4 Key Facts About ICE, and What Could Happen If It’s Abolished

Fred Lucas   The Daily Caller

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on Aug. 14 arrested and deported an illegal immigrant who is wanted in El Salvador on murder charges.

Brian Alejandro Martinez reportedly had been arrested and freed several times in New Jersey and New York. ICE officials criticized authorities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, for releasing Martinez without notifying the federal agency.

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent years has had to contend with “sanctuary” policies by cities and counties that protect illegal immigrants, the agency now faces a push by some in Congress to abolish it.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to honor ICE agents Monday at a White House event, even as many congressional Democrats call for restraining or ending the agency that enforces immigration law throughout the nation’s interior.

The House adopted a resolution last month supporting ICE agents, but 167 Democrats refused to vote for it.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, last month led a group of Democrats in sponsoring legislation to abolish ICE, saying:

President Trump’s blanket directive to round up and target all undocumented immigrants underscores the unchecked power which ICE has used to terrorize our communities. From conducting raids at garden centers and meatpacking plants, to targeting families outside churches and schools, the president is using ICE as a mass-deportation force to rip apart the moral fabric of our nation.

Sadly, President Trump has so misused ICE that the agency can no longer accomplish its goals effectively. As a result, the best path forward is this legislation, which would end ICE and transfer its critical functions to other executive agencies.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio are among Democrats who have said they support getting rid of ICE.

Just 25 percent of voters say they are for abolishing the agency, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released last month.

Trump has fired back in defense of ICE.

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“Leading Democrat politicians have called to abolish ICE—nobody even believes it, they want to abolish ICE,” Trump said last month. “In other words, they want open borders and more crime, and that’s what you’re going to get. You’ll get more crime as you open up those borders.”

Primarily an immigration enforcement agency that doesn’t operate on the border, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still performs other functions. Here are four major facts about ICE, and what could happen if it ceases to exist.

1. Protecting Minority Communities

If ICE were abolished, minority communities would be disproportionately harmed, said Matthew T. Albence, the agency’s executive associate director for enforcement and removal.

“These minority communities are the primary victims now, because these individuals are involved in gang activity and other criminal activity and generally they commit those crimes against those in the same communities in which they reside,” Albence told the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 31.

His remarks came in an exchange during a hearing when Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked: “What if we just decided to abolish ICE? What would be the impact on our country in terms of public safety?”

Albence responded:

You cannot have strong border security with a void in the interior. If an individual knows that they can come to the country and try and try and try and eventually get past the Border Patrol, and that there is no chance of any enforcement being taken against them, then you will never have border security.

What in effect you are saying if you’re getting rid of the interior enforcement arm of immigration enforcement, you’re saying you want border security, you want Border Patrol to make all these arrests and stop people there, but once they get by the Border Patrol, let them go.

2. Enforcing Immigration Law

Before 9/11, naturalization of legal immigrants and enforcement of immigration laws were under one agency—the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS.

When Congress created the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, it established ICE as the enforcement arm while U.S. Customs and Immigration Services would be in charge of naturalizing legal immigrants.

The 9/11 Commission noted that terrorists involved in the 2001 attacks exploited U.S. immigration rules and some of the hijackers violated the terms of their visas.

A third arm of Homeland Security, called U.S. Customs and Border Protection and including the Border Patrol, is responsible for stopping illegal immigrants from entering the country. Trump will honor that agency’s work Monday as well as ICE’s.

But once illegal immigrants slip past the border, only ICE can enforce laws on the interior, arresting and deporting illegal immigrants.

The Trump administration significantly increased enforcement compared to the Obama administration. In fiscal year 2017, which began Oct. 1, 2016, nearly four months before Trump took office, ICE made 143,470 arrests and deported 226,119 individuals.

In fiscal year 2016, the last full fiscal year of the Obama administration, the agency made 77,806 arrests. Although removals were higher that year—240,255—ICE asserts that was “largely attributed to the decline in border apprehensions.”

