The community is outraged. Politicians claim to be perplexed. And the pro-illegal alien amnesty group is ready to pounce on anyone who dares talk about this case as a right-wing, hate-mongering extremist. Same old, same old bloody, open-borders nightmare:

Despite repeated trips through Douglas County’s criminal justice system, Eleazar Rangel-Ochoa wasn’t identified as an illegal immigrant until this week, after he was accused of causing a crash in west Omaha that killed 4-year-old Josie Bluhm.

It was unclear exactly how Rangel-Ochoa’s immigration status went undetected after so many court appearances and revocations of his driving privileges. But part of the reason was the inability to thoroughly check his documentation the first time he walked into the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles.

Rangel-Ochoa, 27, applied for his first Nebraska driver’s license in September 1998 using a Social Security card, according to state records. At the time, employees were unable to verify the validity of the Social Security number with a federal database, said Beverly Neth, director of the Motor Vehicles Department.

The same was true in June 2000, when Rangel-Ochoa’s license was reinstated.

It wasn’t until 2001, Neth said, that the state could check the validity of a Social Security number. So upon Rangel-Ochoa’s return to the Department of Motor Vehicles in 2004, he was sent away.

Rangel-Ochoa had been convicted in 2003 of third-offense driving under the influence; a judge revoked his license for 15 years.

He is now in the Douglas County Correctional Center with a federal hold on him as a suspected illegal immigrant…

…In addition to three DUI convictions in Nebraska, Rangel-Ochoa was convicted of DUI once in Kansas. Rangel-Ochoa’s DUI cases in Douglas County were misdemeanors.

Counts said the federal government always has worked with local law enforcement, prosecutors and jails to identify illegal immigrants. But recent efforts have increased, he said.

Bellevue police arrested Rangel-Ochoa in 2000 for his second misdemeanor DUI. Omaha police arrested him three times between 1999 and 2001 on misdemeanors. Counts said ICE and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service had not encountered Rangel-Ochoa previously, according to their database.

There was no indication that any law enforcement agency ever contacted immigration enforcement about Rangel-Ochoa, Counts said. Lt. Darci Tierney, an Omaha police spokeswoman, said the department contacts ICE “when an officer suspects that a person in custody may be subject to deportation or other action by ICE.”

“There would have to be some indication that the person was in violation of immigration laws,” Tierney said in an e-mail.

Bellevue Police Chief John Stacey said that in 2000, when they came across Rangel-Ochoa, the department would not have contacted immigration services unless the case was a major felony or a case in which multiple suspects were believed to be illegal immigrants.

Now, the department has procedures in place for officers to have immediate contact with an ICE agent.

Counts declined to say whether Rangel-Ochoa would have been a priority if authorities had contacted the agency after his misdemeanor arrests.

Four-year-old Josie Bluhm will be buried on Saturday. R.I.P.:

***

Flashback: Ray Tranchant, whose daughter was killed by a serial illegal alien drunk driver, takes a stand against the open-borders agenda.

Flashback: Sanctuary Nation or Sovereign Nation: What can you do?

***

From reader Rich in Omaha, NE:

Omaha’s new mayor -elect, Jim Suttle (a Democrat) made these maddening remarks in April:

It surfaced at a recent neighborhood meeting, when Suttle was asked what role local government should take when it comes to illegal immigration. Suttle said, “We need to go to the source of the problem and quit making criminals out of the companies, quit making criminals out of people, however they might come across the border.”

Mr. Suttle was elected on Tuesday. The same day of the accident.

Rich Medals
Omaha

My syndicated column today reports the rest of the deportation fugitive Aunti Zeituni Onyango story that both Barack Obama and George Bush would prefer to keep covered up. God save us from bipartisanship.

***

Obama’s illegal alien auntie: The rest of the story
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

I hope Barack Obama remembered to thank George Bush on behalf of his illegal alien aunt this week. The lame-duck Republican president did the Democratic president-elect a generous — and dangerous — favor right before Election Day: Putting politics above homeland security, the Bush administration ordered immigration authorities across the country to halt all deportation enforcement actions until after the campaign season was over.

According to my sources, the Bush administration issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams to spare Obama embarrassment over his Kenyan half-aunt, Zeituni Onyango. The Associated Press had reported on Nov. 1 that Onyango was a deportation evader – one of an estimated 700,000 illegal alien absconders who have ignored orders from immigration judges to leave the country. The wire report mentioned that the Department of Homeland Security distributed “an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday’s election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors.”

But the politicized order was even worse than the AP reported. The deportation process wasn’t simply slowed down for public relations reasons and fear of a media backlash. The process was completely frozen.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement source familiar with Western field offices told me: “The ICE fugitive operations group throughout the U.S. was told to stand down until after the election from arresting or transporting anyone out of the U.S. This was done to avoid any mistakes of deporting or arresting anyone who could have a connection to the election, i.e., anyone from Kenya who could be a relative. The decision was election-driven.”

Another source close to ICE operations in a southern California field office confirmed that immigration officials there received the same directive: “The reason they included all offices in the US was to show that they were not targeting the district Office where Aunti lived. They don’t want to pick her up by mistake and cause a big problem.”

