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Litigation Invasion: Losing Our Border One Lawsuit at a Time

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Imagine you are a liberal judge on the federal bench. You know that the entire political system, which includes all three branches of government and both political parties, vests you with unlimited power to dictate policy with an injunction. Regardless of the law, Constitution, rules of standing for a judicial case, past and recent Supreme Court precedent, political fallout, or national security consequences, you can declare an opinion and have that policy unquestionably become “the law of the land.” Why wouldn’t you try your hand at being a judicial version of Kim Jong-un?

At some point, we should stop blaming the judges for legislating with impunity and start blaming the other branches for not only ceding that power, but actively giving effect to the judges’ usurpations of law.

On Friday, the Ninth Circuit, after illegally granting standing to illegal aliens who never entered our country, ruled that the Trump administration can’t return bogus asylum-seekers to Mexico. This is a policy Trump worked out with the Mexican president. This is exactly why the Supreme Court said in Mathews v. Diaz (1976) that “decisions in these matters [immigration] may implicate our relations with foreign powers” and therefore, these “decisions are frequently of a character more appropriate to either the Legislature or the Executive than to the Judiciary.”

The “remain in Mexico” policy is largely responsible for bringing monthly border numbers back down to 35,000 from 140,000 last summer, when the policy was first implemented. The minute the court issued the ruling, and before it later agreed to temporarily stay that ruling, there was a rush on our border in El Paso. The danger of a mass migration at our border during a global pandemic cannot be overstated.

Moreover, Central American governments have already warned us that among the caravan members are people wanted for homicide, kidnapping, extortion, and terrorism. Some felons are known members of the transnational gangs MS-13 and 18th Street.

No judge has the power to trigger such an international incident. At what point will the president finally say “enough is enough” to illegal rulings creating standing to sue and a right to immigrate for caravans?

The Trump administration routinely asserts its powers as an independent branch of government to ignore congressional subpoenas, a practice numerous presidents from both parties have used on a regular basis. Yet lower court judges can even decide border and foreign policies without any opposition?

In reality, a judge has no power to demand that foreign nationals be brought into the country. Judges can grant relief to a plaintiff, for example, by vacating a conviction. They can get government off the backs of an individual citizen. They can’t, however, demand that the executive branch take action to bring in more people at the border. That simply is not a justiciable issue for a number of reasons.

Undoubtedly, White House lawyers will tell the president to just stay the course and continue appealing to the Supreme Court. But they are missing the point. You can’t govern the country with your opponents winning on a strategy of death by a thousand lawsuits. The Supreme Court has already upheld the president’s power to deny entry under 8 U.S.C. §1182(f) in crystal clear terms. That opinion, in itself, was merely upholding a 1993 opinion that affirmed the president’s right to block entry, even in the context of asylum claims.

Yet the open-borders advocates are still coming back for more disruptions of our border in numerous ways.

Consider the following:

On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington state ruled that Trump can’t use funding for the border that was originally earmarked for a naval base in the state. Now judges appropriate money too! This issue was already litigated twice and went before the Supreme Court to be reversed in California and then in Texas. But this has not deterred another judge from issuing an injunction, nor will it deter the next liberal judge.

The travel ban, which was so strongly upheld by the Supreme Court, is half dead because the administration is still deterred by endless lawsuits. In fact, a judge recently ruled that USCIS must hand over more documents related to the travel ban. What happened to Trump v. Hawaii?

While the Supreme Court finally rolled back the insane injunctions on the public charge rule, there is still new litigation to try to pick away at its implementation.

The Supreme Court has upheld the concept of “expedited removal” for over 20 years, a statute that bars courts from hearing certain deportation cases. Yet the lower courts had no problem violating the law by hearing the case anyway … and ruling against the law!

At the same time judges were inviting the world to invade our border, another district judge ruled that Ken Cuccinelli’s appointment as acting USCIS director was illegal and that every decision he signed is void. Talk about a judicial veto power never mentioned in the Constitution!