The arrests during fiscal 2017 included 127,000 illegal immigrants who were charged or convicted of crimes inside the United States, according to the White House.

More than 1,800 of those were homicides and another 48,000 were assaults. ICE made 4,818 gang-related arrests.

This is a prominent sign Aug. 3 as demonstrators in New York support Therese Patricia Okoumou, a Congo native arrested July 4 after she trespassed at the Statue of Liberty to protest Trump administration immigration policies. (Photo: G. Ronald Lopez/Zuma Press/Newscom)

“ICE also conducts investigations for violations under the federal criminal code for things like visa fraud, naturalization fraud, passport fraud, [and] alien unlawfully in possession of a firearm,” Dan Cadman, a former INS and ICE agent, told The Daily Signal.

“Do other agencies also handle some of this work? They do, but there are never enough law enforcement officers to handle all of the violations,” Cadman, now a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a pro-enforcement think tank, told The Daily Signal. “Disbanding ICE would diminish the already finite pool of federal agents available.”

Abolishing ICE doesn’t have a clear endgame, he said, since it seems pointless to transfer functions or create a new agency to do the same things.

“Is it in fact just an end-around, to try and be sure that there is no agency available to do the things that Congress and the law as written require?” Cadman asked, adding that he suspects that is the case.

In a move unrelated to what some Democrats are pushing, 19 ICE special agents last month signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asking that ICE be broken into two separate agencies.

One would focus on enforcement and removal while the other would focus on investigations, intelligence gathering and fraud, human trafficking, and dismantling gangs.

3. Targeting Smugglers of People, Drugs, Guns

Immigration and Customs Enforcement also combats the smuggling of people, drugs, money, counterfeit merchandise, and weapons into the United States. This includes confronting sexual trafficking, and in some cases, fighting child pornography.

ICE made more than 11,000 arrests related to weapon offenses in fiscal year 2017, according to the White House.

The agency is also responsible for “repatriation of cultural treasures,” or returning expensive items stolen from another country.

ICE investigates large-scale human smuggling organizations that pose a national security risk, use violence, or take hostages.

It targets the human smuggling chain immediately beyond the smugglers themselves. This includes overseas recruiters and organizations, fraudulent document providers, and transportation and employment networks that benefit from human smuggling operations.

During fiscal 2017, ICE made more than 5,000 arrests related to sexual assaults and more than 2,000 related to kidnapping.

It also apprehended more than 76,000 people for offenses involving dangerous drugs, according to the White House. Agents seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics, including 2,370 pounds of fentanyl and 6,967 pounds of heroin.

Increased enforcement on all these fronts is key, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates enforcing current law.

“Any enforcement agency is only as good as the politicians running it,” Mehlman told The Daily Signal. “If you’ve got an agency of law enforcement professionals, it’s still the political bosses that decide to implement or not implement the law.”

4. Preventing Terrorism

ICE also specializes in identifying dangerous individuals before they enter the United States, or finding them after they illegally enter.

The agency’s Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit is comprised of two divisions: the Terrorist Tracking and Pursuit Group and the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Exploitation Section.

The terrorist tracking group coordinates with other Homeland Security agencies to identify those who overstayed or otherwise violated their visas.

The student and visitor section investigates foreign nationals here for educational purposes who could be involved in criminal or terrorist activity or in intelligence gathering for a foreign power.

Frustrated by growing costs, a couple local elected officials move out of Illinois

By Cole Lauterbach | Illinois News

A couple of local elected officials are leaving their posts to move out of state, fed up with rising property taxes.

In the far northwest suburbs, Lakewood Village President Paul Serwatka plans to resign this summer when he moves to Alabama. He said his new home in Huntsville sits on more than 10 times the land that his home in Illinois does and costs a fraction in property taxes.

