Illegals Continue Reign of Terror

Illegals Continue Reign of Terror

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

August 10, 2017

As far as legal residents and citizens are concerned, sanctuary cities are absolutely no safe haven. Protection for illegal aliens - and that is what those people who enter the United States without permission are - continues to take precedence over the safety and security of those taxpayers for whom law enforcement is expected to protect and defend.

Shocking proof of the egregious and callous manner in which legal residents and citizens are being treated by those whom were elected to serve those taxpayers is on full display in, but not limited to, Chicago, San Francisco, Multnomah County, OR, and Burien, WA.

In the Windy City, appropriately nicknamed for the blustery bloviations spewing out of the gaping hole in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s mouth, while black on black gun homicides continue to escalate to epic proportions rendering an entire city unsafe, Emanuel promises safety for the illegals amongst them.

Calling for the local police force to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to federal laws, thus ensuring a safe haven for illegals in Chicago, Emanuel is risking the forfeiture of federal grant funding. President Donald Trump has made it part of his administration’s goals, in attempting to curb illegal immigration, to remind localities that federal law supersedes that of state and local law. Failure to abide by such should cost those towns and cities their federal dollars.

If this is the battle Emanuel wants to ride up the mountain to fight, the voters should, and must, hold him responsible, which will never happen in such a Democratic stronghold. He knows his job is reasonably secure, and is putting principle above protecting those who deserve if first and foremost - the legal residents and citizens of Second City. But Emanuel stubbornly avers that his city won’t be blackmailed.

“We will never relinquish our status as a welcoming city,” Emanuel said, clearly meaning sanctuary city.

In fact, Emanuel won’t even require Chicago law enforcement to notify ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) 48 hours prior to releasing an illegal alien from custody, telling them it is not their job to do the bidding of that federal agency.

Perhaps Emanuel might change his tune if instead of the federal grant money Chicago would normally receive, federal uniformed and armed agents march through Chicago doing their job, sans Chicago cooperation - rounding up illegal aliens and those suspected as illegal aliens. In the meantime, Chicago law enforcement can continue to do an oh, so excellent job of curtailing the epidemic homicide rates.

While Emanuel continues his Don Quixote impersonation, the City of San Francisco is in the process of stealing taxpayer dollars to give to an undeserving miscreant for violating its own policy toward illegal aliens. Hoisted by its own petard, San Francisco fell prey to a lawsuit from Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, 33, an illegal alien from El Salvador, who was turned over to ICE agents by San Francisco police in violation of city policy. In an unconscionable decision, a settlement agreement reached by the City Attorney’s Office, forwarded to the Board of Supervisors for approval with a blessing and dollar amount from the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, agreed to dole out $190,000 to Figueroa-Zarceno.

Taxpayers ought to be outraged. This after all, is the same city where Kate Steinle was murdered in 2015 by a repeat offender illegal alien at Pier 14, and the city continues its heinous policy of protecting illegal aliens at the risk of the safety of legal residents and citizens. “This is a shameful waste of taxpayer dollars,” said Jason Clark, Chairman of the San Francisco GOP.

Further up the coast in Multnomah County, OR, Sergio Jose Martinez, 31, an illegal alien from Mexico, has been harbored in Portland. The habitual recidivist, who belongs in a Mexican prison, has been deported and has returned 20 times, most recently last November, only to return again to continue his reign of terror. In addition to his crimes of illegally entering the United States 20 times, his lengthy criminal record includes, but is not limited to, sexual assault at knifepoint, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, and sodomy. Martinez also admitted to drug use - specifically heroin and meth.

Local authorities released Martinez from their custody sans ICE notification offering up the following weak explanation. “Oregon law prohibits public agencies from spending money, using equipment, or enlisting personnel to enforce federal immigration law,” thus making Oregon a de facto sanctuary state.

Contradicting that statement, Lt. Chad Gaidos of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office wrote, “MCSO is committed to ensuring we comply with all federal and state laws that govern local public safety agencies with regard to enforcement of immigration policies.” Seems the county can’t get their act together, much to the detriment of the citizens of Multnomah County and probably beyond.

Martinez appeared in court again, on July 26, where he pleaded not guilty to assaulting two more women. These women would not have been prey for Martinez had local law enforcement cooperated with federal agents. But Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese said, we are “not responsible for enforcing federal immigration. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office does not hold persons in jail based upon their immigration status.”

