{"id":21820,"date":"2019-08-09T14:57:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T18:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21820"},"modified":"2019-08-09T14:57:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T18:57:13","slug":"worksite-enforcement-ice-illegal-alien-workers-immigrationreform-com-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/08\/09\/worksite-enforcement-ice-illegal-alien-workers-immigrationreform-com-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Family Permanently Separated by a Sanctuary Church, a Sanctuary State, and an Illegal Alien with a DUI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cU.S. defends secretive Mississippi ICE raids as local, state officials decry effect on children,\u201d blared the headline in the Washington Post<\/a>, after ICE arrested hundreds of illegal aliens working at meatpacking plants in Mississippi. The Post coverage was just one of many that focused on the impact of immigration enforcement on the children of the people who were arrested for violating federal laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A thousand miles or so away, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, immigration policies separated another father from his five children. In this case, Sean Buchanan\u2019s children will never see him again<\/a> because he is dead. Buchanan was killed on Aug. 2 while riding his motorcycle, when a car swerved into his lane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The car was driven by Miguel Ramirez Valiente, an illegal\nalien from El Salvador. But there\u2019s more to the story. Ramirez Valiente was\ndriving with a revoked license. The revocation was a result of a 2018\nconviction for drunk driving, and one day earlier he had been denied\nreinstatement of his license because he had failed to complete alcohol therapy\nand fulfill his community service obligations. He apparently wasn\u2019t such a\ngreat guy off the road either. Ramirez Valiente was twice charged with reckless\nendangerment and domestic violence, although in both cases the charges were\ndropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, Ramirez Valiente, an illegal alien with a pending\ndeportation order was still behind the wheel on a Colorado highway, without a\nlicense, when he struck and killed Buchanan. He managed to do this because he\nhad a lot of help. Among those who aided and abetted in this tragedy are the\nvirtue-signalers at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Colorado\nSprings, who earlier this year allowed him to hole-up in their basement to make\nsure that if ICE arrested him they would have to do so under the worst possible\noptics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The justification for Ramirez Valiente dodging the consequences of his illegal behavior, and for his enablers, was, of course, the children. \u201cMy three children and I are terrified that he will be deported. His children need him. So do I,\u201d said his wife in a tearful news conference in January<\/a>. Likewise, Ramirez Valiente himself invoked his kids as a reason why he should be exempt from the consequences of his actions. \u201cI can\u2019t be separated from them. I have always worked hard to support my family, and they depend on me,\u201d he pleaded. The church\u2019s pastor, Rev. Nori Rost, castigated the government as being immoral for attempting to enforce immigration laws<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramirez Valiente was also the beneficiary of good timing. In June, Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill making Colorado a sanctuary state<\/a>, which may have provided Ramirez Valiente the confidence that he could resume his normal life \u2013 outside the church basement \u2013 which included driving without a license, without concern for fellow motorists. Under Colorado\u2019s sanctuary law, Ramirez Valiente did not need to be concerned even after<\/em> he killed Buchanan. The Colorado State Patrol questioned him at the scene and released him, even though he was driving without a license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, back to the kids in Mississippi. They are deserving of our empathy, just as all children who suffer the consequences of their parents\u2019 mistakes and illegal actions do. Anyone who does not feel for kids in such situations is heartless. But anyone who thinks that we should exempt people from the consequences of violating laws because they have children and other family members is dangerously foolish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the news coverage was primarily focused on how\nthe enforcement of laws against lawbreakers affects their kids. There was even\nscant coverage of the role played by scofflaw employers who bypassed legal U.S.\nworkers to man their plants, and instead helped themselves to an illegal labor\nsubsidy at the expense of taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will we see an equal outpouring of concern in the media for\nthe five now father-less Buchanan kids? Will they be comforted, much less\nreceive an apology from Rev. Rost? Will Gov. Polis and the Colorado Legislature\nreconsider the policies that made Ramirez Valiente feel confident that the laws\nof the United States and the state of Colorado don\u2019t apply to him? Don\u2019t bet on\nit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cU.S. defends secretive Mississippi ICE raids as local, state officials decry effect on children,\u201d blared the headline in the Washington Post, after ICE arrested hundreds of illegal aliens working at meatpacking plants in Mississippi. The Post coverage was just one of many that focused on the impact of immigration enforcement on the children of the<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1450,548,5079],"tags":[1524,1719,640,6370],"yst_prominent_words":[6368,1954,5740,6369,3523,6362,1918,1914,2013,6367,6366,2283,4920,3541,6364,6360,6361,2373,6365,6363],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21821,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21820\/revisions\/21821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21820"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}