Immigrant ’sanctuaries’ rouse opponents’ wrath, LA Times, July 25, 2010

Reporting from Washington — Critics of the Obama administration’s decision to sue Arizona over its new law to control illegal immigration accuse the government of overlooking a more obvious [...]]]> When the press presents the objections of citizens to sanctuary cities, it certainly doesn’t use the strongest arguments.

Immigrant ’sanctuaries’ rouse opponents’ wrath, LA Times, July 25, 2010

Reporting from Washington — Critics of the Obama administration’s decision to sue Arizona over its new law to control illegal immigration accuse the government of overlooking a more obvious target: the dozens of cities that called themselves a “sanctuary” for immigrants.

“Everyone has noticed the hypocrisy of the government going after Arizona and ignoring the sanctuary cities,” said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “They have it exactly backwards. Arizona is applying federal law, and sanctuary cities are violating it.”

Justice Department lawyers on Thursday asked a judge in Phoenix to block Arizona’s law from going into effect on the grounds it interferes with federal immigration policy. The law is due to take effect in the coming week.

The Justice Department lawyers say the government wants to catch and deport criminal immigrants, but it does not wish to take custody of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are otherwise abiding by the law.

Right, as if unlawfully occupying American jobs and using stolen Social Security numbers (a felony) makes the aliens “otherwise abiding by the law.”

But worse than that is the threat to public safety when the most violent foreign criminals are treated like privileged characters, which is what happens in sanctuary cities.

Heather MacDonald explained how the policy is seriously hazardous to public safety by allowing known criminals to roam free:

The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave, City-Journal, Winter 2004

LAPD officers recognize illegal deported gang members all the time—flashing gang signs at court hearings for rival gangbangers, hanging out on the corner, or casing a target. These illegal returnees are, simply by being in the country after deportation, committing a felony (in contrast to garden-variety illegals on their first trip to the U.S., say, who are only committing a misdemeanor). “But if I see a deportee from the Mara Salvatrucha [Salvadoran prison] gang crossing the street, I know I can’t touch him,” laments a Los Angeles gang officer. Only if the deported felon has given the officer some other reason to stop him, such as an observed narcotics sale, can the cop accost him—but not for the immigration felony.

The most important argument against alien sanctuary is the increasing list of crime victims, including Los Angeles high school football star Jamiel Shaw (shown) who was killed by an illegal alien gangster one day after the criminal was released from jail without being deported.

In 2008, San Francisco father Tony Bologna and his two sons were murdered by an illegal alien gangster with a record of violence who was similarly allowed back on the street without being deported.

There are other cases of Americans being killed in preventable crimes — many by previously arrested drunk driving illegal aliens. Sadly, the MSM is incapable of connecting the dots of causality.

There is NO evidence that illegals speak up with evidence against criminals, which is the bogus reason given by many sanctuary supporters; the policy is promoted because the open-borders extremists do NOT care that the program helps violent criminals to stay and commit more crimes against innocent citizens. To them, open borders is an issue that supercedes the rule of law.

The families of the three brutally murdered young people were satisfied and relieved that Roldolfo Godinez was found guilty. The trial was a long time coming since August 2007, when three college friends were slaughtered on a schoolyard by a group of MS-13 gangsters.

It is a good outcome in particular because the evidence linking Godinez [...]]]>

The families of the three brutally murdered young people were satisfied and relieved that Roldolfo Godinez was found guilty. The trial was a long time coming since August 2007, when three college friends were slaughtered on a schoolyard by a group of MS-13 gangsters.

It is a good outcome in particular because the evidence linking Godinez to the actual murders was weak compared with the other accused. Yet he was found guilty on all 17 counts, including murder, felony murder, robbery and weapons violations.

Man Is Convicted in Newark School Murders, New York Times, May 24, 2010

NEWARK — In the first trial stemming from the shootings of four college-age friends in a schoolyard here nearly three years ago, a jury on Monday returned guilty verdicts for three murders and one attempted murder after less than a day of deliberations.

The jury in State Superior Court, in Newark, convicted Rodolfo Godinez, a 26-year-old gang member and native of Nicaragua, of all the charges facing him, including multiple counts of robbery, weapons charges and conspiracy. Each murder count carries a minimum penalty of 30 years to life in prison, and the sentences can be given consecutively.

“This man will never see the light of day,” the acting Essex County prosecutor, Robert D. Laurino, said.

As the jury foreman, a slender, middle-aged man, read the verdicts, several of the victims’ family members clutched one another, as some nearby wept silently. Shalga Hightower, the mother of one of the murder victims, Iofemi Hightower, shook visibly throughout the proceeding.

