The Victims Of Illegal Aliens Finally Have A V.O.I.C.E.

In one of his first acts as President, Donald Trump issued an executive order ending years of liberal advocacy for criminal aliens. From the National Review:

The “Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens,” now called “Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE),” was created by an executive order on immigration enforcement on January 25 and enhanced in a memorandum by DHS secretary John Kelly on February 20. VOICE is a very appropriate name for this office. For years American families victimized by illegal aliens have been ignored. Because of the misuse of “privacy” rules and indifference, they have been unable to find out whether the criminals who attacked their family members were in the country legally or illegally, or even whether the aliens were incarcerated, deported, or set free.

This class of victims finally joins the ranks of those who have suffered loss at the hands of citizen criminals. Funds for this effort are channeled through programs that previously aided criminal aliens under the Obama administration. Taxpayer funds will no longer be available for the following:

• In the past two years, the Obama Administration spent $9 million of taxpayer money to provide attorneys to illegal aliens.

• DHS had previously offered hotlines to help illegal aliens seeking executive amnesty and enable complaints against those seeking to enforce U.S. immigration law, and even opened an illegal alien advocate office. 

• Even today, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) still advertises safe zones (“sensitive locations”) – such as school bus stops, health clinics and parades - where illegal aliens will be free from enforcement actions.

There are other victim assistance programs available through the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). This is a program administered by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The Crime Victims Fund was established under the 1984 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) to help victims of crime. One of the goals of this funding was to keep crime victims appraised of the progress of prosecutions involving their assailant. I administered one of these programs that operated on a county-wide basis and can testify as to their advocacy for victims and the assistance they provide.

Apparently the same level of assistance was not extended to federal prosecutions involving criminal aliens.  Indeed, under Obama the deportation of criminal aliens was replaced by their release back into society.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement released 90,000 illegal aliens back onto the streets that were deemed as criminal threats in 2015. The massive release was a result of Pres. Obama’s Priority Enforcement Program that puts the focus only on criminal aliens who pose a "serious" threat.

In fiscal year 2015 ICE encountered 152,393 illegal criminal aliens, mostly through local jails, but only charged 64,116. According to Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, around 88,000 were not even processed for deportation.

If the crime occurred in one of the 300 sanctuary cities, the crime may not have been reported to ICE and the suspect alien not remanded to federal custody as required;  the numbers quoted above may be greater as the accuracy of these statistics is dependent upon the cooperation of local jurisdictions.

Hopefully this situation has been rectified by Trump's executive order and the issue of sanctuary cities will soon be addressed.

Blind In San Francisco

There is a special kind of blindness that liberals exhibit. Or maybe it's a cognitive disconnect between what they say and do on one day and what they say and do on the next. Whatever the cause, it's maddening to witness it.

Take the death of Kate Steinle, a beautiful, 31 yr. old San Francisco woman who was murdered by an illegal alien, a Mexican, Francisco Lopez. Lopez, a known narcotics trafficker with a half dozen arrests, was released by San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi who refused to honor a request from ICE authorities to detain him. Ms. Steinle's Father is suing San Francisco and the federal government for their willful acts leading to the death of his daughter. On December 2nd, the feds and the City of San Francisco asked Mr. Steinle to drop the lawsuit.

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — The U.S. government and the City of San Francisco are asking Kate Steinle’s family to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit in a hearing on Friday.

Kate Steinle was shot and killed in July of 2015 on Pier 14 along San Francisco’s waterfront. Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant, has been charged in the murder.

Lopez-Sanchez was released from the San Francisco City Jail in Apil.

The family of Kate Steinle filed the federal lawsuit in May of 2016 against former San Francisco sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement, and the Bureau of Land Management.

The lawsuit seeks to hold the Bureau of Land Management, ICE, and former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi accountable for providing “the means and opportunity for a repeat drug felon to secure a gun and kill Kate,” according to the complaint.

Lopez was freed on these grounds:

Lopez-Sanchez has five felony convictions for entering the United States illegally and was released from federal prison earlier this year and sent to San Francisco because of a 20-year-old warrant in a minor marijuana case. Federal immigration authorities were not alerted when his charges were dropped, and Lopez-Sanchez was freed to the streets under San Francisco “sanctuary city” law that limits turning over illegal aliens for deportation.

Now just the day before asking for relief from this lawsuit, the City of San Francisco passed a resolution, a "middle finger" to President-elect Trump, stating the following:

HEREAS, On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That no matter the threats made by President-elect Trump, San Francisco will remain a Sanctuary City. We will not turn our back on the men and women from other countries who help make this city great, and who represent over one third of our population. This is the Golden Gate-we build bridges, not walls; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That we will never back down on women’s rights, whether in healthcare, the workplace, or any other area threatened by a man who treats women as obstacles to be demeaned or objects to be assaulted. And just as important, we will ensure our young girls grow up with role models who show them they can be or do anything; and,

So on Thursday the City comes out with an in-your-face pledge to a) break the law and b) protect women and the VERY NEXT DAY asks the family of a murder victim who was killed because they broke the law - to drop the law suit seeking to hold them accountable for their reckless actions. It sounds like the City by the Bay figures it is a woman's right to be killed in front of her family - sounds very Sharia-ish, doesn't it?

Forgive me, but I am praying to Saint Andreas to give that fault line a little nudge. Just a little one.

More here and here.