In other words, the Bush Department of Homeland Security determined that protecting Barack Obama from the negative publicity surrounding a potential arrest of his illegal alien aunt was more important to the general welfare of the country than tracking down untold numbers of deportation absconders who received an extra three-day pass last week. DHS refuses to comment publicly about the case. Warped homeland security priorities are bipartisan. Democrat Rep. John Conyers has called for an immediate investigation – not into the rank politicizing of our deportation policies, but into who leaked Onyango’s deportation fugitive status to the press.

Question: Why shouldn’t this information be public?

As for President-elect Obama, his true views about ICE are well-known. Despite telling Katie Couric that his aunt should be required to follow the law because “We’re a nation of laws…I’m a strong believer you have to obey the law,” Obama scolded ICE agents who do their jobs for “terrorizing” communities.

Onyango arrived in the U.S. in 2000 on a temporary visa. Her asylum request was rejected in 2004. She defied the immigration court order to go back to Kenya, moved into Boston public housing, and is now hiding with relatives in Cleveland while contemplating how to extend her illegal stay.

Question: Will an Obama White House reinstate the deportation enforcement freeze in Ohio? Wouldn’t want to “terrorize” the community.

(Meanwhile, real terrorists have benefited enormously from lax enforcement of deportation orders and asylum loopholes. Ramzi Yousef, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, and Mir Aimal Kansi all exploited our catch-and-release system by invoking asylum and evading swamped authorities before plotting and executing jihadist attacks.)

Onyango’s options, like those of hundreds of thousands of deportation fugitives like her, are wide open. With the help of a seasoned immigration lawyer, she can take another bite at the judicial apple and appeal her deportation order. She can take her case all the way to the Supreme Court. She can find an illegal alien sanctuary church to give her refuge. Or she can take advantage of the longstanding congressional practice of creating “special relief” bills to help individual deportation fugitives escape punishment and acquire U.S. citizenship.

The post-9/11 Bush homeland security equation looks pretty much like the pre-9/11 one – one that will continue under Barack Obama: Cowardice plus rank opportunism times political correctness equals a lasting recipe for immigration chaos.

***

Update: Right on cue…

Dozens of immigrant advocates from across the country convened in Washington yesterday to call on President-elect Barack Obama to halt work-site immigration raids and fulfill campaign pledges to offer the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship within his first year in office…

…Representatives of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a coalition of grass-roots organizations from Los Angeles, New York and the Washington area, also announced plans to mobilize tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters for a demonstration on the Mall on Jan. 21, the day after Obama’s inauguration.

“We voted in the millions, and now we’re going to demand progress in the millions,” said Angelica Salas, director of one of the allied organizations, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, at a news conference to publicize the movement’s efforts.

And now, Obama has gone and completely thrown Aunti under the bus — joining Obama’s poor grandmother. Via 24ahead, Obama was asked by Katie Couric if he supported the deportation of Onyango:

If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We’re a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn’t lessen my concern for her, I haven’t been able to be in touch with her. But I’m a strong believer you have to obey the law.

If he were telling the truth, I’d applaud him — and the Left would condemn him as a jack-booted racist.

But he’s lying — and all his cultists knows it.

In 2006, Obama marched shoulder-to-shoulder with illegal alien shamnesty activists in Chicago.

He supports driver’s licenses for illegal aliens.

And he said this:

We are not going to send [illegal aliens] home …Mr. Obama said many illegals have “settled,” “bought property” and have children who are U.S. citizens. He said the country would have to devote “all our law enforcement resources to rounding up people without papers, even if they weren’t causing any trouble,” and once that’s done, the country would have to “empty out our jails.” …That would force police to ignore killers and carjackers and instead be “worried about the guy in the kitchen somewhere who’s working in a restaurant… Not all of ‘em are from Mexico,” because some are from Ireland, Poland or Nigeria. …”Imagine what that would look like, basically detaining, putting in jail 12 million people. We’re not going to do that…”

He’s a diehard opponent of deportation — except if it embarrasses his campaign in the final hours before Election Day.

Obama politics as usual.

Lucky for Aunti, as I noted over the weekend, the open-borders Bush administration and skittish McCain campaign aren’t going to do anything about his duplicity.

Cowardice plus rank opportunism times political correctness = a lasting recipe for immigration chaos.

***

Related: How The Times followed a trail to find Barack Obama’s aunt

Previous:

Conyers calls for investigation into Aunti Zeituni info leak; Joe the Plumber still on his own

Obama’s illegal alien aunt (and campaign donor!) is a deportation fugitive; Bush administration moves to protect her

The MSM abhor anonymous leaks — unless they’re helping to undermine Bush administration anti-terrorism programs or conservative causes and candidates.

Laughably, the Obama cultists suspect that Bush administration officials are in cahoots with the McCain campaign and the Associated Press.

These people have reading comprehension and reality comprehension problems. It’s the Bush administration that has moved to protect Aunti Zeituni. It’s the pro-shamnesty Bush administration that will ensure that nothing happens to her. Pro-shamnesty McCain isn’t going to touch the story. McCain adviser Mark Salter told WaPo that it’s a “family matter.”

Another predictable prediction: McCain will issue an edict forbidding staff from talking about this the same way the staffers are forbidden from mentioning Jeremiah Wright — with disastrous results.

Never mind that the massive, systemic problem of deportation fugitives is a matter of national security and rule of law.

“Family matter,” my foot.