In his short time as village president, he said he worked to lower the tax burden for residents of Lakewood, a village of about 4,000 people in McHenry County. He succeeded in reducing the village’s property tax levy by 10 percent, but he said many residents came to him with higher tax bills than the year before because the other taxing bodies raised their levies, pushing overall property tax bills up.

“I felt like I could fight this thing for another 20 years, but do I really believe at the end that we’re going to save Illinois?” he said. “I just don’t believe it.”

Serwatka faced criticism from residents and other members of the Lakewood Village Board. The local newspaper called for his immediate resignation.

He said he wishes he could have done more, but said he had to take his family into account.

“By the time our kids are in college, a good portion of their college tuition will be sitting there waiting for them just by the difference in property taxes,” he said.

McHenry County College trustee Chris Jenner was laid off from his day job in 2016. Already dealing with his wife’s illness, he resigned late last year and moved to Fort Myers, Florida. He was frustrated that he couldn’t lower taxes for residents that saw property taxes soar.

“Why give all this money to the government instead of saving it for your own retirement?” he asked.

Jenner lost tens of thousands of dollars on his home after a tepid response to paying market value in such a high-tax area.

“We had to lower the asking price by more than $70,000 before we got a single offer,” he said. “It was an absolute nightmare.”

Both he and Serwatka said many homeowners that would want to leave the state were in a situation where their mortgage was worth more than the value of their house, commonly known as underwater.

Then-state Rep. Pam Roth, R-Morris, resigned her seat in 2013 to move to Texas with her family. In an interview with Illinois News Network, Roth talked about the differences between the states.

“I’m amazed by how prosperous it is down here," she said. "Everywhere you look, there are cranes and buildings going up. This is very much what happens when you live in a business-friendly state with low

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Would Democrats vote to pass a law reaffirming that you must be an American citizen to vote in all American elections

Democrats’ Electoral Strategy: Let Non-Citizens Vote

Originally published at Fox News

In San Francisco, immigrants who are in the country illegally are now eligible to register and vote in school board elections. Of course, this is clearly illegal under the California Constitution.

Article II, Section 2 of the California Constitution says, “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.”

However, the pro-illegal immigration, sanctuary state-supporting Democratic majority in Sacramento has no interest in enforcing the law when it’s being ignored by fellow Democrats. After all, their long-range plans for a ruling majority depend on continuous law breaking to get enough non-Americans to vote. The Californians who don’t support their radical views, can simply be eclipsed by non-citizen voters who will.

As the San Francisco ABC News affiliate reported, the county’s District 7 Elections Supervisor Norman Yee said, ”We want to give immigrants the right to vote.”

Cal Thomas captured what is going on in a July 19 column entitled “The Name of the Game: Votes for Democrats.”

As Thomas points out, this is only the beginning of a much larger strategy.

“Who doubts this is the first step by the left and Democrats toward full voting rights in state and eventually in federal elections? The claim by lawyers will be that it is discriminatory to allow undocumented immigrants to vote in local and state elections and not for members of Congress and for president. At bottom this is what the entire immigration debate is about.”

Thomas concludes, “For Democrats, it’s a perfect cover for their ultimate goal: importing votes.”

With a broader critique than Thomas, the Investor’s Business Daily also editorialized on July 19 that “Yes, Democrats Are Now The Party Of Open Borders.”

The editorial board pointed out that only 18 Democrats voted in favor of a recent congressional resolution voicing support for our U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and the many federal and state officers who assist them. In fact, 35 Democrats voted against the bill and 133 voted “present” to avoid putting a solid opinion on record.

At the same time, the board noted that most congressional Democrats are standing idly by as eight of their members have sponsored a bill to abolish ICE, and many others are supporting a bill that would make it nearly impossible for ICE to do its job.

As the editorial board put it:

“Democrats want to neuter the one agency responsible for enforcing border security. They want to make it easy for illegals who cross to stay in the country. And they want to give them the right to vote. 

“Leading Democrats also adamantly oppose building a secure border wall. They support ‘sanctuary cities’ that actively protect illegals from deportation. And they want to grant every illegal in the country amnesty.

