador, while A is studying and saving his money, B is hanging out in the streets and selling drugs. He joins a gang called MS-13 and is regularly involved in violent confrontations. One day, when he’s about fourteen years old, Immigrant B is smuggled into the United States in a trailer. When he
gets to a small community in Long Island called Brentwood, he doesn’t attempt to learn English or the norms of behavior in the United States. He simply shows up at the local high school in town, which is legally required to register him and place him in classes. They provide teachers who speak to him in Spanish.

  He’s one of many undocumented immigrants at the school and starts making trouble. He and his buddies from MS-13 start terrorizing innocent people. Sometime in the spring of 2017, he gets into an argument with four guys he mistakenly believes are part of a rival gang. A few weeks later, he plots to kill all four of those young men. He and three friends lure them into the forest and cut them with machetes. No one discovers the bodies until months later, when police find them in the woods outside an abandoned psychiatric hospital—a place locals have nicknamed “the killing fields” because of all the bodies of MS-13 victims that are found there.

  Sadly, that second story is not a hypothetical. It really happened. It’s the story of Josue Portillo, an eighteen-year-old undocumented immigrant who came to the United States from El Salvador as a child, and then enrolled in Brentwood High School on Long Island.32 Too often, these savage gang members are enrolled in school with our children and commit horrible acts of violence like this. In 2016 and 2017 alone, MS-13 was responsible for twenty-eight murders, mostly of young people. It was only when President Trump got tough on the gang at the end of 2017 that the violence declined. In 2018 and 2019, the number of murders linked to MS-13 on Long Island fell almost to zero.33

  And yet these are the very people our Congress voted to protect on June 4, 2019. They think it’s more important to extend protections to people whose very first act on American soil was a violation of our laws than it is to make it easier for people who come to this country legally, who want to work and do things the right way. Right now, when Immigrant B enters this country illegally, everything is provided for him. If he doesn’t have a place to stay, we give him one. If he doesn’t have food, we give him that, too. We provide shelter and transportation and lawyers and free health care because we feel it’s our “duty” as Americans.

  Why do we have a duty to Immigrant B that we don’t have to Immigrant A? They both came from the same circumstances, yet we roll out the red carpet for violent, law-breaking Immigrant B, while law-abiding, productive Immigrant A has to work for everything, just like the rest of us.

  Am I missing something?

  When Congress allows a doctor or a lawyer to work at the border helping illegals, the money to pay that person isn’t coming out of their pockets. It’s coming out of yours and mine—the pockets of Americans—natural born and legal immigrants—who go to work and pay their taxes and follow the law. It’s not Washington elites who are hurt by illegal immigration. The only times they interact with illegals are when they tip their maids and limo drivers at Christmas.

  The people hurt by illegal immigration are those who have their children in schools with the children of illegals, who get half the education they would otherwise because the teacher has to slow down and teach every lesson in English and Spanish. They must pay double the taxes for half the benefit because illegals are sucking resources from our already strained welfare system, while paying nothing into it. And they are the ones whose children will be hurt when we allow violent gangs to walk off the streets of their violent home countries and straight into once safe suburban neighborhoods. Do you think the parents of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were both murdered by MS-13,34 give a damn about making sure illegal aliens are treated with respect at the border after breaking our laws? Or do you think they’d rather have their daughters back?

  The same goes for the families of Paige Gomer, Jessica Wilson, Pierce Corcoran, and countless others.35 Although the rest of the world, especially Washington, DC, seems to have forgotten their names, I certainly haven’t. I’ve actually prosecuted homicides committed by MS-13 when I was the sitting District Attorney in Westchester County. Let me be clear about how I feel about them. They are animals, pure and simple. The president was right. These are people who have to murder someone in order to become a member of MS-13. They murder them in front of other members to make sure they can become part of the brotherhood. These are not the kinds of people we want in the United States. It is a guarantee that they will kill someone. And in sentencing these violent criminals, I’ve called them animals, for which I was made accountable as a sitting judge. I don’t much care. That’s what they are. They don’t deserve to be here. They’re the ones who deserve to be locked up in cages where they belong.

