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
“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.
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