Sanctuary cities encourage selective application of the law.

Link: Texas Governor Abbott signs Sanctuary Cities Bill.

Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a bill which provides police officers with the authority to inquire about the immigration status of anyone they detain.  In addition, the bill requires local officials to hold criminal suspects for possible deportation.  Previously, immigration officers would place an Immigration Detainer on the suspect, which required that local authorities hold the suspect for up to forty-eight hours, to give federal law enforcement the opportunity to arrange deportation proceedings.  The new bill signed by Governor Abbott is in response to the Sanctuary Cities phenomenon, in which certain communities were choosing to ignore the Detainer request.  Opponents of the bill argue that it will encourage profiling and create fear in Hispanic communities,  while supporters call for even enforcement of the law.  San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas are just a few of the communities who
self-publicize their "sanctuary" status.  Police Officers in sanctuary municipalities are not allowed to inquire about a person's citizenship.

According to the law of the land, a person present in the United States without documentation is in this country illegally.  For years these persons were identified as "illegal aliens".  That term has since been designated "dehumanizing" by the progressives and the politically correct in our society, and since they make all the rules, "illegal alien" is a term no longer utilized to describe persons in our country without authorization.  At the same time, the politically correct machine has decided that any foreign national in the United States who wishes to stay permanently should be identified as an immigrant.  Again, back in the ancient days when I was studying Cultural Geography at College, the term "immigrant" was reserved for persons who had arrived in the United States legally, and had some form of documented status.  My mother was a French citizen who married my U.S. Citizen father; she obtained her legal residency through marriage.  The U.S. Department of State, through its various Embassies around the world,  issues Permanent Resident Visas by the hundreds of thousands every year.  These people follow the legal pathway to living in the United States.  With some rare exceptions, Visa applicants must wait years on the list before being selected.  These people are the true heroes in this mess.  While they wait to obtain legal authorization to live in the United States, hundreds of thousands cross the U.S./Mexico border every year without documentation.

The Democratic Party is very sympathetic to the plight of persons who are in the United States without permission; not surprisingly, every Sanctuary City has a Mayor and City Council dominated by Democrats.  The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to include Amendments to allow the people to change unpopular laws.  Its not the simplest of processes, nor should it be.  Laws are enacted to protect people and property.  Coincidentally, Sanctuary Cities, which flaunt the law, have become magnets for Mexican and Central American criminal gangs.  The criminal alien sans documentation but with a bit of common sense, will gravitate to the communities that are not allowed to ask his/her citizenship.  Gangs like the evil, violent Mara Salvatrucha Trece , which is roughly translated as "Gangster Salvadoran Soldiers", have established a dangerous presence in most of the Sanctuary Cities, as have the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels.  One way to combat these groups is through identification, but how to you identify someone when the law prohibits Police Officers from determining nationality?

For many years, undocumented immigrants kept a very low profile.  The idea was to find a job, send some of the money back home to help out, and hopefully find a way to adjust status to Resident Alien (Green Card).  Basically, all persons involved on both sides of the issue agreed that the rule of law was central to the discussion.  Not anymore.  The rule of law has no place in Sanctuary Cities.  Municipal authorities in places like San Francisco, Houston and Seattle have decided that they get to decide which laws should be respected and which should be ignored.  At the same time, they claim that undocumented immigrants have civil rights GUARANTEED BY OUR CONSTITUTION.  The hypocrisy would be funny of it weren't so scary.  The longer we allow Sanctuary Communities to exist, the greater the encouragement for others to give their life savings to a smuggler and enter the United States illegally.  Many Central Americans are tempted by the lure of Sanctuary Cities to first attempt illegally entry into Mexico.  The Mexican government has not the slightest sympathy for persons entering Mexico "sin documentos".  People are robbed, beaten, sometimes assaulted, and dumped back on the other side of the border.  For all the bleeding heart liberals who believe that the United States has some humane obligation to persons trying to enter the U.S. illegally, does it matter that thousands are ruined, with many losing their lives, because of the existence of Sanctuary Cities?

National security is any nation is only as strong as its borders.  It is unfair to expect the American taxpayer to support ten million citizens of the Republic of Mexico.  In 1776, we were faced with tyranny and taxation without representation.  Our Founding Fathers went to war, to build a Democracy under the rule of law.  Mexican citizens must follow our example and stand up to the corruptocracy that pretends to be a government, and enforce their Constitution.  This includes going to war with the narcotraffickers who have an unwritten understanding with the government to stay out of each other's way.  Like it or not, the problem of undocumented immigrants has become an issue of national security for the United States, and we must get control of our borders.  At the same time, we must stand up for the rule of law and eliminate the reasons people are tempted to risk their lives, break our laws, and cross our border illegally.  This includes legitimate sanctions and jail time for employers who knowingly hire "cheap" labor provided by undocumented workers, and the elimination of communities who promise a safe haven for persons to live whose entire presence in the United States is predicated on breaking the law.        