Forget about Ilhan Omar’s bill to abolish immigration enforcement. The courts are doing it for free and without any backlash. But they only have the power that the other branches allow them to wield. When will there be a turning point against judicial usurpations? Will it take another border crisis? (For more from the author of “Litigation Invasion: Losing Our Border One Lawsuit at a Time” please click HERE)

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Ninth Circuit Reopens Border, Blocks Donald Trump’s ‘Return to Mexico’ Policy; Smuggling Tunnel Dug by Hand Discovered at U.S.-Mexico Border

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By Breitbart. The ACLU has persuaded three judges in the far-left Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to block the hugely successful ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ border policy, even though the policy has played a critical role in reducing the inflow of migrants.

The same panel also declared that border agents must process claims for asylum made by migrants who are caught trying to sneak over the border fence far from the formal Ports of Entry.

John Sandweg told Axios.com:

The timing couldn’t be much worse for the Administration,” according to President Barack Obama’s ICE director. “If this decision is going to trigger increased flows at the border, the coming months are the time of year when you would expect to see a spike in the numbers.”

The two decisions — if accepted by a large panel of judges and by the Supreme Court — punch a nationwide hole through the border rules. The decisions will help the cartels, coyotes, and worldwide migrants to again cooperatively overwhelm U.S. border defenses and courtroom process and rush millions of migrants into U.S. job markets, housing markets, and K-12 schools. (Read more from “Ninth Circuit Reopens Border, Blocks Donald Trump’s ‘Return to Mexico’ Policy” HERE)

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Smuggling Tunnel Dug by Hand Discovered at U.S.-Mexico Border

By New York Post. An incomplete smuggling tunnel was discovered by authorities at the Arizona-Mexico border — the 126th underground pathway found by border agents in that area since 1990, officials said.

US Customs and Border Protection agents, along with Mexican authorities, located the tunnel that originated at a drainage facility in Nogales, Mexico, and extended 30 feet into Nogales, Arizona, CBP said in a press release.

Described by authorities as a “rudimentary” tunnel, the hand-dug pathway had no shoring, ventilation or lighting. Its depth was about 20-feet.

“U.S. authorities will continuously monitor the area until they remediate the tunnel,” CBP said in the release. (Read more from “Smuggling Tunnel Dug by Hand Discovered at U.S.-Mexico Border” HERE)

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Illegal Alien Criminal Released by Chicago Rearrested for Sexually Assaulting 3-Year-Old

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Last year, Chicago police posted a video suggesting that immigration status is in line with gender and race as identities that don’t matter to their officers. Sadly, it matters a lot to a three-year-old who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a career criminal illegal alien who could have been removed from the country just months before the incident if not for Chicago’s recalcitrant policies.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Christopher Puente, 34, confessed to luring a three-year-old girl into the bathroom at the River North McDonald’s, pulling off the girl’s pants and underwear, and sitting her on his lap.

“He said that the victim called out ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” said Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy about the horrific incident. “And so he covered the girl’s mouth.”

Like most criminals of this magnitude, this was not his first rodeo. According to the Sun-Times, “Puente has a lengthy criminal record, having served several stints in prison for theft and burglary. He currently faces a misdemeanor battery charges for allegedly touching a woman inappropriately and then shoving her while downtown.”

But the article omits the most important detail. Puente, according to ICE, is an illegal alien from Mexico who was previously deported and could have been removed again last year had Chicago police honored the detainer.

Thus, unlike the gender or race of a suspect, immigration status matters a lot. If Chicago cooperated with ICE, this alleged sexual assault and possibly the prior assault on a woman could have been prevented.

This man, like thousands of other illegal aliens, is committing countless preventable crimes because not only are they barely locked up on domestic criminal charges, thanks to “criminal justice reform,” they are not turned over to ICE for removal.

“In June 2019, ICE lodged an immigration detainer with the Chicago Police Department on Puente, who has several felony convictions and a prior removal, after he was arrested for theft,” said ICE in a press release this morning. “That detainer was not honored and on Feb. 19, 2020, Puente was once again arrested, except this time it was for sexually assaulting a 3-year-old at a fast food restaurant.”

