New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pardoning more illegal aliens to shield them from deportation.
The Democratic governor this week pardoned 22 criminal immigrants, many of whom could have been removed from the U.S. or blocked from citizenship.
The move marks an escalation in Cuomo’s campaign to thwart deportations of criminal aliens. In 2017, he pardoned 18 illegal aliens convicted of crimes. Before that, he granted clemency to seven.
Cuomo magnanimously – and disingenuously — proclaimed he was “keeping immigrant families together.” In doing so, he failed to acknowledge that it is the people who break laws who are responsible for the consequences of their actions on family members. Even in cases involving legal immigrants, continued presence in the United States is conditioned on the immigrants obeying the laws of this country.
During his re-election campaign, Cuomo took political chutzpah to a new level by declaring himself an “undocumented immigrant.” He isn’t; his father, Mario (a former New York governor), and mother, Matilda, were both born in New York – and so was he.
President Donald Trump has directed immigration officials to prioritize the deportation of illegal aliens charged or convicted of crimes. This is a sensible reversal of President Obama’s policy that limited removal to only the most egregious criminal aliens.
Cuomo is having none of it. Calling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “a bunch of thugs” last year, he sued the Trump administration for “ripping babies from the arms of their mothers.”
The illegal aliens pardoned by Cuomo were primarily drug offenders, with other crimes in the mix.
Prior to his pardon, one of the aliens said he had considered applying for citizenship via his fiancée. But with his petty larceny convictions, he noted, “It was for me a matter of ‘if’” — that is, whether citizenship would be granted in light of his criminal record.
Now, with pardon in hand, “It just becomes a matter of when,” he said.
Maureen Maloney, whose son was killed by an illegal alien in 2011, called Cuomo’s latest pardons “pandering.”
Countering Cuomo’s faux family-friendliness, the Angel Mom said, “Building a wall and securing our border will keep American families together.”