Keeping it short and simple- a post-debate reminder why I'm voting for Donald Trump.

I spent a good part of tonight's Presidntial Debate trying to understand why someone with Donald Trump's public exposure and profile seems to have the communication skills of a High School sophomore.  He has real difficulty staying on topic and finishing points.  My friend Jennifer refers to it as talking in "verbal circles", and I think that she has found a great description.  That being said, I am able to clearly identitfy what Trump supports and what issues will be a priority should he win this election.  This debate only served to solidify my support for Trump and my absolute opposition to Hillary Clinton.

Trump identifies the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed into law by former President Bill Clinton, as the worst trade legislation that our nation has ever enacted, and he's right.  NAFTA serves to strengthen the economies of Latin America on the back of U.S. workers.  Trump boldly announced that any nation who unfairly taxes our products, is going to be met with the same taxes on this side of the border.  Are you listening, Mexico, China, Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan?  The EU will be obliged to revisit some of our Trade Agreements as well.  Just because the international community like to encourage the perception that Americans are all filthy rich, and that citizens of the United States unfairly consume most of the world's resources, is no reason for us to regularly enter into unbalanced, damaging Trade Agreements.

Trump promises to curtail useless, unnecessary, and crippling regulations on industry and on businesses.  Democrat Administrations love regulation.  They seem to always make the assumption that any regulation will help save animals, clean the water and clear the air.  Unnecessary regulations financially impact a business owner's ability to expand his workspace and hire more employees.  But the real reason I believe Trump will be successful is his plan to provide a tax break to the job creators in this country- the large, medium, and small business owners.  In order to grow businesses, you have to let the people keep more of their money.  They are capitalists; they will invest any additional tax savings back into our moribund economy.  That's a guarantee you can take to the bank.  Meanwhile, all we get from Hillary is more of the same Democratic argument that the government should be in charge of creating jobs.  A simple review of basic economics illustrates that governments have always been terrible at job creation.

Trump will discourage the continued existence of sanctuary cities, which is part of his effort to re-introduce respect for the rule of law.  Persons who are considering breaking U.S. law by trying to enter our nation illegally, should not have certain destination cities already circled on the map.  We need a President who will put the backbone back into our Immigration Laws.  Americans are only as secure as our international border.  We can't reward people for breaking the law, while hundreds of thousands of people fill out the paperwork and wait patiently (and legally) for their opportunity.

Trump intends to destroy ISIS, a worthy goal that should have been accomplished some time ago.  Trump will rebiild our military, and put Veterans at the front of the line for school financial aid, home financing, and medical care.  Trump will clean out the State Department and remove all of the Clinton apologists and America-haters that have sadly taken root at Foggy Bottom.

During the debate, Clinton came across as just another politician, providing the audience with all these great ideas that I guess never came to mind during her six years as a Congresswoman who never authored any legislation.  She had the gall to bring up the "Birther Lie", reflecting on Trump's past support for finding real answers to the Obama birth certificate controversy.  Lie is a special word in Clinton's world.  She lied about the cause of the Benghazi tragedy, because of her refusal to say "Islamic Terrorists", she lied anout having never received classified emails on her "illegal server", and she lied when she said that "a wall" would exist between her State Department and her husband's Foundation.  We now know that fifty-five percent of the lucky folks who received an interview with Secretary of State Clinton, left her office and ran to make a donation to the Clinton Foundation.  I wonder why?  And that wall proved invisible on a number of other occasions, including when Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, both high-placed members of her State Department Staff, did work for the Clinton Foundation while collecting a USG check from the State Department.  Are you comfortable with her support for the nuclear give-away Treaty with Iran?  Where was the benefit in that?  What about the ransom paid for the release of U.S. hostages?  If Iran should be trusted with a Nuclear Treaty, can't they be depended upon to release innocent U.S. citizens from Iranian jails without a ransom of billions of dollars?  And if you need anymore examples of Hillary's foreign policy mistakes, take a look at the New Start ballistic missile reduction Treaty she signed with none-other than Lucifer himself, Vladimir Putin, back in 2010.

I keep hoping that Donald Trump will develop a more effective speaking style, but I don't think its going to happen.  So I'm left to dig through the issues, in order to determine who is the best candidate for President in 2016.  Fortunately, it didn't take very long.