This brand of impudence should cost Portland and Multnomah County federal grant money for their lack of cooperation with the federal agencies attempting to keep illegal aliens from their continued invasion of the United States.

Perhaps there might be a ray of sunshine in Burien, WA, a suburban community in King County south of Seattle. However, this ray of sunshine has come too late for the victim of Salvador Diaz-Garcia, a 23-year-old illegal alien, in the United States since 2013 as a “dreamer,” under DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals). An 18-year-old should not be considered a “child” under DACA. On the other hand, DACA should not even exist in the first place. This so-called “dreamer” has caused nothing but nightmares for his victims, their families, and their communities.

Surveillance tape and witnesses caught Diaz-Garcia spying on his future victim, on June 25, through a window in the workout facility of her residential community. Shortly thereafter he followed the 19-year-old home, attacking her, leaving her with a bloody head, missing teeth, a torn and dangling ear, numerous cuts to the head, a cut upper lip, broken orbital bone, broken jaw, broken nose, and rendering her unable to speak. A rape kit discovered male DNA.

Although a sanctuary city law passed muster via the city council in January, a growing citizens group has garnered enough signatures for a ballot referendum in November against the sanctuary city status. Such a referendum would be the first of its kind in the United States. Sadly it took a brutal, life-altering rape and attack to open the eyes of people who thought it acceptable to continue harboring illegal aliens. And to those who would defend illegals as a group by suggesting not all illegals are criminals, think again. The very act of entering the United States without proper authority is in itself a crime. Impeding all illegal aliens from entering this country, or at the very least, remanding those who do cross the border to their country of origin would prevent their crimes from having been committed from the outset.

Yet, in spite of the heinousness of the attack this victim endured, at least three members of the seven member Burien City Council desire the ordinance to remain in effect. One such councilor, Austin Bell, demonstrated how obtuse he is by suggesting illegal aliens are akin to citizens. It is “important for every citizen to be able to come forward and feel safe here; that is in all of our interests and is the morally right thing to do,” said Bell.

By saying “every citizen,” while defending rights illegal aliens do not, nor should not, have, Bell is equating illegal aliens with legal residents and citizens. And while not all illegal aliens are Hispanic, and not all Hispanics are illegal aliens, the Hispanic population of Burien is 24 percent and growing rapidly. Burien’s population surpassed 50,000 following an annexation occurring after the 2010 census. (http://www.burienwa.gov)

An increasing number of Burien citizens say the sanctuary city policy sends the wrong message making people actually feel less safe, including Debi Wagner, a member of the Burien City Council. “We want everyone here to be happy and safe. How can we guarantee that if we don’t know anything about people living in our midst,” said Wagner.

And in fact, there is more to know about Diaz-Garcia. In January of this year, his dreamer status was renewed. It has since been revoked as he is being held with bail set at $350,000. Additionally, Diaz-Garcia faces child molestation charges for the assault on a 14-year-old girl the same day of his supposed brutal attack on the 19-year-old.

Let these real life stories be the cautionary tales that are necessary to wake people up to the dangers of the illegal alien epidemic that goes largely ignored until it is too late. Enforcing the laws currently in existence, and stronger border security - both north and south, should be a minimum starting point. Denying any benefits to illegal aliens such as medical care, hospitalization, drivers licences, food stamps, jobs - including punishing the employers who hire them, placement in schools - from elementary through college, and welfare should make life more difficult for those who have no legal right to be in the United States and should lead to some measure of self-deportation.

America is for Americans and those seeking to make America a better place. It is a beacon of freedom, strength, refuge, and salvation for those willing to play by the rules, become part of the fabric of what America has meant and stood for lo these past two and a half centuries and hopefully for millennia to come.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Which Black Lives Matter?

Which Black Lives Matter?

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

August 25, 2015

Why are Michael Brown and Freddie Gray household names, yet when the name Jamyla Bolden is mentioned, the response is, who?

Sadly, the answer is because to the Black Lives Matter folks, apparently not all black lives matter. Apparently because there is no political or financial capital to be earned, the drive-by shooting of this nine-year-old girl from Ferguson, MO is widely ignored by the main stream media which has recently kow-towed to the BLM movement.

Where are such provocateurs as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? Why aren’t they leading the parade fomenting the angst and demanding answers as to why this little girl was murdered while doing her homework sitting on her mother’s bed?