“How many more victims must there be before lawmakers realize that sanctuary policies do not protect the innocent?” asked Robert Guadian, field office director of Chicago Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). “Puente should have been in ICE custody last year and removed to his home country. Instead, irresponsible lawmaking allowed him to walk free and prey on our most vulnerable.”

On Feb. 20, 2020, ICE filed an immigration detainer with Cook County Jail after Puente’s sexual assault arrest. Thankfully, the suspect is being held without bond because if he did post bail, the county would still not honor the detainer, even after such a horrific criminal charge.

According to ICE, Puente was previously deported in 2014 and also had felony convictions in 2011, 2012, and 2017.

Puente is not an anomaly. In fiscal year 2019, Cook County declined more than 1,070 detainers. There is no way of knowing how many others like him are reoffending and harming Americans because, as ICE noted in the release, “Since ICE does not have access to standard Illinois law enforcement databases, the agency cannot account for all the aliens who have been arrested, released and arrested for additional crimes.”

Statute (8 U.S. Code § 1373) makes it unlawful for a state or city to “prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.”

Just this week, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security published a report showing that 17,000 criminal aliens arrested for crimes and released in contravention to ICE detainers remain at large in this country. In total, there were 58,900 declined detainers between October 1, 2013, and September 30, 2019, 70 percent of which were eventually captured by ICE at a great cost in manpower.

However, the scope of the problem is getting worse. In FY 2016, there were 3,686 declined detainers. In FY 2019, there were over 16,000. As the report notes, “Arresting violent offenders at large [not in jail custody] requires even more resources to ensure officer safety.” This prevents them from removing more illegal aliens, including violent criminals.

Yet after thousands upon thousands of the worst criminal aliens have been released throughout the country, there is still no effort by Congress to better enforce the laws. (For more from the author of “Illegal Alien Criminal Released by Chicago Rearrested for Sexually Assaulting 3-Year-Old” please click HERE)

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Why the Rare Court Win on Sanctuary Cities Is so Important — and How Trump Can Make the Most of It

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Does a state have the right to use its law enforcement to thwart immigration law and then demand federal grant funds for its law enforcement? It’s a question that never even should have been in court, given that courts don’t appropriate funds, but because every political issue winds up in court, the Trump administration has been stymied in enforcing immigration laws against the states. That is, until now.

In reversal of a district court ruling and in disagreement with other more liberal circuit court rulings, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the Department of Justice was justified in cutting off law enforcement grants to sanctuary cities, such as New York City. The Second Circuit covers the states of New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, but New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Rhode Island joined in the original district court lawsuit in New York.

“Repeatedly and throughout its pronouncement of Byrne Program statutory requirements, Congress makes clear that a grant applicant demonstrates qualification by satisfying statutory requirements in such form and according to such rules as the Attorney General establishes,” wrote Judge Reena Raggi for the unanimous three-judge panel. “This confers considerable authority on the Attorney General.”

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions promulgated a regulation in 2017 requiring states to comply with three conditions in order to be eligible for Byrne Grant funds. Pursuant to the policy, states cannot restrict communications with federal authorities about the citizenship and immigration status of its incarcerated aliens, they are prohibited from releasing criminal aliens without prior notice, if requested by ICE, and they must allow federal immigration authorities access to incarcerated aliens. These jurisdictions were slated to lose $385 million in justice assistance grants.

States and cities sued the policy and won victories in numerous district courts as well as in the Seventh and Ninth Circuits. The courts’ rationales centered on federalism and state sovereignty, as if to say there is somehow a right for states to get federal funding while violating the sovereignty of the whole of the union.

Judge Raggi rejected this argument by noting that the relevant statue allows the attorney general to make conditions on grant funding. Plus, withholding federal grants is not a form of commandeering states, because they are free to do what they want and not take the money. “A State is deprived of ‘legitimate choice’ only when the federal government imposes grant conditions that pass the point at which ‘pressure turns into compulsion,’” said the Second Circuit opinion.