  The memories of Nisa Mickens, Kayla Cuevas, Paige Gomert, Jessica Wilson, Pierce Corcoran, and countless others should be a reminder to everyone about the true costs of illegal immigration, and what happens when we put politics and optics above national security and justice. It’s no wonder that when the Angel Moms went to Capitol Hill hoping for a meeting with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, they were turned away and made to sit in the halls in silence.36

  If I were Nancy Pelosi, I wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye, either.

  Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that all or even most illegals are criminals. In truth, many of them come to work and enjoy the American dream. Many of them are educated here and go on to be successful members of society. What I am saying is that until we vet the people coming in or at the very least prevent them from being released into the interior of this nation until we do so, we will continue to read about cases like Immigrant B.

  In addition, I am not suggesting everyone coming across the border is necessarily from Central America or Mexico. In a two-week period, more than 740 individuals from African nations were apprehended in the Del Rio, Texas, section alone.37 Families from Brazil, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Romania, and Vietnam are taking the same pathways as migrants from Central America and taking advantage of legal loopholes in our system.

  Fake News Sleight of Hand

  Just like the magician who waves his left hand dramatically in the air to distract you from seeing the coin or red rubber ball he’s deftly hiding in his right, the Democrats use outrage over nonissues to distract us from the realities of illegal immigration. It’s not the mothers of people killed by illegal immigrants the Democrats and the media want you to focus on. After all, if we did focus on those people, and the real human toll that illegal immigration takes on our country, we’d throw every Democrat in Congress out on the street the next day.

  Instead, the Democrats cook up fake scandals and distort the truth to keep people’s attention focused on the empty hand, while they hide destruction of our communities up their sleeves. The Trump administration “keeping kids in cages” and “separating families at the border” is a perfect example. The fact that Obama did the same thing does not affect them in the slightest.

  Separating immigrant children from the adults they are traveling with if the adults are detained is required by law. The 1997 Flores Settlement, the resolution of the Flores v. Reno case, requires children be placed in a different facility when the adults they are with are apprehended crossing the border. Within twenty days of apprehension, the children must be moved to a nonsecure, licensed facility. The intent of the law is to release the children from immigration detention without unnecessary delay. But the settlement has created a myriad of problems by forcing the government to separate children from their parents.

  The president tried to get out from under that decree, issuing an executive order that would have allowed children to remain with their parents indefinitely. Los Angeles–based US District Court Judge Dolly Gee rejected the White House’s request to alter the agreement.38 So, the administration was forced to return to the Flores requirement.

  All these are complicated issues that will continue to create chaos and havoc at the border as our agents are overwhelmed with the influx of children and minors. Until Congress is willing to do something—anything—to resolve this, everyone loses.

  If an unaccompanied minor or a family with minor children is caught c
oming into the country illegally it is inevitable that they will be released. Under our law they cannot be housed long enough to wait for an immigration judge to determine if their refugee or asylum claim is legitimate. That could take as long as two years. So, they are boarded on vans and buses, as I’m sure you’ve seen on television.

  Where are they going? They’re headed to the interior of the United States, to a town, village, or city near you. They are not tracked; they are not monitored; they’re simply politely asked to return for their court hearing. Do they? Not most of them. Ninety percent don’t bother to return.39 As a result, deportation orders are issued for their removal from the United States.

  So, while the Left bemoans illegals hiding in the shadows, one need only ask who, if anyone, forced them there. The answer is obvious.

  The agency charged with the job of removing those against whom an order of deportation has been lodged is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Left has recently been promoting the abolition of this agency. Many running for president, including Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris, as well as several in Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (she’s running for House idiot), want this agency eliminated. But why are so many hell-bent on abolishing ICE while no one talks about abolishing US Border Patrol, USBP? Part of it is the different roles each agency plays in immigration enforcement. USBP is supposed to be charged with apprehending illegal aliens while they are attempting to enter the country. In reality, they’re relegated to catching, counting, accommodating, and then releasing them into the interior. Fifty percent of USBP personnel are routinely pulled from their duties to perform babysitting and social service duties for illegals, and then they must release them into the interior. The Left isn’t worried about USBP being stuck changing diapers.