These prevaricators of racial divide were nowhere to be found following the August 18 slaying of fourth grader Jamyla Bolden. This crime was not perpetrated by police, nor did not involve questionable suspects where it would be important to shift blame to the police. Instead this was yet another black on black slaughter; another taking of yet another innocent life – a life barely started. No witnesses have come forward to identify a yet to be identified murderer.

The murder of Jamyla Bolden comes about 13 months after the death of Brown that left Ferguson still reeling from the aftermath and uprising of a crescendo of violence that provided for the impetus of the Black Lives Movement. This is a movement that has operated under the false pretense that blacks are constantly the victims of white police officers simply for possessing black skin. Yet, the BLM has remained virtually silent regarding the epidemic of black on black crime, often murder.

If black lives matter, and they do, then all black lives should matter from birth. Black lives should matter when liberals and Democrats under the Lyndon Johnson so-called Great Society made it acceptable for a welfare check to replace a father in the home and to date more than 70 percent of all black children are born to single mothers. (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_01.pdf) (Page 40; Table 15)

Black lives should matter when more and more liberals and Democrats oppose charter schools and school choice as black graduation rates continue to plummet and fall further behind the graduation rates of white, Hispanic, and Asian students. (http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-high-school-graduation-rates-by-race-ethnicity.html)

Black lives should matter when more and more liberals and Democrats support providing a path to citizenship for the between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens. Illegals are typically working illegally in the United States underselling their labor for cash under the table and creating an underclass with which poorly educated blacks are unable to compete.

For those who question whether there is hope in the black community, read the Dr. Benjamin Carson story.

And while touching briefly on the political realm, former Maryland Governor Martin O’ Malley (D) embarrassed himself when he apologized for saying “white lives matter and all lives matter” to a chorus of boos at the Netroots Nation conference in July. O’ Malley said he meant no disrespect for including white and all lives following black lives matter. Doing so was unnecessary and made him look feckless and sheepish.

That we as a nation have lowered ourselves to the place where a presidential candidate would apologize for saying all lives matter is disgraceful, discordant, and disrespectful of life itself. But between violence seen on television, movies, music, video games, as well as abortion on demand, including the dissemination of baby body parts to the highest bidder, it is no wonder life has lost value in more than just the black community.

Yes, black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter, and Jamyla Bolden’s life mattered.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Kermit Gosnell: Soul of a Nazi

Kermit Gosnell: Soul of a Nazi
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
May 6, 2013

Kermit Gosnell, licensed murderer of the unborn, deserves nothing less than to pay for his horrific crimes with his own life. Yet, that one life will never replace the thousands he snuffed out before they had a chance to experience their own lives on earth.

Kermit Gosnell has the soul of a Nazi – following the orders of thousands of women legally authorized to slaughter their own children, while simultaneously ordering those laboring for him to commit the same heinous slaughter. Kermit Gosnell is a modern day Jack the Ripper wielding scalpels and forceps ripping healthy children from the wombs of their mothers. (These same potential mothers could opt for carrying the child to term and giving him or her up for adoption. Abortion is not the only option.)

But Kermit Gosnell took his job, his bloody task, beyond the legal, pole vaulting into the illegal, the torturous, and the genocidal. Isn’t genocide the appropriate term for the willful slaughter of thousands of innocents simply for the purpose of extermination? That’s Kermit Gosnell – genocidal abortionist, on trial for the murder of children born of botched abortions.

And as testimony revealed, so incompetent in his task, that Kermit Gosnell ordered those babies born to be killed in such gruesome ways, finds him firmly ensconced in the hall of fame for evil incarnate. From flushing live babies down the toilet, to slicing their spinal cords, to simply letting them lie on a gurney flailing around like a trout out of water until breathless, Kermit Gosnell demonstrated the medical ethics on par with Josef Mengele.

Kermit Gosnell is the face of evil that, sadly, the national mainstream media failed to appropriately address and report.

Kermit Gosnell, abortionist, failed to fit the mainstream media’s cookie cutter mold of clean, safe abortion – if there could actually be such a thing. The mainstream media, majority pro-choice, want the Kermit Gosnell case to simply go away – swept under the rug along with the thousands of dead babies butchered, and in many cases, discovered in Kermit Gosnell’s freezer – in an effort to return to their nice clean clinics.