Furthermore, Judge Raggi noted that 8 U.S.C. §1373 explicitly bars states from prohibiting communication with immigration authorities, a power that the federal government legitimately holds. Citing Arizona v. U.S., she made it clear that the Supreme Court has said the federal government has complete control over immigration, even when states want to get tougher on illegal aliens. Certainly, that applies when states want to undermine federal enforcement.

Thus, statute actually requires what the states say the Trump administration cannot do. And to say the statute itself is unconstitutional on 10th Amendment grounds is wrong as well because, as Raggi noted, the law doesn’t “affirmatively conscript states, localities, or their employees into the federal government’s service,” such as with the costly Medicaid expansion or aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act. “Rather, the law prohibits state and local governments and officials ‘only from directly restricting the voluntary exchange of immigration information’ with federal immigration authorities.”

That’s the bottom line. All they are asking is for states not to obstruct a core federal power. The federal government is not mandating any costly regulatory structure – just don’t harbor illegal aliens. There is no practical way for the federal government to exercise its solemn responsibility if states are active accomplices to the assault on the national sovereignty.

Trump needs to take this victory a step further and find other programs to withhold from these states. His power is an even broader mandate than what the court acknowledged. 8 U.S.C. 1373 was enacted as part of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act precisely to ensure that illegal aliens don’t benefit from public assistance. By definition, any grant program would benefit illegal aliens were it to be funneled equally to jurisdictions filled with the majority of illegal aliens in this country.

States using undesirable aliens to increase their representation in the federal government is quite literally why the Constitution took the issue away from the states, where it was under the Articles of Confederation. Writing in Federalist #42, Madison elaborates that the federal power over naturalization solved “a very serious embarrassment” and “defect” of the Articles of Confederation whereby “certain descriptions of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious” can force themselves on several states had they “acquired the character of citizens under the laws of another State.”

Thus, the federal conditions on the executive order are not extraneous to the policy goals of the underlying grant as they would be if, say, the federal government cut off transportation funding to a state for implementing an undesirable social policy related to gender-neutral bathrooms. In this case, the law is designed to target the recipients of benefits, not a social behavior or a political policy of the local government.

Therefore, the Trump administration would be justified in cutting off other grant funding programs as well so that sanctuary cities don’t reap the reward of their crime by accumulating more people illegally to gobble up federal funding.

It’s not very often that conservatives enjoy a broad victory in the courts. Trump should make the most of it. (For more from the author of “Why the Rare Court Win on Sanctuary Cities Is so Important — and How Trump Can Make the Most of It” please click HERE)

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NY Man Released After Attempted Rape Now Accused Of Murder

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Given that most murders are committed by known, repeat violent felons, shouldn’t there be a bipartisan and relentless national “criminal justice reform” agenda to ensure these people are taken off the streets before they kill innocents?

One would think this would be the priority of criminal justice legislation even at the federal level, but instead, 100 percent of the “reforms” are oriented toward the de-incarceration agenda, even for violent repeat offenders. The latest tragic victim of these screwed-up priorities is Sandra Wilson. Sadly, no political movement will be elevated in her name the way Kim Kardashian makes celebrities out of criminals.

On Nov. 9, Blanchard Glaudin allegedly attacked a woman in her hospital bed at Nyack Hospital in Rockland County, New York. As CBS2 reports, according to the police, Glaudin “held her down by the throat and told her, ‘Shut up and do not scream. Pull down your pants.’” He allegedly choked and scratched the victim but was apprehended before he could rape her.

Who would try to rape a woman in a hospital? Well, probably the same type of person who would also murder people, which is why people like Glaudin need to be locked up. But a month after being arrested, he was released from jail in late December, despite having been assessed $100,000 bail by a judge in November.

“Bail reform” did its work in this case last Tuesday, when Glaudin allegedly charged into a Rockland County library in Spring Valley, New York, and repeatedly stabbed Sandra Wilson, the longtime library security guard. Now the victim of the November attempted rape, who remains anonymous, is speaking out to local media and demanding answers for why this man was released after she was attacked.

The family of Sandra Wilson has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for the funeral expenses.

Although attempted rape is still officially eligible for pretrial holding under New York’s new law, Glaudin appears to have been released during that last week in December when judges were frantically trying to comply with the new law to retroactively release all those exempted from bail. He missed three court dates for the attempted rape charge in January.