By the way: Where in the world is Aunti Zeituni? Who knows? And if it wasn’t Barack Obama who helped her get here, who did? How did she get a Social Security card? Who advised her to apply for public housing? Who did she know with a saavy enough legal background to help her navigate the paperwork of the welfare state?

Hmmmm?

Obama and his future wife, Michelle, met Onyango on a subsequent visit to Kenya in 1992, and she visited the Obama family in Chicago on a tourist visa about nine years ago, his campaign said. Onyango attended Obama’s U.S. Senate swearing-in ceremony in 2005, and the senator last heard from her about two years ago, according to the campaign.

A campaign source said Obama provided Onyango no assistance in obtaining a tourist visa or housing, or in her immigration case.

In an interview with the Times of London, which first reported Onyango’s presence in Boston and her campaign contributions, Onyango said she had traveled to and from the United States since 1975. Commercial databases indicate she received a Social Security card in 2001, indicating she was legally present and authorized to work at that time.

Onyango was not at her state-subsidized West Broadway residence yesterday in South Boston, and no one answered her telephone.

William McGonigle, deputy director of the Boston Housing Authority, said Onyango applied for public housing in 2002 and was approved in 2003 as an eligible noncitizen. She was paid a small stipend for volunteering as a resident health advocate starting in December 2007, he said.

Well now.

Turns out Aunti Zeituni Onyango, one of Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama’s many relatives made famous in his memoir, is an illegal alien. And not just a run-of-the-mill illegal alien on welfare.

She’s one of the hundreds of thousands of deportation fugitives — absconders – whom I’ve been reporting on for the past six years. After 9/11, the government vowed to crack down on absconders. They’ve failed abysmally.

Aunti’s story:

Barack Obama’s aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as “Aunti Zeituni” in Obama’s memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango’s case.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcment official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

Just you watch: After sitting silent as Joe The Plumber’s records were rummaged by Ohio government employees, the fairweather privacy rights crowd will wake up and start making noise over this.

QUESTION: Will the Obama campaign return the many donations from this illegal alien?

ANSWER: Not bloody likely.

Federal Election Commission records show that Onyango donated at least five times to her nephew’s campaign in July and September. Three of the donations were for $5 each, and two of the donations were for $25. Records compiled by The Huffington Post show she gave a total of $260 to the campaign.

The law:

It shall be unlawful for a foreign national directly or through any other person to make any contribution of money or other thing of value, or to promise expressly or impliedly to make any such contribution, in connection with an election to any political office; or in connection with any primary election, convention, or caucus held to select candidates for any political office; or for any person to solicit, accept, or receive any such contribution from a foreign national.

2 U.S.C. § 441e.

QUESTION II, from commenter tony4951: “So let me get this straight. Millionaire Obama doesn’t use his wealth to help his poor illegal alien Aunt get out of public housing, but if I complain about Obama wanting to raise my taxes to ’spread the wealth around’ I’m the selfish one?”

Exactly.

Meanwhile, the AP tries to downplay Aunti’s deportation evasion and defiance of a judicial ruling:

Onyango’s refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system.

As I’ve pointed out countless times since 9/11, systemic immigration loopholes and deportation failures that have benefited peaceful illegal aliens have also benefited illegal aliens with nefarious intent.

Reminder from 2004:

…the system for screening out the well-meaning from the menaces is completely overwhelmed. Claims of “credible fear of persecution” are almost impossible to document, but are rarely rejected. Federal homeland security officials are unable to detain asylum seekers for background checks without the civil liberties brigade screaming “racial profiling.” And there is still a woeful shortage of detention space— just 2,000 beds nationwide— to hold those with suspect claims.

As a result, thousands of refugees and asylum seekers who have made flimsy claims of persecution are let loose. As the Department of Justice’s Inspector General reported, 97 percent of all asylum-seekers from any country who were released from immigration custody were never found again and deported.

…Ramzi Yousef landed at New York City’s JFK airport from Pakistan and flashed an Iraqi passport without a visa to inspectors. He was briefly detained for illegal entry and fingerprinted, but was allowed to remain in the country after invoking the magic words “political asylum.” The then-INS released him because it didn’t have enough space in its detention facility. Yousef headed to Jersey City to plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian bomb-builder, entered the U.S. illegally through Canada in 1996 and 1997. He claimed political asylum based on alleged persecution by Israelis, was released on a reduced $5,000 bond posted by a man who was himself an illegal alien, and then skipped his asylum hearing after calling his attorney and lying about his whereabouts. In June 1997, after his lawyer withdrew Mezer’s asylum claim, a federal immigration judge ordered Mezer to leave the country on a “voluntary departure order.” Mezer ignored the useless piece of paper. He joined a New York City bombing plot before being arrested in July 1997 after a roommate tipped off local police.

Mir Aimal Kansi, convicted in 1997 of capital murder and nine other charges stemming from his January 1993 shooting spree outside the CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, also exploited our insane asylum laxity. Despite his history as a known Pakistani militant who had participated in anti-American demonstrations abroad, Kansi received a business visa in 1991. After arrival, he claimed political asylum based on his ethnic minority status in Pakistan. While his asylum application was pending, he obtained a driver’s license and an AK-47, murdered two CIA agents, and wounded seven others.

And we’re still not serious about tightening up the system and enforcing the law.

Lucky for Aunti, the open-borders Bush administration has just issued a special pre-election directive to slow down any deportation efforts that might get her kicked out of the country:

Onyango’s case — coming to light just days before the presidential election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday’s election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango’s case coming to light so close to the election.