James Harvey, the father of another victim, Dashon Harvey, said afterward: “It’s truly a blessing from God. It’s to send a message to youth — ‘Do you really want to join a gang? This is what comes of it.’ ”

Mr. Harvey said it was gratifying to see Mr. Godinez “coming into court with a smirk on his face, and for us to have the last laugh.”

As the verdict was read, Mr. Godinez stared straight ahead impassively, his hands clasped in front of him, not turning to look at the jury. Judge Michael Ravin scheduled his sentencing for July 8.

Mr. Godinez’s lawyer, Roy Greenman, said, “Obviously, there will be an appeal on a number of grounds.” He declined to elaborate.

After three weeks of testimony, lawyers’ statements and instructions from the judge, the jurors began deliberations on Thursday afternoon. Judge Ravin gave them Friday off, and shortly after returning to court on Monday morning, they sent word that they had reached verdicts.

Prosecutors did not assert that Mr. Godinez, one of six defendants in the case, was the person who hacked at some of the victims with a machete, or the one who shot each of them, execution-style, in the back of the head with a .357-caliber Colt Trooper revolver. But they described him as a member and recruiter for the violent street gang to which the attackers belonged and as the one who summoned some of the others to the schoolyard on the night of Aug. 4, 2007, to instigate the attack.

Mr. Godinez came to the United States at age 9, probably illegally, and later gained legal residency, the authorities have said. At least one of the defendants is in this country illegally, and the status of another is unclear. Critics of United States immigration policy pointed to the schoolyard killings as evidence of a need for tougher enforcement.

At the time of the shootings, Mr. Godinez had been a fugitive for four years, after jumping bail on assault, robbery and weapons charges.

Interesting how the New York Times took pains to specify that Godinez was no longer illegal, “authorities have said.” More details would be welcome to make the claim more credible. And why was he given bail for violent crimes when he was a clear flight risk? Illegal aliens certainly live under a more permissive version of law enforcement than citizens.

The emotional high point of the trial came when the surviving victim, Natasha Aeriel, took the witness stand to describe the night when she, her brother Terrance Aeriel, Ms. Hightower and Mr. Harvey gathered behind the Mount Vernon elementary school to chat and listen to music. Ms. Aeriel recounted being sexually molested and slashed with a machete, hearing the shots that killed her brother and friends, and then being shot herself.

Troy Bradshaw, the Aeriels’ father, said after the verdict, “It’s still heavy on my heart.” He added that he had immense pride in his daughter, who might have to testify five more times.

That’s right. The families have endured one trial with five more to go. At least they have their faith and each other to lean on for emotional support.

Below, family members remarked on the verdict.

(Funny how pundits wring their hands over the worsening criminal anarchy in Mexico, but when Americans act to preserve public safety in our own [...]]]> Los Angeles’ pompous top Catholic, Cardinal Roger Mahony, recently compared patriotic Arizonans who support border security to Nazis, even though polling shows that 70 percent of voters favor the tough new legislation.

(Funny how pundits wring their hands over the worsening criminal anarchy in Mexico, but when Americans act to preserve public safety in our own country, that somehow is “mean-spirited” to use Mahony’s crude terminology. )

But his well documented activities of protecting pedophile priests keep popping up, which should disqualify him from making moral judgements (which are wrong and reprehensible anyway).

Mahony has presided over the Los Angeles diocese since 1985, and fought the release of church documents detailing parishioner complaints from police. (See the LA Times 2005 article, Study Reveals Vast Scope of Priest Abuse.) He also allowed priests facing prosecution to flee the country.

Perhaps the authorities will use Mahony’s retirement next year as an opportunity to pursue justice for his many crimes. Until then, there is a lawsuit on the horizon:

Attorneys sue LA, Mexico City cardinals over abuse, AP, April 20, 2010

A Mexican citizen filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday accusing Roman Catholic cardinals in Mexico City and Los Angeles of conspiring to shelter a Mexican pedophile priest in both countries.

The lawsuit alleges then-Bishop Norberto Rivera, head of the Diocese of Tehuacan, and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony shuttled the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera between the U.S. and Mexico in the late 1980s to shield him from prosecution. Parishioners in both countries complained he had molested young boys.

The Mexican bishop has since been elevated to cardinal for the Archdiocese of Mexico City. He has no relation to the accused priest.

Aguilar Rivera was defrocked last summer and remains at large in Mexico, where he was believed to be living out of his car in Puebla, in central Mexico. He has been wanted by U.S. authorities on 19 felony counts of lewd conduct since he fled his temporary post in Los Angeles in 1988 and returned to Mexico.