This makes the murder of Sandra Wilson 100 percent preventable. Even after the murder, Glaudin has only been charged with second-degree murder, which is a common occurrence in a system that is already under-charging and under-convicting violent offenders.

According to court records, Glaudin was originally at Nyack Hospital last November for mental health treatment. He was admitted again in January once he was released from jail. It’s part of a broader trend where states have stopped locking up the criminally insane in mental asylums. On the one hand, they treat them leniently because of their mental illness, but on the other hand they refuse to confine them in mental hospitals in lieu of prison. Absent a mandatory system of imprisonment or confinement in a mental hospital, these people will be free to harm others. Politicians in states like New York and California want them released on the streets to commit more crimes that they supposedly just can’t help committing. The fact that they have a mental illness is no solace to victims of crime and most certainly doesn’t make them less of a public safety concern.

In Glaudin’s case, he was evidently free enough (and lucid enough) to have lived in Florida for some time, where he had some run-ins with the law.

Every day, we see numerous cases where the most dangerous criminals known to law enforcement slip through the justice system and go on to victimize more innocent people. Yet there is no effort on the part of the politicians to push reforms that will deter and punish, or at least incapacitate, these individuals. While rehabilitation is a nice perk of incarceration if we could make that work, the most important elements are deterrence, incapacitation, and justice. But the politicians only focus on rehabilitation.

On Thursday, before a group of former prisoners, President Trump praised Jared Kushner as “the father of criminal justice reform.” During the address, in which he pushed a utopian agenda of rehabilitation, he said his administration will send a “powerful message” that “we are not going to leave you behind.”

But where is the message to people like Sandra Wilson’s relatives? Or what about the relatives of Reginald Larry, who was killed allegedly by a man who was released from jail in Houston just a month ago, after being arrested for shooting three women? Why is Jared not working “so hard,” as Trump said on Thursday, on their behalf to ensure people are not needlessly victimized by those who definitely do belong behind bars?

The lack of balance in our body politic on this issue was best captured by Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys, in a recent column. “It might be trendy to highlight ex-cons and berate the justice system for its flaws, real or perceived,” lamented the veteran prosecutor fighting jailbreak policies in California. “Apparently not worthy of such treatment is the aftermath for the victims and families of those who suffered crimes such as murder, rape, robbery or child sexual abuse.” (For more from the author of “NY Man Released After Attempted Rape Now Accused Of Murder” please click HERE)

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Houston Career Criminal Released After Arrest For Murder Now Wanted… For Murder

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Rarely do we give victims the help they need or the attention they deserve. Yet the protection of our citizens — to guard them from becoming victims — is the primary purpose of our penal laws. Thus, each new victim personally represents an instance in which our system has failed to prevent crime. Lack of concern for victims compounds that failure.” ~Ronald Reagan, April 8, 1981, proclamation creating National Crime Victims Week.

Gerald Washington, 27, of Houston should be the poster child for criminal justice reform on behalf of victims of crime, but this is the side of the issue that is never discussed by the “reform” movement, which simply does not believe in incarceration.

29-year-old Reginald Larry was on his way to visit his grandmother last week when he stopped off at a corner store in Houston to get a drink. That’s when Houston police say Washington shot and killed him just outside the store with no apparent motive. He remains a fugitive as of this writing.

This could have happened to anyone else in the wrong place at the wrong time, but if we had true criminal justice reform that prioritizes public safety over criminal freedoms, Larry would be alive today.

Washington was already charged with murdering a woman and shooting two others, but he was released on bail. And he had a criminal history and parole violations before that murder, but was still granted bail. Here’s the criminal history, according to ABC13.

Washington was charged for two counts of burglary in 2018 but was given parole rather than prison time.

Despite violating the terms of his parole several times, he was not incarcerated.

On October 5, 2018, according to Harris County court records, Washington was charged with murder and with aggravated assault for shooting two other women. According to ABC13, “One of the victims told ABC13 she was shot so many times that she played dead. She was in the hospital for a month and in rehabilitation for two months. She said she was shot between six or seven times.” One would think someone like this would be held without bond, but he was released on $200,000 bond, which usually means the defendant only pays 10 percent in cash.