“...the Democratic Party has been driving to the far left on a wide range of issues for many years. The only difference now is that its veneer of moderation has eroded to the point where Democrats can't hide their extremism any longer.”

As I wrote in my New York Times bestselling book Trump’s America: The Truth About Our Nation’s Great Comeback, the U.S. immigration system is indeed troubled. But it will never be fixed until we re-establish security at the borders and refocus on immigrants who want to come here legally – so they can actually become American.

A sound immediate step would be for Congress to pass a law reaffirming that you must be an American citizen to vote in all American elections. Let’s see how many Democrats would oppose this simple requirement.

AMERICAS Massive Debt

By Bob Livingston

There is a classic denial tactic that many people use when confronted with negative facts about a subject they have a personal attachment to.  I would call it "deferral denial" — a psychological postponing of reality.

For example, point out the fundamentals on the U.S. economy such as the fact that unemployment is not below 4 percent but actually closer to 20 percent when you factor in U-6 measurements including the record 96 million people not counted because they have run out of unemployment benefits. Or point out that true consumer inflation in the U.S. is not around 3 percent as the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims, but closer to 10 percent according to the way CPI used to be calculated before the government rigged the numbers. For a large part of the public including a lot of economic analysts, there is perhaps a momentary acceptance of the danger, but then an immediate deferral — "Well, maybe things will get worse down the road, 10 or 20 years from now, but it's not that bad today..."

This is cognitive dissonance at its finest. The economy is in steep decline now, but the mind in denial says "it could be worse," and this is how you get entire populations caught completely off guard by a financial crash. They could have easily seen the signs, but they desperately wanted to believe that all bad things happen in some illusory future, not today.

There is also another denial tactic I see often in the world of politics and economics, which is what I call "paying it backward." This is what people do when they have a biased attachment to a person or institution and refuse to see the terrible implications of their actions. For example, when someone like Donald Trump makes a destructive decision, such as the continued support of Israel and Saudi Arabia in Syria and Yemen, or the reinstatement of funding for the White Helmets in Syria who are tied to ISIS, Trump supporters will often say "Well what about Obama?"

This is a game of shifting accountability. Is one person worse than the other? Possibly. I say give it time and make notes. However, the negative decisions of one politician we don't like do not diminish the negative decisions of another politician we might like. They should both be held accountable.

The same goes for countries and economies. When an analyst points out that U.S. debt is at historic highs and is utterly unsustainable, people in denial will say "but what about China or Europe?" One does not negate the other and, of course, there are differences that make the situation in the U.S. far more tenuous.

Primarily I am talking about America's endless dependency on the world reserve status of the U.S. dollar and, beyond that, the endless expansion of debt at low interest rates.

The Federal Reserve, once the No. 1 buyer of U.S. debt, has essentially declared it is cutting off support and has begun dumping assets from its balance sheet. The only assets the Fed seems to be maintaining are Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). All others are being cut, including Treasurys. The American economy is inexorably attached to the idea of our Treasury debt as a safe investment, with our national debt spiking above $21 trillion and many trillions more owed to entitlement programs depending on how you calculate the expenditures, there is a vital need for steady foreign investment in U.S. debt.

But what happens when investment in U.S. debt becomes politically unsavory? Consider the current escalation of the trade war. Many pro-dollar talking heads and cheerleaders have argued in the past that no nation has the guts to dump dollar denominated assets and risk the wrath of American "economic might." But already we have seen Russia dump half its U.S. Treasury holdings in a single month and the trade war has only just begun.

Is Russia's action a sign of things to come? Will other nations like China follow the same strategy? We will have to wait and see, but I believe this is the inevitable outcome of the trade war if it drags on for the rest of the year.

America's dependent nature, feeding off of foreign investment to support its debts, is a disaster waiting to happen. The concept of economic "recovery" is laughable until this issue is addressed.

