In the wake of the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, Juliette Kayyem, a Lebanese-American CNN consultant, seized the opportunity to demand that immigration enforcement in Uvalde be suspended and the town turned into a sanctuary for illegals. “[T]he most important thing for the federal government to do right now is to say there will be no immigration enforcement during this period in that area,” she said.
This response to a crime by officially overlooking more crime is bizarre enough but hardly surprising, considering the distorted logic of the left. In Uvalde, it is likely to be especially troubling because, as we reported here yesterday, that small Texas town has been enduring a years-long crime wave caused by just the illegal residents Kayyem wants to protect.
As we have noted, early reports that the school shooter, eighteen-year-old Salvador Ramos, may have been in the U.S. illegally have been denied. He was allegedly born in North Dakota and moved to Uvalde with his mother as a child. The legal status of his mother and father has not been thus far revealed.
Ramos aside, illegals have for years poured into Uvalde, a railroad center, on freight trains, threatening residents, breaking into and stealing vehicles, and bringing in dangerous drugs and even diseases. For several years, Mayor Don McLaughlin has complained to anyone who would listen about the changing demeanor of the illegals, who once were “congenial” but have recently turned “aggressive.”
It is into this situation that Ms. Kayyem is calling for a “safe harbor” for illegals, ostensibly for the benefit of the town’s largely Latino population. The notion that American citizens of Latino heritage want more illegal newcomers is a myth. Mayor McLaughlin:
We’re close to 90 percent Hispanic, and our community does not want these people in town. They get very upset they are being released here. They ought to be doing it like their grandparents did. They did it legally. These people are mad as hell.
McLaughlin said that in a June 2019 interview with Conservative Review. He closed out that interview on an ominous note, saying, “It’s going to take someone being killed in our community before we get the national attention.” [Emphasis added.]
Well, they’re getting the attention now, but from quarters like CNN are coming demands that the town’s situation be made even worse by opening Uvalde up to all comers. So it goes.
For more, Breitbart.