A search of Harris County court records also shows a criminal trespassing charge and assault resulting in bodily injury in 2013. He served just 30 days and was given parole. He also spent 45 days in jail in 2016 for evading arrest.

He was wearing an ankle bracelet during this past release on bond, but it evidently did not prevent him from shooting Larry. Police say he has cut off his ankle monitor since the murder last week and remains a fugitive.

It’s a known fact that ankle bracelets simply do not deter violent criminals if they are not incarcerated, and there are too few officers to monitor too many volatile criminals. Yet our entire justice system, along with the weight of dozens of well-funded “criminal justice reform” nonprofits, only have the concerns of people like Gerald Washington in mind with their policies, not people like Reginald Larry.

What this case also demonstrates is that the weak-on-crime judges and policies are not only native to blue states, but are alive and well in states like Texas, particularly in Harris County. In December, a female Houston police officer was allegedly killed by Tavores Dewayne Henderson, a man who openly bragged about avoiding jail time, despite his extensive criminal record in three counties. Then, even after the capital murder charge, he was initially offered $150,000 bond before it was revoked.

Harris County is following in the footsteps of New York by abolishing pretrial jail in most cases. In addition to the problem of releasing dangerous violent criminals, there is further concern from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that such policies will lead to the release of criminal aliens before ICE is able to apprehend them, in contravention to the state’s anti-sanctuary law.

This concern played out in real life when Emilio Duarte-Lone, an illegal alien from Honduras with a deportation order, was arrested for DWI in December, but was released by Harris County without being turned over to ICE. He, of course, failed to show up to his January 24 court hearing and remains a fugitive.

I often hear proponents of jailbreak policies dismiss our concerns of rising crime after 25 years of plummeting crime by suggesting that most of the murders taking place are gang-on-gang violence, as if law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. But career criminals like Gerald Washington don’t necessarily discriminate in choosing their victims. Just ask the family of Reginald Larry. (For more from the author of “Houston Career Criminal Released After Arrest For Murder Now Wanted… For Murder” please click HERE)

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Study: Taxpayers In Low-migration States Pay $454M A Year For Illegal Aliens, Anchor Babies

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Taxpayers in the ten states with the smallest foreign-born populations are still burdened by a cost of about $454 million every year to pay for various social services for illegal aliens and their United States-born children.

A study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) analyzes the cost of illegal immigration and the anchor baby population to American taxpayers who live in the ten least immigrant-populated states, including New Hampshire, Mississippi, Alaska, Maine, North Dakota, West Virginia, South Dakota, Vermont, Montana, and Wyoming.

The research reveals that even in low-migration states, the cost to American taxpayers is still significant. Of the total 415,000 foreign-born residents living in these ten states, about 88,000 are illegal aliens — indicating that illegal aliens represent more than 20 percent of foreign-born residents.

Those 88,000 illegal aliens across these ten states, along with about 35,000 of their U.S.-born children, are costing American taxpayers about $454 million every year, with each illegal alien costing anywhere between $4,000 and $6,000.

“To put that figure into context, that $454 million expenditure is more than 200 times what the state of Montana budgets for its entire Veterans Affairs program and it is 2.5 times the total sum that West Virginia invests in its state university,” the FAIR study notes. (Read more from “Study: Taxpayers In Low-migration States Pay $454M A Year For Illegal Aliens, Anchor Babies” HERE)

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Life Sentence Overturned for Cartel Members Who Killed ICE Agent

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Illegal aliens can break into our country with impunity and sue ICE officers if they don’t like conditions in the detention facilities. But if an ICE agent is killed by cartel assassins on a mission in Mexico on behalf of the United States government, suddenly borders seem to be important.