That said; let's not forget about American corporations and consumers. U.S. corporate debt as a percentage of gross domestic product is at historic highs not seen since the housing bubble of 2008 or the dot-com bubble of 2001. There is a distinct difference, though, that makes today's bubble far more insidious. After years of near-0 percent interest rates, corporations have become addicted to cheap debt. So much so that they have been borrowing nonstop to support their own stock prices through stock buyback manipulation. But now the Fed is raising interest rates and has committed to expanded hikes in the future.

So what will corporations do as the cheap debt dries up? So far, they are spending the majority of their Trump tax cut still trying to artificially prop up stock process. When this money runs out (and I believe it will much faster than the mainstream thinks), the existing debt of these companies will cost much more to finance, and future borrowing at the same pace will become impossible. This is a threat that is developing now, not in some far-off future.

Eventually, corporations will have to make deep spending cuts rather than borrow. This means mass layoffs, store closures and potential cuts to pensions. And, of course, no more stock buybacks, meaning a market crash will ensue.

What about the U.S. consumer? U.S. consumer debt is set to reach new highs by the end of the year; around $4 trillion by official estimates.  While discussion continues about the "labor shortage" in the U.S., one thing is clear — the jobs that do exist do not pay wages that keep up with true inflation. When we see spikes in retail sales in the U.S. and this is applauded as economy recovery, very few people point out that higher retail sales are actually tracking higher inflation.

Consumers are spending more on less stuff. Again, this is unsustainable, which is why consumer debt is exploding. Dependency on credit cards and loans is being used by the public to offset much higher costs. But as the Fed raises interest rates, this too will end. Higher Fed rates translate to higher credit rates as well as higher mortgage rates (indirectly). With higher interest payments comes a large drop in overall spending.

As you can see, there are at least two forces at work here that will end all talk of U.S. recovery — the first is the trade war, which I believe is a massive distraction designed to draw attention away from the actions of international banks and central banks. The second is the Federal Reserve, which has addicted the country to cheap fiat and is now flushing all the drugs. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that this trend will remain slow or that it will not develop into a crisis in the near term. We also cannot simply deflect to other countries like China or those in Europe as if their problems are somehow worse and therefore ours are not a concern.

The danger is here, now. Seeing and accepting it allows us to prepare accordingly. Denying it as inconsequential sets people up as victims of their own bias and ignorance.

How modern tyranny works

By Bob Livingston

How modern tyranny works 

The No. 1 goal of all governments historically is to control and dominate their own citizens. The more deceptively it can be done, the more complete and long-lasting the tyranny.

Police state totalitarianism went out with World War II. The "Gestapo" knock at the door in the middle of the night and barbed-wire detainment camps are history. But that does not mean we are not living under police state totalitarianism.

Modern tyranny has a new face. It is benevolent totalitarianism. Benevolent totalitarianism is an advanced stage of people control through mind control, mass psycho political manipulation and abusive regulations created under the color of "law" by alphabet soup government agencies and enforced by their regulators, who comprise part of the "standing army" of government the Founders feared and warned us about.

"Police power is the power of the state to place restraints on the personal freedom and property rights of persons (individuals) for the protection of the public safety, health, and morals..." – Black's Law Dictionary. This says that "public policy" is the federal government's monopoly of police power to manipulate, restrict or extinguish human liberty and property for the benefit of the state. This extends into legislating social relationships and even morality. This is the same cult that drafts the laws of the land that have reduced us to serfdom, all as "public policy" and "in the public interest," — modern inventions to conceal legal plunder.

The government is very jealous of its authority. Its authority is the control mechanism designed to ensure compliance and conformity.

When backed by the propaganda of "public policy," "public interest" or "for the children," anything can be done under the color of law and the people accept it upon the assumption that law and justice are the same. The result is that the lack of distinction between law and justice has been destroyed. The epitome of plunder is the manipulation of the conscience to accept law and morality as being the same.

