Shaka and Awe
Americans can all sleep a little easier tonight. Another dangerous illegal immigrant is off the streets. In this case, the streets are in Hawaii. The removal is tied to events of more than fifteen years ago when the immigrant spent some time in jail after getting addicted to crack and missing a court date. Wait, it gets worse. This story includes violence and automatic weapons, too. The immigrant blames his addiction on the PTSD he suffered after being seriously injured in a shoot-out. That shoot-out took place in Panama where the immigrant, serving in the US Army, earned a purple heart after being shot in the back. 55-year-old U.S. Army veteran Sae Joon Park probably should have been paralyzed on that day back in 1989 but one of the bullets headed for his spine was deflected by his dog tag. After getting out of jail, Sae Joon Park “fought deportation in court and as a Purple Heart veteran was allowed to stay in the U.S. under deferred action, as long as he checked in each year and stayed clean and sober. Park turned his life around — he became a loving father to his two children, now in their 20s, and cares for his aging parents and aunts, who are in their 80s.” It was in many ways a classic American story with service, trials and tribulations, and a comeback. But the American story has changed. “This month, officials ended his deferred action status and told him he had to leave the country or be detained and forcibly deported. He was given an ankle monitor and three weeks to handle his affairs.” U.S. Army Purple Heart veteran forced to self-deport from Hawaii. “People were saying ‘You took two bullets for this country. Like you’re more American than most of the Americans living in America.'” That’s just it. We’re not living in the same America anymore.
+ NPR: Purple Heart Army veteran self-deports after nearly 50 years in the U.S.
+ OK, OK, some less dangerous immigrants might get swept up unnecessarily, but it’s worth it because the overall process is getting the actually dangerous criminals off the streets, right? No. Despite promise to remove ‘worst of the worst,’ ICE has arrested only 6% of known immigrant murderers. “The data is a tally of every person booked by ICE from Oct. 1 through May 31, part of which was during the Biden administration. It shows a total of 185,042 people arrested and booked into ICE facilities during that time; 65,041 of them have been convicted of crimes. The most common categories of crimes they committed were immigration and traffic offenses.” (They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs. They’re running the stop signs…)
+ ICE is holding a record 59,000 immigrant detainees, nearly half with no criminal record, internal data show. This is what happens when you mix cruelty with ineffectiveness.
+ Still not sleeping easier? Maybe this will help convince you how much safer the streets are now that we got tough on immigrants. ICE Arrested a Pregnant Tennessee Woman — While in Detention in Louisiana, She had a Stillbirth.
+ For a pitch perfect take on immigration, take a few minutes and listen to Kimmel guest host Diego Luna’s take on the importance of immigration in America. (Of course, Andor is leading the resistance.)