On February 15, 2011, members of Los Zetas cartel ambushed two ICE HSI agents traveling in Mexico. They murdered Jaime Zapata, but his partner, Victor Avila, managed to survive by remaining locked in the armored vehicle with diplomatic plates until police arrived on the scene. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the second most important federal court, overturned two murder convictions from 2017 for two of the hit men, Jose Emanuel “Zafado” Garcia Sota and Jesus Ivan “Loco” Quezada Pina. They are still serving up to life in prison for the basic murder charge and for a firearms charge, but this decision, unless overturned by the Supreme Court, will give these two cartel members the possibility of parole down the road.

Victor Avila and the parents of Jaime Zapata have been trying to get justice as well as answers from the U.S. government on the nature of the mission that led them into the trap. Zapata’s parents filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the government, charging that the weapons used against them by the Zetas were part of the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. But that lawsuit, according to Avila, was dismissed in the Southern District of Texas because the federal government did not cooperate by providing the plaintiffs with the documents they needed.

“These families, indeed the American public, are owed the truth about this tragedy and about the circumstances that led to guns going to Mexico — guns that shot two Americans and which may have killed many others,” wrote Judge Hanen in reluctantly dismissing the lawsuit because plaintiffs could not produce enough documents.

I interviewed Avila on my podcast last June in a two-part series (here and here) where he shared the details of the ambush, his quest for elusive justice, and how he has felt let down by our own government both during and after the attack. There’s also a documentary, “Agent Down on Highway 57,” that delves into the questions about the dubious mission they were tasked with, as well as the cover-up after the attack, which was not widely reported in the media at the time.

At issue in the federal appeals court case is whether 18 U.S.C. §1114, which criminalizes the murder of federal agents, applies outside the country. Two other appeals courts, the Second and Eleventh circuits, have ruled in the past that this section is applicable abroad, but the D.C. court ruled that one must presume “that Congress ordinarily legislates with respect to domestic, not foreign, matters.”

Victor Avila, who himself was gravely wounded during the attack, was devastated. “The Zapata family and I are devastated by the appellate court’s decision,” said Avila in a statement to CR. “Other appellate courts have upheld the extraterritorial occurrence in this statute. Why did the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rule this way knowing this precedent exists? What message is being sent to the terrorist cartels in Mexico and around the world? This threatens the safety of our agents in Mexico and abroad. I will do everything I can to have Congress amend the statute and have the Dept. of Justice appeal this egregious decision.”

In total, there were seven individuals extradited for the murder. The other five weren’t even sentenced to mandatory life sentences to begin with because the Justice Department under Obama accepted a plea bargain. Their sentences ranged between 12 years and 35 years. Avilla tells me that the one with the 12-year sentence, Francisco Carbajal Flores, is slated to be released in August 2021.

“It’s unbelievable, this guy’s entire family was brought here on visas and were housed here for the duration of the trial on taxpayer dime. Yet my family had to pay for arrangements to stay in D.C. during the trial, even though I was almost killed by them while serving as a federal agent.”

This court decision leaves a gaping hole in federal law for seeking justice against those who murder federal agents abroad. Last week, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr urging him to appeal this decision.

“The message this ruling sends is one of open season on federal law enforcement officers who can now be targeted overseas,” warns the federal law enforcement association representing 28,000 agents. “Under this ruling, criminals and terrorists will take liberties that targeting a U.S. federal law enforcement officer, will bear no additional punishment, and if apprehended, may never be charged for their death in a United States Court.”

Nothing, of course, is stopping Congress from acting. Why is there never any sense of urgency in Congress to fix judicial loopholes that let off Zetas hit men or criminal aliens in our own country, such as Jose Zarate, Kate Steinle’s killer? Where is the “criminal justice reform” to close these loopholes? (For more from the author of “Life Sentence Overturned for Cartel Members Who Killed ICE Agent” please click HERE)

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Illegal Alien Acquitted of Murder in Kate Steinle Case Ruled Incompetent to Stand Trial on Fed Firearms Charges

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With all the talk of a two-tiered justice system this past week stemming from the corruption in the trial against Roger Stone, there is another two-tiered system in use in cities like San Francisco. Can victims of illegal aliens ever obtain justice if the trial occurs in a sanctuary city? That is the question we should be asking after Jose Garcia-Zarate, the man who shot Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier in 2015, caught yet another break.