We are taught from an early age that government is an agent of good (morality), that it seeks the betterment of society and it only promotes policies that make life better for everyone. All public schools are government training grounds for this philosophy. The state builds its political power on deception and false pretense, finally leaving the people with no inner imperative to question or oppose the New Order.

The term "public policy" is a household term in America. Black's Law Dictionarydefines "public policy" as "community common sense and common conscience, extended and applied throughout the state to matters of public morals, health, safety, welfare, and the like..."

I really doubt that one person in a million knows that the term "public policy" is synonymous with government purpose and enforced with government power.

Police power is not limited and does not come about by due process but by usurpation and wrongful seizure of your mind and body through deception. Police power extends from the top of government to the bottom. It may be and sometimes is employed upon the top members of the political, social or corporate classes (Martha Stewart, Thomas Drake, Bunny Greenhouse, Paul Manafort) when they fall out of favor or expose government corruption, or to accomplish some greater end. But more often it is employed against the average citizen, and to great effect.

The Robert Mueller investigation is an example of police power in action. Unable to establish any links or collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian government operatives, Mueller's investigation has turned into a form of Star Chamber where force and intimidation are being employed to "convince" people to testify and then they are charged with the non-crimes of making false statements.

These statements may or may not have been intentionally false. They may have been the result of faulty memory or a clarification of something previously said.

Mueller has charged Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Richard Gates, Alex van der Zwaan and Manafort with the "crime" of making false statements to the FBI. In other words, no crime was found to have been committed before the investigation, but a "crime" was committed (created) as a result of the investigation.

As the Inspector General's report has shown, top brass at the FBI and Department of Justice likely committed crimes during both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia "collusion" investigation. This is police state tyranny as seen in Third World backwaters, not in constitution-based governments that profess to be "democracies" and based on the rule of law.

An acquaintance of mine, a business owner, is currently dealing with federal tyranny via the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). After using OSHA's manual to defend his company against two baseless citations, the OSHA enforcer said, "You need to understand something. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. If you want to do it the hard way, we will bury your company."

As the business owner stated, "When a prosecuting authority, with the resources of the federal government, uses (its) power to prosecute, guilt and innocence mean little. The accumulation of a lifetime can be burned away quickly as one tries to self-fund a defense."

It was this "prosecuting authority" employing threats against Flynn's children, along with the prospect of bankrupting legal bills, that prompted Flynn's guilty plea to charges of making false statements... statements evidence now show may not have really been false.

The U.S. Government has for many years been quietly deploying unregulated agency armies against its own citizens. Armed federal agents – outfitted as if they're raiding a terror house — have been "fighting crime" by raiding Amish farms and stores for selling raw milk, pig farms for growing the wrong color pigs, supplement makers for using customer testimonials in their advertising, children for selling too many rabbits and keeping them in cages that were a quarter inch too small, and magicians for using a rabbit in a show without having a "rabbit disaster plan" in place.

What I'm trying to tell you is, you are a part of the herd. The only way out of the herd is to first recognize that you are in it. What does this mean? It means that you are on one side and the government and its politicians and bureaucrats are on the other. No, they don't want you to know this or they would lose control — we have bigger numbers but massive propaganda makes the difference in the balance of power.

Our nation is in the midst of an invasion from within, and it's being carried out through mass deceit and uninformed consent and under the color of "law." 

Balich replies to Article in Chicago Tribune by Ted Slowik

Steve Balich Editors Note:

The article below written by Ted Slowik, said that I would not discuss policy. The truth is that I repeated over and over "If you don't like the law change the law". Problem is that the Democrats do not want to change the law because they are more concerned about trying to find any issue at any cost to win seats in the November Elections. With that said passing a law will be very difficult. Trump is put in a trick bag. Should he enforce the law, or make provisions on his own, to keep families together which he as said he wants to do?   I repeat, "If you don't like the law, change it". Today, Trump will sign an executive order to keep the families together. No one likes to see families separated and I am glad to see it. The House and Senate have legislation ready to be voted on today. Trump's executive order may be taking the pressure of actually getting a law changed. The fact is, passing legislation is the only way to change the law.