Lucky for Aunti, both presidential candidates support shamnesty in one form or another.

Lucky for Aunti, the deportation abyss has not been repaired.

Lucky for Aunti, the congressional practice of creating “special relief” bills to help individual deportation fugitives escape punishment and get rewarded with citizenship is alive and well.

And lucky for Aunti, anyone who thinks she should face the music and get the boot is considered a “hater” and a “xenophobe” and a RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACIST.

Lucky for Aunti, she can always take up shelter in a sanctuary-offering, rule-of-law defying church.

And guess where a left-wing church has openly broken the law and taken in illegal aliens?

Yeah. That’s right: Chicago.

***

Via cjburch, this Ace of Spades commenter sums it all up: “Obama’s aunt is here ILLEGALLY living in poverty, and is a deportation FUGITIVE. She’s collecting WELFARE and has DONATED to Obama’s campaign, ILLEGALLY! Obama. Family in poverty as he makes millions. Complete lawlessness. Giveaway your hard earned tax payer money to illegal fugitives. CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.”

Good questions:

Did someone from the campaign tell her to keep quiet?

Why was BHO letting her illegally redistribute her wealth to him, when he could have been helping her by getting her an immigration lawyer? If BHO had gotten her a lawyer, could they have appealed? Why then didn’t BHO help her out? When is he going to introduce an emergency private relief bill to give her a green card?

***

Update: See, I told you so.

Apparently some illegal alien criminals showed up for their work-release program, after being sentenced for committing misdemeanors in California, and found the federales waiting for them:

The 32 men arrested Saturday morning at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center were participating in a county work release program as an alternative to serving time in jail.

The illegal immigrants were previously convicted of misdemeanor offenses in the United States, including driving under the influence, driving without a license, reckless driving and possession of drugs for sale, federal officials said.

Their arrests come as a result of a sweeping program in which local and federal authorities work together to find, apprehend and deport illegal immigrant criminals.

As in the case below, we know this is working because it’s getting a squawk out of the “Immigrant-rights advocates” criminal illegal alien advocates, who claim these folks weren’t violent.

It’s the way these things go–when an effective policy crops up the open borders lobby huffs and snorts. After the Agriprocessors raid in Iowa, the WSJ asked rhetorically whether we felt any safer.

They won’t dare ask that in: with illegal drunk drivers and drug dealers shipped out the door, of course we’re safer. Here’s ICE spokesman Virginia Kice, who sounds like she gets it:

“Someone may say that misdemeanor violations should not be a priority, but there is a very real possibility they could go out and commit a more serious offense that has heartbreaking consequences for the community,” Kice said. “What if a person who has a DUI conviction gets behind the wheel several months from now and has an accident that claims the life of several innocent victims? Why would we allow that to happen?”

Why, indeed? Cheap lettuce? The criminal illegal alien advocacy lobby is going to need to come up with a better rejoinder than that. These are not sympathetic characters they’re defending. It’s one thing to post a tearjerking photo-op of a deportee who had been working quietly and staying out of trouble, but when illegal alien advocates defend drunk drivers and dope dealers their support may start to erode.

After all, that might have been the next Edwin Ramos they just deported.

______________

{Post by See-Dubya}

The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the city’s long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation, The Chronicle has learned.

Edwin Ramos, now 21, is being held on three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunman’s car from completing a left turn down a narrow street, police say.

Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile – a gang-related assault on a Muni passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman – according to authorities familiar with his background.

This is what the feel-good Sanctimony City policies bring upon their law-abiding citizens–and on the rest of the country. San Francisco had two opportunities to deport a violent felon with (if you’ll read a little further in the article) ties to the MS-13 gang, and they didn’t do it. They can’t even plead incompetence–the sanctuary policy worked exactly as it was intended.

The City of San Francisco wanted to keep criminal illegal alien juveniles like Edwin Ramos in San Francisco–or, at least, somewhere inside the United States. They were willing to frustrate a federal law to do so. And a devastating, preventable triple murder occurred because of their policy.

I hope that warm, fuzzy, liberal feeling of sanctuary sanctimony was worth it to them.

P.S. Looks like ICE screwed this one up as well: when they finally did get the suspect’s name in March, after a query from the SF’s sheriff’s department on a traffic stop and a gun charge, ICE didn’t report back that he was “deportable”.

P.P.S. I am so glad I left California–although I seem to be in a sanctuary area nonetheless. Hey Gerry Connolly, is this the policy you want to run on for Congress?

____________

UPDATE AND BUMP, 7/22: Here’s a heart-rending video interview with Danielle Bologna, who lost her husband and two sons because of San Francisco’s policy in contravention of Federal law. At one point, choking back tears, Mrs. Bologna says:

If my family wasn’t safe, what makes you think yours will be?

There is nothing I can add to that.

(Thanks to Allah.)

__________

{Post by See-Dubya}

Okay, but I’ll keep my eyes open; there’s a strong tendency to downplay controversial incidents like this one. (Remember how long it took the Feds to admit that Hesham Hedayet, who shot up the El Al counter at LAX, was a terrorist?)

