Malkin hopes to use conservative momentum on the immigration issue to deport "criminal aliens" before they are set free in the U.S. to do more harm. It's a useful tactic. She gets to beat on a voiceless, marginalized, and exploited population to futher her goals and she puts migrant advocates like myself in the impossible position of defending a criminal. I'm not going to defend criminals. But I will say that present U.S. deportation policies are doing more harm than good not only for U.S. citizens, but for citizens of the entire hemisphere.
In Malkin's piece,
"Sanctuary Nation or Sovereign Nation: It's Your Choice", she is quick to point out the lead suspect is tied with a
transnational criminal youth gang, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13:
With illegal alien murder suspect Jose Carranza and his alleged MS-13 gang-banging boy helpers who are being sought in the brutal Newark murder case dominating the news on the Eastern seaboard, politicians can't find a camera fast enough to condemn the very sanctuary policies they promoted and tolerated for decades -- sanctuary policies I've highlighted for years in this column.
It is important to state that Carranza's
gang connections are uncertain, but it is certain that the suspects in question had an affinity for MS-13. The Truth about gangs like Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 is that they used to be relatively small neighborhood gangs in Los Angeles before U.S. immigration policy paved the way for mass criminal deportations. Indira A.R. Lakshmanan from the
Boston Globe reports:
Ten years after a change in US immigration law paved the way for mass deportations, key Central American nations say they cannot cope with the criminal mayhem being inflicted by tens of thousands of gang members who have been sent back to their native lands.
Between 1998 and 2004, the United States deported more than 34,000 criminals to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Thousands more deportees were suspected, but never convicted, of gang activity.
Today, ''maras," or youth street gangs, boast 100,000 members in Central America by conservative estimates. They are blamed for much of the violent crime that plagues this region -- from murder and rape to human trafficking, smuggling, drug dealing, home invasions, extortion, and kidnapping.
The U.S.'s hand in these gangs goes back even further than the deportation policies that have transformed them into the monsters that they are today. Mara Salvatrucha was formed after thousands of Salvadorans fled a civil war 1980s. Here, like in so many other instances, the U.S. supported a brutal government that was dastardly enough to murder four U.S. churchwomen, three of them nuns.
If the U.S. starts deporting these criminals in droves without even attempting to mitigate the consequences, it's going to make things a lot worse not only for these deportee's countries of origin, but also for the U.S. citizens that are already suffering for the U.S.'s previous messes in the region.
(See my previous post)
Malkin would have U.S. citizens choose between sovereignty and compassion for U.S. interests. By saying "America first" Malkin likes to pretend that she a champion of U.S citizens. The truth is, though, we no longer live in a world where you can damn the citizens of other countries to hell without damaging your own.
The best thing you can do for U.S. citizens, now, is actually start focusing on the root of the problems associated with migration. If you start giving migrants the opportunity to stay in their own countries all of the problems that so many conservatives are barking about will go away. Contrary to what Malkin would have people believe not all migrants are "rapists, kidnappers, and murderers", the vast majority have the noblest dreams of getting ahead and providing for their families. Migrants go through injustices that people reading this can't even hope to understand. If the 12 million migrants in the U.S. were the people Malkin paints them out to be, she'd be in a lot of trouble.
login