At the County Board level we don't vote on immigration issues, but do on County regulations. I have addressed and changed numerous legislation, by passing or changing the legislation. I did not like what the law said so I worked to change it.

No one likes to see families separated!!!! Yet there is no outrage by the media when children are separated from their family by government agencies often for no good reason. Where is the Outrage for the victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens, often murder and rape .   There is no outrage when a parent or parents are separated from their children when they are sentenced to prison for a crime. The media sleeps when things don't fit in their agenda, or narrative. According to the current law, anyone coming to our country any way other than a legal point of entry are breaking our law. Again "If you don't like the law, change it". We need to remember conservatives complained about Obama ruling by Executive Order instead of changing or making new law by passing legislation. I am glad Trump is going to pass an Executive Order to keep the families together, yet angry that this issue has not been solved by good legislation. We must have secure borders to have a secure country. This article was a fair assessment of what I said for the most part.

Slowik: Outrage over child separation seems to shift opinions about Trump, GOP

Ted SlowikContact ReporterDaily Southtown

“Mexicans jubilant over World Cup win trigger earthquake sensors,” a Reuters headline declared. During Mexico’s 1-0 upset of Germany, people reacting in unison to the lone goal apparently caused the earth to shake.

I’m talking about the other shock wave that seemed to happen over Father’s Day weekend. This sea change felt like a seismic shift in public opinion.

I think most Americans realized President Donald Trump’s family-separation policy has gone too far.

“Thousands of children are being forcibly removed from their parents by our government,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement Tuesday. “There is no other way to say it, this is not who we are and it must end now.”

I think the viral spread of a picture over the weekend helped change the national debate on immigration policy.

“Photographer John Moore's heartbreaking image of a 2-year-old Honduran asylum-seeker crying for her mother at the U.S.-Mexico border has become the hard-to-look-at symbol of President Trump's new zero-tolerance immigration policy,” Getty Images said on its Foto website.

Several members of Congress spent Father’s Day demanding entry to places where children are being detained. Former First Lady Laura Bush penned an op-ed piece published in The Washington Post.

“I live in a border state,” she wrote. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”

Outrage over Trump’s family-separation policy seems to suck all the air out of the room. It seems to overshadow news coverage of other events, including Congressional hearings on the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI.

The majority of the public seems to embrace the humanitarian side of the crisis on the border. Legal, economic and political concerns seem to take a backseat to the moral aspect.

“It’s disgraceful, and it’s terrible to see families ripped apart and I don’t support that one bit,” Franklin Graham, a Trump supporter and son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, told the Christian Broadcasting Network.

An audio recording surfaced Monday that appeared to reveal the human suffering of children.

“Papa! Papa!” a child is heard weeping in the audio file that was first reported by the nonprofit ProPublica and later provided to The Associated Press.

Many seemed to react on social media with intensified anger about Trump’s family-separation policy. His administration’s previous tactics of lying about controversies and deflecting from them seemed less effective this time.

People seemed to reject Trump’s efforts to blame Democrats. They seemed to repudiate his assertions that the policy is mere enforcement of existing law. It’s true that crossing the border without permission is a crime, a misdemeanor for first offenders.

People, however, can legally come to our border and seek asylum. Immigration advocates say Customs and Border Patrol is no longer accepting asylum requests at entry points. Many refugees denied the opportunity to legally request asylum make unauthorized entries and are arrested.

On Monday, Amnesty International described Trump’s policy as “torture.”

“The severe mental suffering that officials have intentionally inflicted on these families for coercive purposes means that these acts meet the definitions of torture under both U.S. and international law,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said in a statement.

This is what Trump has done to America, and over the weekend it felt like most people were not OK with that.

The growing outrage over Trump’s policy provided the backdrop for a telephone conversation I had Monday afternoon with Will County Board member Stephen Balich, R-Homer Glen.