Whatever the story is, I’d like to get to the bottom of it, because something like it happened again Thursday. Four to ten guys in police uniforms and tactical gear busted into another house in Phoenix. And their choice of targets is interesting:

The residence might have been a drop house used for smuggling illegal immigrants, and it was furnished in such a way that made it difficult to escape from, Tranter said.

The men held two other men inside the house captive for several minutes, stealing money and personal belongings from the home, Tranter said. Police believe the two men held captive inside could have been involved with smuggling illegal immigrants. The men, ages 62 and 34, were not seriously injured, but one was pistol-whipped, he said. Both are suspected of being Mexican nationals here illegally.

More here, with video.

So to review: killers dressed as cops, hitting criminal targets, and ready to take down a few cops who get in their way.

I think I’ve seen that movie:

Not certain whether these crimes are related, but I’d sure like to find out more about what’s going on in Phoenix.

Besides the obvious, I mean.

________________________

{Post by See-Dubya}

The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.

The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.

The article suggests a federal case is being built against Agriprocessors as well for employing (and exploiting shamefully ) so many illegals. The judge sounds tough but fair:

Judge Bennett appeared moved by Mr. Nadler’s remarks. “I don’t doubt for a moment that you are good, hard-working people who have done what you did to help your families,” Judge Bennett told the immigrants. “Unfortunately for you, you committed a violation of federal law.”

Meanwhile out in San Diego, a three-week ICE sting has led to the arrest of 905 more illegal aliens. I wonder whether ICE and federal prosecutors will continue to make an example of the ID thieves among them.

I just finished wading through the paper’s hype-inflated series on the federal immigration detention system’s shoddy health care.

WaPo purports to expose a “hidden network” of immigrant prisons and pretends to blow the lid off Abu Ghraib-like and Gitmo-esque conditions in a handful of cases that supposedly symbolize systemic abuse that harkens back to FDR’s concentration camps.

Newsflash for the prize-anglers at the WaPo:

1) Despite your nutroots-ian descriptions of the sytem, there’s nothing “hidden” about the network of federal detention centers. Here’s a list of them all, along with the full detention operations manual. The “unseen network of prisons” has only been “unseen” by Beltway journalists who don’t give a damn about the deportation and detention abyss unless it can be used to cast America as oppressive human rights violators.

And to win journalism prizes.

2) Complaints about inadequate illegal alien detainee health care are published perenially by open borders-friendly media outlets spoon-fed by illegal alien advocacy groups seeking to undermine workplace raids and deportation laws. Their agenda isn’t to make the detention and removal process more efficient and safe for everyone (no reports telling the story of ICE detention and removal officers who have to deal with violent illegal alien felons on a daily basis, you’ll note). Their agenda is to render it inoperable.

3) The WaPo’s “scoop” today about the drugging of the most difficult-to-manage deportees is also old news.

4) The real scandal is that even after 9/11, there are a mere 33,000 detention beds for an illegal alien population upwards of 20 million.

5) The real scandal is that while 33,000 are in custody, some 400,000-500,000 illegal alien deportation fugitives are on the loose after they’ve been ordered to leave by immigration judges.

6) The real scandal is that for every detainee in custody, there are countless others who have been released and gone on to commit crimes and wreak havoc on American soil.

But those won’t be splashed on the front page and packaged with snazzy, multimedia features.

Because those won’t win journalism prizes.

***

More reax…

Mark Krikorian:

The Post piece (with an accompanying 60 Minutes segment) was a resounding success for the advocacy group that planted it, as was last week’s New York Times story along the same lines. The goal of all this coordinated coverage is to delegitimize the whole notion of detaining illegal immigrants, so as to prevent the government from being able to enforce the immigration law…

…The stories of deaths in detention are individual tragedies, of course, but without a bigger picture, they’re just sob stories. The number and rate of deaths in immigrant have actually been going down. Of the 311,213 deportable foreigners held in detention in 2007, 11 of them died. That’s 11 too many, obviously, but get real. And that’s less than half the number from three years before, when there were fewer people detained. And the death rate in detention for 2005 was 1/79th that of the age-adjusted rate for jails and prisons overall.

Even if there isn’t a crisis, the article plausibly suggests that there are problems in the recruitment and retention of nursing staff and the coordination of care. If so, then this is an issue of resources, not a Dickensian tale of callous bureaucrats. And even there, spending on detainee medical services has doubled since 2003.

From reader Glenn:

The Washington Post is running a four-part series on the health care of detained “immigrants” that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and plays fast and loose with a select set of “victims” to bash ICE (the Post is blatantly pro-illegal alien). In order to portray the ICE “victim” in the best light, the WaPo reporters, drawing on an ICE document that is linked to the article, only mention and try to deflect one charge from a 1998 conviction but willfully fail to acknowledge that she was also convicted to two more serious charges:

“[In 2006,] She pleaded guilty to drug possession and served her time. Ordinarily, that would have been that. But ICE had begun scouring jails and prisons nationwide for people it might be able to deport, and a check of Harvill’s criminal history turned up a decade-old felony conviction for buying stolen jewelry. Her lawyer insisted she’d had no idea it was stolen. A judge suspended the sentence and put her on probation, which was terminated early for good behavior.” WaPo 5/12/2008

The deception is revealed in the ICE letter (transcribed from pdf immediately below) from which the Post got the info on the stolen jewelry but intentionally ignored the rest of the sentence regarding trafficking and possession. It’s hard to portray a drug trafficker and user as a “victim.”