For the parents of Kate Steinle, the hits keep coming. First, in December 2017, a San Francisco jury acquitted Zarate of all murder charges, including manslaughter, related to the July 1, 2015, killing of Kate Steinle. She was killed by a bullet shot from the stolen .40-caliber gun held by Zarate. He is an illegal alien from Mexico who was deported five times and was released from San Francisco jail two and a half months before without notification to ICE. He remained in the country despite seven felony convictions.

Then, when the family sued the city of San Francisco and former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi for negligence, the Ninth Circuit rebuffed the claim last year.

Last August, a state appeals court threw out the only remaining state charges. In 2015, the same jury that acquitted Zarate of manslaughter also convicted him of felony gun charges. The state appeals court overturned those charges. Zarate admitted to holding the gun that killed Steinle but maintains that the gun fired on its own.

“It is undisputed that defendant was holding the gun when it fired. But that fact alone does not establish he possessed the gun for more than a moment. To possess the gun, defendant had to know he was holding it,” wrote judge Sandra Margulies for the three-judge panel ruling that the trial judge erred in his instructions to the jury.

Finally, the federal government came in and charged Zarate on federal firearms violations. In 2017, he was indicted by a grand jury for being both a felon and illegal alien in possession of a firearm, both of which are federal crimes. The .40-caliber SIG Sauer P239 had originally been stolen from a U.S. Bureau of Land Management agent’s car. But on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria, an Obama appointee, ruled that Zarate is not mentally competent to stand trial. Zarate’s future remains unclear.

This man had enough mental acumen to cross our border five times after being deported. He was also competent to stand trial for seven prior felony convictions. What changed now?

The disquieting reality is that after 2015, Zarate was no longer a regular criminal in the eyes of the public. He became one of the most notorious illegal aliens in America. San Francisco politicians, judges, and jurors will do everything they can to ensure he gets off free.

It’s truly shocking how American victims don’t matter in the debate over our own sovereignty. Illegal aliens can sue our state and federal governments for simply enforcing our sovereignty, despite centuries of case law stating they have no standing in our country. Yet whenever Americans harmed by illegal aliens try to get standing to sue against lawlessness that affects their security and the public welfare, they are denied standing. Criminal smugglers can sue our government, yet Kate Steinle’s parents can’t sue San Francisco for harboring the illegal alien who killed their daughter.

However, there doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency even from Republicans in Congress to pass a law giving victims of sanctuary cities a private cause of action to sue, as Trump called for in his State of the Union address. Instead, top Republicans are promoting a mass amnesty bill. They are also frantically trying to concoct a “DACA” amnesty bill for when the Supreme Court likely sides with Trump on canceling Obama’s clearly illegal executive amnesty program. When will they finally view American citizens like Kate Steinle as highly as they view “dreamers?” (For more from the author of “Illegal Alien Acquitted of Murder in Kate Steinle Case Ruled Incompetent to Stand Trial on Fed Firearms Charges” please click HERE)

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WATCH: Joe Biden Has ANOTHER Freak out on Reporter

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Joe Biden has described President Donald Trump’s immigration policies as “an assault on human dignity” and an example of “cruelty and callousness.” The former vice president has gone as far to falsely claim that, unlike Trump, he and Barack Obama “didn’t lock people up in cages. We didn’t separate families.”

However, a Mexican-American journalist is taking Biden to task for misrepresenting the Obama administration’s immigration policies. In an interview with Univision’s Jorge Ramos, the Spanish-language reporter confronted Biden on his distortions. . .

“At that debate in Houston, you said this about the Obama-Biden administration, and I quote, ‘we didn’t lock people in cages,’ but you actually did,” Ramos told Biden, noting that the Trump administration has detained more immigrants. . .

Confronted with photographic evidence, a visibly uncomfortable Biden was forced to admit that, despite his past assertions, the Obama administration did detain migrant children. . .

“You know you’re not telling the truth here about the comparison of the two things,” he said. (Read more from “WATCH: Joe Biden Has ANOTHER Freak out on Reporter” HERE)

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