* Sheriff Paul Babeu was cleared today of allegedly threatening his ex-boyfriend with deportation to keep their relationship a secret.

* Said the prosecutor today: “There is no indication that he (Babeu) misused any authority or misused public money to harass or intimidate Jose Orozco. As indicated in the agent’s report, Orozco’s allegations are not supported by the facts.”

* The boyfriend, Orozco, did indeed turn out to be illegal: he was living here in the USA illegally on an expired visa.

The prosecutors comments above would indicate that Orozco’s truthfulness is in question, and that he may likely have maliciously made up these comments to destroy the Sheriff’s career.

I believe this whole sordid affair serves as a lesson about rushing to judgement. Even a closeted gay, anti-illegal, Republican Sheriff deserves the benefit of the doubt sometimes. :-)

I give up. Let’s just open our southern border and allow totally unfettered illegal immigration from Mexico other countries. I am sure we can handle at least another 30 million illegals in this country./sarc

Those days are long, long past. Wake up. We live in the present. You could make the case that every country on the face of the Earth was made from stolen land. Even the ancient Israelites stole the “Promised Land” by murdering those that lived there before them. Read the story of Joshua.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. On one hand I find it abhorrent that millions of people dutifully obey the law and wait in line to immigrate legally while others break the law and jump the queue.

On the other hand the United States and Canada were founded by illegal immigrants, everyone on the Mayflower was an illegal immigrant – no one invited them here, no one gave our ancestors permission to live here, they did it by force and disregard for the laws of the original inhabitants of North America. Who is any non-indian Canadian or American to be telling anyone who can or cannot come into North America? Stikes me as one hell of a hypocrisy for any non-indian to think they’ve got a right to decide who gets in and what the culture of North America should be.

But you see Regan, you only deal with illegal immigrants that have broken the laws beyond illegal immigration. It could be that all illegal immigrants break most non-immigration related laws or it could be that you never encounter those that follow the majority of laws precisely because they are not breaking those laws. You have first hand experience with some illegal immigrants, but not all illegal immigrants so its not valid to say “all illegal immigrants are the same as those I encounter. To say that would be no different than a person working in an STD clinic to say “All gays have STDs because I have first hand experience that proves this.”

Regan said “Why would you call a clear understanding of right and wrong, bias on MY part?”.

I’m not saying you are incorrect about right and wrong, I’m saying that by nature of your job you only encounter a subset of illegal immigrants and therefore it is not statistically valid for you to generalize and say, for example, that the typical illegal immigrant robs banks and steals from their neighbour or commits the same sort of crimes the illegal immigrants you encounter do.

Regan said “Why would consider my clear observation of who is abusing laws and other people as prejudice on my part or anyone else’s charged with preventing, investigating and adjudicating such behavior?”.

I never said it was prejudice or that your experience was inaccurate, just that your experience is not a random statistically significant sample of illegal immigrants and is therefore not necessarily generalizable to the entire population of illegal immigrants.

Regan said “If you were underage drinking, and while driving a car to AVOID detection and arrest, drove more carefully, that doesn’t excuse the fact that you were breaking another law to avoid being caught.”.

Make no mistake, I wasn’t saying driving more carefully excused the fact that I was breaking the law, my point was merely that when someone is breaking a given law, out of self interest and a desire to avoid detection they will likely be carefull to follow as many other laws as they can so as not to get caught. I’m saying it would be just as unjustified to say with no proof because I was an underage drinker I was also driving recklessly or stealing as it is to say because a person is breaking immigration laws they are also robbing banks and stealing from their neighbours.

Regan said “Your point is very misguided. By thinking that illegal immigrants are otherwise careful not to break other laws, then that makes them less a problem?”.

You’re missing my point. I’m not saying that because illegal immigrants are more careful to not break other laws that this makes them less of a problem, I’m saying let’s not blame them as a group for additional crimes we have no proof they typically commit. Let’s accurately describe the degree to which they are a problem and use that as a basis for addressing it. Just as if you had been there 30+ years ago and wanted to end my underage drinking, stick with defining that as the problem rather than saying for example that I am probably a bank robber as well in order to artifically increase support for fighting my underage drinking. We have an obligation to everyone, including law-breakers, to not make them out to be worse than we know they are.

In the meantime I will tell my friends who have had car wrecks with illegal aliens that were driving without a license and without insurance that there is no problems with that either.

If you were underage drinking, and while driving a car to AVOID detection and arrest, drove more carefully, that doesn’t excuse the fact that you were breaking another law to avoid being caught.
Your point is very misguided. By thinking that illegal immigrants are otherwise careful not to break other laws, then that makes them less a problem?
Sorry. Very wrong.
Why? Because we’re not only talking about a demographic that hasn’t proven qualified to drive skillfully enough, there is no way to track their backgrounds for other offenses or if they are using their real names or identities.
And when something terrible does happen, there is NO accountability, nor wish to BE accountable. This creates an unworkable chaotic situation with two or three different tiers of enforcement.
Wrong.

And as to BRIAN’s assertions.

When our nation has NO WAY of accounting for who, how many and where they are, then the support needed to be effective and efficient is lost.
There are smaller cities in America being OVERWHELMED by needy populations that need jobs, social services and accommodation some of these communities cannot cover.

Your complaint that our nation’s immigration system is inefficient,and not generous enough well DUH.
Of COURSE it is!
America is the destination of choice for nearly a billion people worldwide. We couldn’t accommodate or assimilate all the people who want to live here in the best of times.
NO immigration system is going to be able to do what every immigrant WANTS or NEEDS to be done.

It’s not personal, it’s not scapegoating, it’s about IMPOSSIBLE numbers and not enough to satisfy that demographic.
In CA, the ‘Dream Act” was passed. This allows illegal immigrant teens to compete for public funds for their college educations.
Well, DAMN.
American citizens and legal residents don’t have dreams of college too?
Those who properly and legally passed all requirements to attend college have to see their benefits for it, taken away by people who DIDN’T?
And tax payers are compelled to PAY for it too?
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Jumping the line, benefiting from cheating and gaming the system is the same as those who didn’t?
Morally, ethically wrong.
Especially with the limitations there are for public funding and college places.
And it’s disgraceful to force people to take these demands from illegal immigrants and the treasonous government that allows overwhelming us with it.

Face fact Brian: there will ALWAYS be limits to how many people who immigrate this country can handle.
And it’s imperative to find out if we’re importing massive amounts of needy people who cannot and will not assimilate, nor are compelled to. And it’s imperative to know who might be a danger to the public at large.
Don’t EVEN try to make this about prejudice or scapegoating, make it about exactly what it is.
Public figures breaking their oath of office that requires them to monitor such things, and forcing the public to accept it without challenge even if it endangers a lot more than national security, economy and public trust.