I’ve written the WaPo Ombudsman about this blatant effort to hide pertinent information but I doubt she’ll respond.

More about Sara Cole and why the law was named after her here:

Bill Cole, Sara’s ex-husband, is trying to do more. Cole is seeking support for Assembly Bill 1882 – “Sara’s Law” – which would require police to report illegal immigrants to immigration if they are convicted of driving under the influence. Rodriguez was convicted of a misdemeanor DUI in March of 2007, a year and a half before his drunken driving resulted in the injuries suffered by Sara Cole.

The Sara’s Law site is here. I hope the Assembly will reconsider its decision. It’s indefensible.

MORE: Patterico blogged the crash that injured Sara Cole here. It looks like her ex-husband may have chimed in in the comments. (h/t to Annursa for that.)

***

If you can get past the nauseating euphemisms, this report is worth reading:

Three undocumented immigrant men remain jailed today in the brazen sexual assault of an unconscious woman in Fairview, an outdoor attack interrupted by law officers early Tuesday, authorities said.

Police reported the men, all undocumented residents from Guatemala, to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, authorities said. The report was in accordance with a recent directive from the state attorney general, ordering local officers to check the immigration status of all suspects charged with serious crimes or drunken driving.

One man, the alleged rapist, was arrested almost immediately after he was spotted attacking his victim and chased down, police said. A second man believed to have aided in the woman’s capture, who fled the scene when he was spotted, was arrested Tuesday night. A third man was charged with hindering the investigation, officials said.

The attack began about 1:40 a.m. Tuesday after the woman stepped off a bus from New York, where she spent time with friends, Fairview Deputy Police Chief Frank Del Vecchio said today. She was accosted by two men at the bus stop and carried or dragged across a patch of grass to an alley outside an Oritani Savings Bank on Fairview Avenue, Del Vecchio said.

Two law officers approaching the scene observed a man “who appeared to be in the act of committing a sexual assault upon an unconscious female victim,” Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said in a statement.

The fact that the police reported the men to the feds is a significant step forward in combating the criminal alien crisis. This is the Newark effect in action. While national media outlets have moved on and forgotten the lessons of the awful execution-style murders by criminal aliens, law enforcement has not.

This is good news.

What we need to know now is how these suspects got into the country, who aided and abetted them in staying here, who employed them if they had jobs, whose identities they stole if they had fake papers, and who released them if they had ever been caught and let go by judges/immigration courts before.

Noteworthy: Prior to the AG’s order, the Fairview NJ Police Department was listed as an organization opposed to local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

In other words: they supported sanctuary.

Is it any wonder the suspects acted as brazenly as they are reported to have acted in their sexual asasult on the victim in this case?

***

Update: Here’s the Bergen County press release on the arrests. Two were unemployed…perhaps collecting the welfare Americans weren’t collecting? The other worked for Hackensack Paving.

Bergen County Prosecutor=s Office

PRESS RELEASE

TO: ALL NEWS MEDIA
FROM: PROSECUTOR JOHN MOLINELLI
DATE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2007

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli announced the arrest of Martin Cana-Chocoj (25 yrs. old) of 86 Anderson Ave. Apt. #10, Fairview New Jersey and Sergio Ramon-Estrada (19 yrs. old) of 126 Anderson Avenue, Fairview, New Jersey,on charges of Aggravated Assault and Aggravated Sexual Assault stemming from an assault on a female victim on September 11, 2007 in Fairview New Jersey. Felix Chocoj-Ortiz, the cousin of Estrada, age 25, 216 Cliff St. Cliffside Park, NJ, was also arrested and charged with Hindering the investigation.

The arrest came about as a result of an investigation being conducted by members of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Squad, under the direction of Acting Chief Joseph Macellaro and the Fairview Police Department, under the direction of Chief John Pinzone.

The initial investigation stemmed from a witness who observed an individual acting suspiciously on Fairview Ave. near the Oritani Bank located at 311 Fairview Avenue in Fairview, New Jersey at about 1:40 a.m. on Tuesday September 11,2007. The witness made eye contact with the individual who in turn fled the area. Suspecting something wrong, the witness flagged down a Fairview police officer and the two investigated the area near the bank. There they found an additional suspect who appeared to be in the act of committing a sexual assault upon an unconscious female victim. The suspect later identified as Cana-Chocoj was apprehended near the scene as he attempted to flee. Ramon-Estrada, who it was later determined was the individual who initially fled the scene, was apprehended late Tuesday evening at his residence in Fairview.

The investigation has revealed that Martin Cana-Chocoj and Sergio Ramon Estrada observed the victim at a bus stop on Fairview Ave. in Fairview and carried her to the area next to the Oritani Bank where the sexual assault occurred.

The victim was transported to Palisades General Hospital in North Bergen and then later transported to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

Bail for Martin Cana-Chocoj and Sergio Ramon-Estrada was set by Honorable Edward Jerejian, J.S.C., in the amount of $500,000.00 each with no ten percent cash option. Bail for Felix Cana- Chocoj was set at $50,000.00. In addition an US Immigration and Naturalization detainer was placed on the three defendants.

Arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 4:00 p.m. before Honorable Keith Roberts, JMC.

Prosecutor Molinelli states that the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and would like to thank the two witnesses, Carl Lio, a New Jersey State Corrections Officer and Fairview Police Officer Jose Rivas, as well as the Fairview Police Department for their assistance in this investigation.