One abortion gets little to no attention at any level of the media – local or national, as one local murder fails to make national news – it simply happens every day. But when a Columbine, Virginia Tech, or Sandy Hook occurs, this becomes a national horror – as it should. Likewise, the Kermit Gosnell case should be cause for a national outcry to stop the slaughter of innocent children. Taken a step further, in 1861, on the heels of the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, slavery was legal in the United States. Legal, but certainly immoral. In 2013, abortion may be legal, but most certainly is not moral.

If not the death penalty, as he inflicted upon thousands of babies, Kermit Gosnell should be remanded to a locked cage for the remainder of his days where the only sounds he hears are those of crying newborns, a la Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Of G-d and Guns

Of G-d and Guns

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

December 17, 2012

If there has been one constant amidst the hellish carnage and horror that not just befell Newtown, CT but shook the nation to its very core, it has been a clarion call for prayer.

From the teachers in Sandy Hook Elementary School and the survivors – student and staff alike who were interviewed, to politicians all the way to the White House and Barack Obama himself, “thoughts and prayers” were offered repeatedly and liberally.

Synagogue and church services across the nation, even athletic events from high school to the professional level, called for prayers and moments of silence for reflection – that was the immediate gut reaction – it is natural and it is normal. There can’t be too much prayer.

Even jaded newscasters repeatedly said “our thoughts and prayers” are with the victims’ families (unless it was reflexive lip service – yes, I can also be just as jaded).

Obama’s first words in addressing an assembly in Newtown on Sunday night were, “scripture tells us…,” later adding, “I come to offer the love and prayers of a nation.” Obama approached his conclusion with, “G-d has called them all home,” in reference to the 20 children as well as the six teachers and administrators who were senselessly massacred on Friday, December 14 by a piece of detritus whose name only deserves to be cursed for all eternity.

Yet, for all the synagogue and church services, the words of prayer, the quotes from scripture, the moments of silence, it begs the question of why we the people are not preemptively praying to begin with? How far has this nation sunk into the quagmire of moral decay and vituperativeness that prayer and the word of G-d are to be shunned, even mocked and ridiculed?

The constant barrage of attacks on religion in general, and this time of the year on Christmas, specifically demonstrates people’s lack of knowledge of the first 16 words of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

“…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” stand out most for me. Part of the moral decline of American society commenced with the removal of G-d from the classrooms – eliminating prayer in school, the removal of the 10 Commandments, the cessation of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as well as the ability of a school to actually mete out real discipline.

“…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” which allows for prayer in school – which admittedly should be optional for those Atheists who object, but not to have prayer eliminated because of the small number of said Atheists who object. A non-sectarian prayer that mentions G-d, but not Jesus; for although Christians are the majority faith in the US, not all students believe in Jesus, but the major religions do believe in G-d. After all the Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator.

Daily prayer recited in school when my parents, both of Blessed memory, grew up in New Jersey – the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) – did not turn them from observant Jews into Christians. As an observant Jew myself, I support prayer in school. If a student wants to pray in class before an exam or in the cafeteria before or after eating lunch, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s beliefs, they should be allowed to do so without penalty. The same support is offered for having a member of the local clergy offer a benediction at a graduation ceremony.

More G-d in people’s lives, especially in school, and fewer condoms in school would be a good start to reversing the trend of a godless moral decay.

With unfettered abortion on demand to the point where your daughter can be suspended from school for carrying and taking an aspirin, yet can get the surgical procedure to murder her unborn child without parental permission or even notification, life is sadly devalued. When life is devalued, it becomes easier to eliminate it.

This same devaluation of life is fervently visible in the motion pictures and video games created for mindless entertainment. Here too, when people, especially young people are exposed to the countless hours of such violent stimulation, they become desensitized – often to the point where fact and fiction become blurred and real news stories of, say, the tragedy in Newtown seem unreal or fictionalized. There becomes a point where those exposed to such stimuli become numb and lose their ability to empathize with a given situation.

Couple that with the gun culture that has manifested itself in American society. Make no mistake, I fervently support the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights and believe that were an armed teacher, administrator, or security guard present at Sandy Hook Elementary School on that fateful Friday, the death toll would have been lessened.

And while there is a negative connotation to a gun culture – the ease of obtaining a firearm, the glorification of gun violence on television and the aforementioned entertainment genres of film and video games, a better armed society would be a safer society.