Last Thursday, Balich addressed the board’s legislative and policy committee. He wanted to know the county’s policy for contacting Immigration and Customs Enforcement when the sheriff’s office arrests people who are unable to document their right to be here.

“It’s really important I understand exactly what you guys do,” Balich said, according to video footage he published of the meeting.

“If there are illegals that are arrested and ICE is not called, then we’re opening ourselves up to problems,” Balich said.

Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley told Balich at the meeting that his department follows guidance provided by the Illinois attorney general.

“It turned out they don’t have a policy,” Balich told me Monday. “There is no law, just a guide. Each local department does its own thing.”

Balich on Thursday brought up the case of Miguel Luna, 37, of Joliet, who pleaded guilty last month in connection with the sexual assaults of three women along the Illinois & Michigan Canal recreational path.

“Miguel Luna is in this country illegally,” State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow said in a statement after Luna’s guilty plea. “This ruthlessly violent sexual predator should never have had the opportunity to brutally prey upon these innocent young women.”

Will County Board Speaker Jim Moustis, R-Frankfort, told Balich authorities use common sense and discretion when deciding when to call ICE.

“The state’s attorney’s office has made those calls,” Moustis said.

Balich wanted to know why Luna was on the streets prior to his arrest in May 2016, when investigators linked him to the assaults. Luna was arrested about 30 times prior to the incident, he said.

Public records on the Will County circuit court clerk’s website show many prior charges involving Luna but do not indicate whether he was arrested, or merely cited. I counted 36 charges between 2001 and 2015 related to a Miguel Luna listed with dates of birth as May 5, 1981 or May 6, 1981. All charges appeared to be for nonviolent, driving-related offenses.

“I’m not saying just because a guy is pulled over he should be deported,” Balich told me Monday. But, he said, it seemed like given the number of violations over the years, somebody should have questioned Luna’s right to remain here.

Other elected officials listened to Balich’s concerns Thursday and seemed to understand his point.

“If somebody’s arrested 30 times and they’re not locked up for some reason, it seems to me to be a problem with the judicial system,” said County Board member Dan Moran, D-Romeoville.

I called Balich because I sought common ground on the immigration debate. Trump ran on deporting “rapists.”

I think most would agree that violent criminals who are here illegally should be deported after serving their sentences.

I asked Balich what he thought about Trump’s child-separation policy.

“I want to see the law enforced or changed,” he said. “If you’re here illegally you should go back to where you came from.”

I informed him that Trump’s policy affects legal asylum seekers. Balich seemed to fall back on talking points.

“I don’t know the law well enough to make a good response,” he said.

I considered situations where Balich and I might agree some illegal immigrants deserved to stay. I thought about small-business owners who have lived here for decades with no criminal records and DACA recipients who came here as children.

“What do you think about deporting military veterans?” I asked him.

He said he thought if you served in the military you automatically became a citizen. That’s not what the law says, I told him.

“I don’t want to condemn anybody for coming here,” he said. “To me, the most important thing is the law.”

(Solwik said) I think it’s tough to tackle immigration policy. I think that’s why Congress has kicked the can down the road many times. Now, Trump has created a crisis that could politically damage the GOP in elections.

“Are Republicans trying to lose their majorities in Congress this November?” The Wall Street Journal asked Tuesday in an editorial. “We assume not, but you can’t tell from the party’s internal feuding over immigration that is fast becoming an election-year nightmare over separating immigrant children from their parents.”

Voters are people, not just data points that can be manipulated through talking points. Most people adhere to values of decency, especially regarding children. They react to pain and suffering.

I thought I failed in my efforts to engage Balich in a policy debate. He’s a policy-maker, after all.

“I can’t control what happens outside Will County,” he said.

I think he can. I think he’d rather spout talking points than dig into the complicated nuances of immigration law.

tslowik@tronc.com

Twitter @tedslowik