CHARGE INFORMATION FORM

DEFENDANT: Martin Cana-Chocoj DOB: 11-11-1981

LAST KNOWN ADDRESS: 86 Anderson Ave. Apt. #10 Fairview, NJ 07022

MARITAL STATUS: Single

PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT: Unemployed

ARREST INFORMATION

FUGITIVE: NON FUGITIVE: X

ORIGINATING AGENCY: Bergen County Prosecutor=s Office
Fairview Police Department

DATE AND TIME OF ARREST: 09/11/2007 1:40 am
AGENCIES AFFECTING ARREST: Bergen County Prosecutor=s Office
Fairview Police Department

CHARGE AND STATUTE CITATIONS

2C: 12-1b(1) Aggravated Assault (1 count) 1st Degree
2C: 14-2A(6) Aggravated Sexual Assault (1count) 1st Degree

CHARGE INFORMATION FORM

DEFENDANT: SERGIO Ramon-Estrada DOB: 1-3-1988

LAST KNOWN ADDRESS:126 Anderson Ave. Rear apt. Fairview NJ

MARITAL STATUS: Single

PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT: Hackensack Paving

ARREST INFORMATION

FUGITIVE: NON FUGITIVE:

ORIGINATING AGENCY: Fairview

DATE AND TIME OF ARREST: 9/12/07 at 1 am.

ARRAIGNMENT INFORMATION

ARRAIGNMENT DATE: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 @ 4:00 p.m.

JUDGE: Honorable Keith Roberts, JMC.

CASE DETECTIVE ASSIGNED: Det. Michael Guzman- BCPO
Charge Information :

Defendant: Felix Chocoj-Ortiz DOB: 5-19-1982
Address: 216 Cliff St. CLIFFSIDE PARK, NJ
MARITAL STATUS ; SINGLE
Place of employment: unemployed

Murder charges filed this afternoon against Terapon Adhahn:

Prosecutors charged a convicted sex offender Monday with kidnapping, raping and killing Zina Linnik, a 12-year-old girl who was snatched from an alley behind her family’s home during a July 4th fireworks celebration.
According to the charging documents, Terapon Dang Adhahn led investigators to the girl’s body.

Zina died from a blow to the head, according to papers filed in Superior Court. Her body was found near Silver Lake in rural Pierce County, and authorities say Adhahn’s DNA was found on her.

Adhahn, a Thai immigrant, was scheduled to be arraigned later Monday. Pierce County Prosecutor Gerald Horne has not said whether he intends to seek the death penalty.

Zina was seized from behind her family’s home during a Tacoma fireworks display on July 4. Investigators said her father saw a gray van, and that his partial recollection of the license plate helped them track down Adhahn at a home south of Tacoma.

During their investigation, detectives said they uncovered two other victims: one who was kidnapped on her way to school in 2000 and another who lived with Adhahn as a teen. Adhahn is charged with rape in those cases, as well as failing to register as a sex offender. He pleaded not guilty to those counts on Thursday.

Here are the charging papers.

Join us: Deport Them Now.

Update: This will make you sick…

Terapon Adhahn, the man suspected in the kidnapping and murder of Zina Linnik and the person of interest in the death of Adre’anna Jackson, has been booked into the Pierce County Jail on multiple unrelated charges, including more than 50 counts of child rape.

According to the Pierce County Proescutor’s Office , Adhahn was booked into the Pierce County Jail on one count of kidnapping and three counts of first degree child rape for the May 31, 2000 kidnapping and rape of an 11-year-old girl who was found duct taped to a tree at Fort Lewis.

Adhahn has also been booked on one count of first degree rape, three counts of second degree rape and three counts of third degree child rape involving a girl who lived with him in Spanaway between 2001 and 2005. Probable cause documents indicate the girl told investigators that she was raped once or twice a week and that the total number of rapes was somewhere between 150 and 200. In some of the cases the girl, who lived with Adhahn between the ages of 12- and 15-years-old, told police she would sometimes be restrained. She said she ran away after the last rape in which she allegedly told Adhahn “No, I’m not doing that anymore.” The documents say “the defendant pointed a gun on her and told her to ’shut up and just do it.”"

Update: Adhahn has been charged…50-plus counts of child rape…Video of my appearance on John Gibson’s show discussing the case and the Deport Them Now campaign.

***
KOMO TV reports on the latest development in the case of Thai immigrant Terapon Adhahn, suspected of kidnapping/murdering 12-year-old Zina Linnik…and now suspected in a second, horrifying case:

The man suspected of killing 12-year-old Zina Linnik has been named as a person of interest in the death of Adre’Anna Jackson, who was found dead in a Pierce County field in 2006.

Lakewood Police Lt. Dave Guttu said officers went back and showed Terapon Adhahn’s photo to residents in the Tillicum neighborhood where Adre’Anna lived, and several people said they saw him in the area around the time Adre’Anna disappeared.

Police found “he is commonly known as a handy man in that area,” Guttu said. “Stores or apartment complexes or individuals have used him as a handy man.”

The 10-year-old girl was last seen alive when she left for school December 2, 2005. Her remains were found April 4, 2006 by two young boys who were playing in a field.

The Pierce County Medical Examiner was not able to determine a cause of death.

