By Michael R. Shannon
Forty years ago he stepped across an imaginary line to make his home in Maryland. He married, worked hard, raised a family, sent his children to public school, paid taxes, saw one wife die of cancer and even played fantasy football. Placing him right smack dab in the mainstream of American life. No different from thousands, even millions of other hard–working Americans who were fortunate enough to be born in Maryland.
Then, without warning, armed sheriff’s deputies are pounding on his door at 3:30 AM, just like the KGB. They barge into his room, ignore his protests, snap handcuffs around his wrists and drag him off to jail. Leaving behind a stunned, broken family that has been brutally separated from their father and is now looking for a way to survive in today’s cruel America.
No doubt you’re wondering where you can join a protest or demonstration demanding an apology for this outrage, organized by indignado members of CASA de Maryland, the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the Pew Hispanic Center.
Unfortunately, this particular arrest doesn’t lend itself to intervention by professional Mexicans and border–jumping advocates. Which explains why this story is not another ‘little brown brother’ weeper. The problem here is Mr. Glenn Wilson is too white, too old, doesn’t hablar Spanish and is already is an American citizen. Worst of all for Glenn, he’s not a member of a potential Democrat voting block.
Wilson’s offense — other than skin color and national origin — is he walked out of the courthouse in 1971 and didn’t return to face a minor burglary charge. In the ensuing four decades Wilson remained in Maryland and became a law–abiding resident. His only arrest was the one last week that put him in jail on a 40–year–old warrant.
Now if Wilson’s nombre had been Senor Guillermo and the line he crossed had been the invisible border between the US and Mexico, chances are all would have been forgiven. In Maryland it’s almost impossible to be arrested for a mere immigration violation. They’d sooner haul you away for parking tickets.
Border violators confess publicly, hold news conferences and testify before legislative committees, but — like the obscure actor who never got a part — they can’t get arrested in that town.
And if the Obama administration has its way, this de facto amnesty will soon spread nationwide.
It’s ironic that one of the few things this confederacy of incompetents has been able to do is deport illegal aliens. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, Obama’s Secure Communities program has shipped nearly 400,000 illegals south each year, which is 4 percent annually of the 10 million estimated long–term trespassers. Even this sizeable figure does not account for the chain self–deportations of relatives and the intimidated that follow the deportee home of their own free will.
Certainly a program like Secure Communities offends those who are willing to violate their oath of office to put their tribe before the rule of law, like Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D–La Raza). Which is why Obama intends to pull the plug.
The Obamanations are instead planning to “prioritize” deportations. But in reality the only priority is Obama’s re–election campaign. When Barack’s approval rating is in the 40’s, he needs every Hispanic vote that pandering will attract.
Since the administration has not been able to persuade Congress to pass “comprehensive immigration reform” (euphemism to English translation = amnesty), Obama intends to achieve amnesty by ordering the border bureaucracy to do it anyway.
Instead of deporting everyone caught who is here illegally, the administration will drop deportation proceedings if the illegal has been here a long time (each day adding another 24 hours to the original border violation) or is elderly, pregnant, in school, responsible for other family member’s care and has a number of relatives or friends who are potential Democrat voters in 2012.
Which means “catch and release” is no longer limited to fish.
What’s more, the illegals snared by Secure Communities will be allowed to apply for work permits, essentially rewarding them for a long series of bad decisions and thwarting the will of Congress and the majority of Americans.
This is like releasing burglars who steal less than $1,000.00 and helping them start a used electronics business on eBay.
Why obey the law when breaking it gains you a work permit? Unless you’re a citizen burglar with a warrant from another century, like the unfortunate Glenn Wilson, who probably rues the day he wasn’t born a Mexican.