Responsible gun owners are typically the targets of government, really as the unintended consequences of legislation where gun control laws come into play, when the targets should be the criminals who will go to any lengths to procure firearms for their nefarious plans. Additional gun legislation is not needed when there are literally hundreds of laws already being violated daily by miscreants who shoot their way into schools and slaughter 26 people, or shoot up a movie theater killing a dozen innocent movie watchers, as occurred in Aurora, CO on July 12 of this year. Perhaps if another theater patron was armed, lives could have been saved.

Just as the answer to hate speech is not less, but more speech; the way to combat gun violence against innocent people is not by stripping them of their ability to defend themselves, but to enable them to not only defend themselves, but others as well. If more law abiding, responsible gun owners possessed conceal carry permits, it is less likely lunatics would shoot up schools or other venues. It was reported that when the murderer of 26 innocents at Sandy Hook was about to be confronted by law enforcement, the coward took his own life. Were there an armed guard on duty at the school lives would have been saved as the school already had its doors locked and the killer had to shoot his way into the building.

All schools – suburban, rural, inner city, public, parochial, charter – should have cameras positioned at all entrances and monitored in the main office, as well as metal detectors, armed security personnel, a strict sign-in/out policy for all visitors – whether UPS deliverymen or parent volunteers who come and go every day.

Retired police and military personnel returning from overseas duty would be optimal sources of security detail for schools. Many soldiers who serve 20 years and retire are still in the prime of their working years. The aforementioned security materials, as well as the existence of police and military as guards do not infringe upon the freedoms of the staff and students entering, exiting, and going about their daily lives in school.

However, Obama is prepared to limit the freedoms of all Americans. During his Newtown vigil speech Obama said, “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

According to the Constitution of the United States, the answer to Obama’s question is yes. Without sounding callous, there is a slippery slope of diminished freedoms – case in point, his healthcare program – and sacrificing one freedom leads to the loss of many more and this republic becomes an unrecognizable entity embracing socialism or worse. Stripping guns from the citizenry is how folks like Stalin and Hitler maintained and expanded their despotic regimes.

To be fair, and I know this will upset some uncompromising people, but I do believe the gun show loophole ought to be closed. If a potential firearm owner is required to undergo a background check when purchasing a gun from a gun store, why shouldn’t the same rules apply when seeking to procure a firearm at a gun show? There should be a level of consistency.

But here’s a quandary that concerns me as a Constitutionalist – what to do regarding military-style assault weapons. Should there be unfettered access to any and all firearms? How about artillery? Bazookas? How about parking a tank in one’s driveway? Where should the line be drawn? If there is a ban on assault rifles is that the beginning of the slippery slope toward too much government? On the other hand, for what does one need this kind of firepower? It certainly isn’t for the sport of hunting animals; and folks can protect their families and homes with any number of other firearms. There is a blur between the lines of too much and protecting Constitutional rights.

Further, while we have a responsibility to protect those who might do harm to themselves, we have the same responsibility to protect society from those very same unbalanced people by not permitting them to possess firearms. Clearly there are people in our world who are not in their right mind and they need help.

How often are serial killers and mass murderers described as solitary, quiet, loners who may have abused animals as a child, been abused at home, been bullied in school, are clinically depressed, are on the wrong medications, are part of Goth culture, have unnatural obsessions with Nazism and Hitler? Far too often; and signals are missed or diagnoses are not made because the mental health system works on a conveyer belt where a patient sees a doctor for maybe 10 minutes.

As a preemptive answer of how to pay for the increased security and mental health care, severe cuts to entitlements must be made. The safety of our children should take precedence. Additionally, a child in an unsafe environment is full of fear and not the knowledge to be provided by their teachers.

The above “symptoms” should not be ignored. They should be taken seriously and be paid attention to for the possibility of treatment. Society cannot lock them away simply because someone thinks they may commit a crime, but it is vital to monitor them for their own safety as well as the safety of others.

There is too large an incidence of mental instability among mass murderers. But, make no mistake, that is no excuse for their crimes against society. They must be removed from free society in order to preserve the freedoms of the innocent. They must suffer extreme consequences for their actions. And this is where Obama is dead wrong about sacrificing freedom for the potential safety of children.

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” said Benjamin Franklin and it is more poignant than ever before.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.