Adhahn, 42, is expected to be charged in the kidnapping and death of Zina Linnik, who was taken from behind her home on July 4.

He provided the information that led police and FBI agents to the body and he is currently being held by federal immigration authorities.

Officials on Monday said they obtained a search warrant allowing them to collect a DNA sample from Adhahn, which could be used to connect him to other cases currently under review.

Linnik, whose body was found by police and FBI agents in a rural wooded area, died of “homicidal violence,” the Pierce County medical examiner’s office concluded.

The Seattle P-I adds this graphic:

This is Adre’Anna:

Stop the criminal alien revolving door.

Deport Them Now.

If I were a member of the nutroots, I’d label this an Important Action Alert (TM). But that’s trademarked by the nutroots, so let’s just call this a call to arms. During and after the shamnesty debacle, I got tons of e-mails from readers asking, “What can I do?” Here’s my answer: Go to www.deportthemnow.com, sign up, and help pressure the government at all levels to deport convicted criminal aliens.

YouTube ad: Pass it around!

Here’s our new Hot Air campaign ad. We’ll be doing a whole series of these ads to expose the criminal alien revolving door. Despite this Reuters report out today painting a picture of competent, increasing cooperation on enforcement, there still is no systemic, uniform, nationwide mechanism for tracking and deporting criminal aliens.

This cartoon nails it:

Here’s my column today. Sign on and please help spread the word:

My fellow Americans, we have a problem. We spend billions of dollars on homeland security, but our government can’t even track and deport convicted criminal aliens. These are not the well-meaning “newcomers” who just want to “pursue economic opportunities” by “doing the jobs no one else will do.” These are foreign-born thugs, sex offenders, murderers, and repeat drunk drivers who are destroying the American Dream.

If our immigration and entrance system cannot effectively monitor, detain, and kick out convicted criminal aliens—including illegal border-crossers, illegal visa overstayers, fugitive deportees, and green card holders who have committed serious crimes and aggravated felonies—what good is it?

The terrible kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Zina Linnik in Tacoma, Wash., on July 4th is a typical example of the criminal alien revolving door. Terapon Adhahn, Linnik’s suspected kidnapper and killer who allegedly snatched her from the backyard of her home, is a permanent legal resident from Thailand. He was convicted of incest in 1990. Adhahn had sexually attacked his 16-year-old relative and pleaded down from a second-degree rape. Two years later, he was convicted of intimidation with a dangerous weapon. Section 1227(a)(2)(C), Title 8, of the U.S. code dealing with immigration states: “Any alien who at any time after admission is convicted under any law of…using, owning, possessing, or carrying…any weapon, part, or accessory which is a firearm or destructive device…in violation of any law is deportable.”

But Adhahn was not deported. In fact, as Lorie Dankers, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle, admitted: “He escaped our attention.”

Just like illegal alien gangster Mwenda Murithi , who was arrested 27 times without deportation before being arrested in the shooting death of 13-year-old innocent bystander Schanna Gayden last month in Illinois.

Just like illegal alien thug Ezeiquiel Lopez, who built up a six-year rap sheet without deportation before being arrested in the murder of Deputy Frank Fabiano two months ago in Wisconsin.

Just like illegal alien Juan Leonardo Quintero, who had been previously deported after committing crimes from indecency with a child to driving while intoxicated, but who traipsed back into the U.S. last fall and was arrested after allegedly shooting Houston police officer Rodney Johnson four times in the head during a routine traffic stop.

And the list goes on and on and on.

It is not “anti-immigrant radicals” who are fed up with the failure to kick out and keep out criminal aliens. Zina Linnik’s uncle, Anatoly Kalchik, points out that his family was a family of legal immigrants who all obeyed the laws. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported: “Zina’s uncle was angry that the suspect had not been deported after being convicted in a sex crime. “We are all immigrants, but we come legally,” Anatoly Kalchik said of his family. He added that the adults all cleared a criminal background check. ‘If someone is a sex offender, or any kind of offender, he has no business being in America,’ he said.”

Federal auditors and immigration officers have tried to blow the whistle on this recurring problem for the past 10 years. But the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General reported last year that of an estimated 650,000 foreign-born inmates in prison and jails this year, half will be removable aliens who won’t be removed because the detention and deportation office “does not have the resources to identify, detain, and remove” them.

And that’s just a best guess. Despite federal mandates, cooperative agreements, and endless political promises, there still is no working, nationwide information system in place with basic information about incarcerated criminal aliens.

Don’t we have enough homegrown criminals without the added public safety menace of known, convicted criminal aliens being released from prisons and jails to disappear and commit more crimes?

Rep. David Price, a North Carolina Democrat, is sponsoring legislation to require monthly prison and jail checks by DHS to track incarcerated illegal aliens, increase spending on criminal alien deportations, and expand a program known as 287(g) to encourage more local and state officials to cooperate with the feds to help identify and deport criminal aliens in their hometowns.

Why the hell aren’t we doing all this already? How many more innocent lives will be taken or ruined before we do?

After the defeat of the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill last month, I received tons of e-mail from readers asking: “What can I do?” Answer: Don’t wait for Washington. Sign up to help pressure our government to rid this country of convicted criminal aliens at www.deportthemnow.com.

For Zina. For Schanna. For Deputy Fabiano. For Officer Johnson. For our safety, sovereignty, and the protection of the American Dream for those who deserve it.