Thread: Americans Reject Illegal Immigration Sob Stories

Left is losing battle for open borders in court of public opinion

May 3, 2016
by Edmund Kozak

As the financial and social tolls on American society that illegal aliens take daily become clearer, it seems Americans are beginning to reject the mainstream media’s attempts to garner sympathy for those who sneak into the United States.

The number of pro-illegal immigrant stories in the press appears to have increased apace with Donald Trump’s success in the polls. The Washington Post published one such article Sunday about Friendship Park, an immigration “no man’s land” between San Diego and Tijuana, where once a week U.S. citizens and resident aliens are able to meet with family members who have been deported.

The Post’s article describes Friendship Park as a depressing place where “separated immigrant families hug across a steel divide,” before detailing a number of emotional stories. The Post’s readers, however, were not happy about the publication’s emotionally-manipulative attempt to foster sympathies for illegal aliens.

"You cannot be serious," commented one reader to the Post. "It is an INTERNATIONAL BORDER. Don't break the law, don't find yourself in this situation. Pretty simple."

Wrote another: "They are separated from their families because they want to stay illegal. Any time they want to spend time with their families, they can just go back across the border. It's not the U.S. that makes that decision."

Some readers were less diplomatic, having little patience for the paper's publishing of open-borders propaganda — "What a bunch of emotional BS," one reader said. There are over 500 comments on the story, the vast majority of them sharing the sentiment expressed above. And they're all worth a read.

But biased stories like The Washington Post's — which excuse the inherent law breaking of illegal immigration and pay absolutely no consideration to the costs of illegal immigrants to native-born Americans in terms of healthcare, education, the economy, and crime — are as ubiquitous in the media as are Mexican flags at anti-Trump protests.

On April 18 Rolling Stone featured an interview with Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant who created EmergingUS, a media outlet designed explicitly to generate sympathy for the so-called plight of those who believe themselves above immigration law.

The same day, the Huffington Post blog posted a story titled "Life Without DAPA: One Woman's Story," by a woman who evidently believes the fact that she misses her illegal-alien mother is a valid argument for open borders.

On April 21, CNNMoney featured a sympathetic story about Denise Rojas, who became the first illegal alien to attend the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and on April 23, NBC News published a feature titled "Black & Undocumented: Caribbean Immigrant's Long Fight for Citizenship."

But using emotional manipulation to advocate mass immigration is not just the preferred strategy of liberal politicians. As LifeZette's Brendan Kirby detailed in a report on Monday, the Obama administration is working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to award Central and South American illegal alien minors as refugees. As part of that move, Obama has even budgeted $17,613 for each minor — $2,841 more a year than the average Social Security retirement benefit.

Most Americans, like the hundreds of commentators on The Washington Post, seem to be immune to such manipulation. A rolling poll conducted by Reuters found that, as of September 2015, an average of around 55 percent of Americans believed most or all immigrants should be deported.

If Hispanics are removed from the sample, the average percentage of Americans in favor of deporting most or all immigrants jumps to over 58 percent. Over 60 percent of white Americans are in favor of deportation, the poll suggests.

The poll also showed that an average of nearly 80 percent of Republicans and nearly 75 percent of conservatives favor deportation for some or all illegal immigrants. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that an average of nearly 40 percent of Democrats also favor deportation, according to the poll. Even among those identifying as "very liberal" and "moderately liberal," a full third said they favored deportation.

For all Obama's talk of DREAMers and efforts of publications like The Washington Post to tug Americans' collective heartstrings in the direction of amnesty, the left is clearly losing the battle for open borders.

https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/...n-sob-stories/

Americans don't care about the dreams of illegal aliens, Americans don't care about their plights, Americans don't care about their pursuit for a "better life" in the wrong country, Americans don't care one whit why they came here in violation of US immigration law. Most of these "sob stories" are fake, dishonest, misinformation, and mis-representative of reality. Whether a handful are true or not, doesn't matter.

I wrote 10 years ago, that these people would rue the day they came face to face with 250 million pissed off Americans, and "hello", that's where we are right now.

Americans will win this fight, illegal aliens are going home, the easy way or the hard way, but either way, they gotta go and go they will.

Americans have an ole saying when they're telling someone to get out of their office, their business, their homes, their country:

"Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out." That means, hurry and be out before the door slams shut on your butt.

And there is no sane reason to allow 1/5 of the el salvadorian population to be in the USA collecting our hard earned monies whilst they kill our citizens..

It's gonna be the devil to get the youngest ones to go back. The advocates have already been helping a lot of them stay with other people (I wonder what Children Services bureaus' official positions are?----they are not legally appointed guardians!)

And the older ones have been working under the table anyway, so will probably stay there. They need to completely reinvigorate the DHS---and could start by going after the businesses where they know there are lots of illegals. Around here there is a family chain landscaping business. I drive by one of their locations frequently and had called ICE several years ago. I bet they would have found a few dozen illegals just at that one location. Of course, ICE does nothing these days, except hunt for gang members.

Maybe ICE should pay out a bounty? When Trump talks about a "deportation force" it has to be very flexible to actually find these people. Would be a great project, though. One danger may be that Democrats in the US Senate will initiate some legislative pushback against mass scale deportation. Don't ask me what; I just know that this is going to be comparable to the 1960's civil rights movement.

At one border park, separated immigrant families
hug across a steel divide

By Yanan Wang May 1

Gabriela Esparza, her back to the camera, hugs her mother and sister at Friendship Park. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)

SAN DIEGO — Gabriela Esparza has a standing date on most Saturdays to talk to her mother, on a schedule that never changes. She drives down Interstate 5 and turns off into a sprawling wildlife habitat bounded by the beach and Pacific Ocean and an 18-foot galvanized metal fence that stretches as far as she can see.

She makes her way toward a small yard surrounded by steel mesh and waits until 10 a.m., when a U.S. Border Patrol agent opens a heavy gate. Her mother is on the other side, in Tijuana, Mexico, waiting to see her daughter through the checkered grate, perhaps to touch her fingertips. They stay as long as they can, until another family needs a turn or the agent in charge warns, “five more minutes,” and the gate is locked shut at 2 p.m.

This pen is Friendship Park, the only federally established binational meeting place along the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico. For seven years, this meeting through the mesh was as close as Esparza, 23, could get to her mother and sister.

This weekend was different. Esparza and her 2-year-old son, Leonel, stood in line Saturday with others chosen to participate in a celebration of Children’s Day in Mexico. For only the third time, the emergency door on this portion of the border fence would open, and five families would have three minutes each to embrace.

To arrive at this moment, Esparza underwent a background check by the Border Patrol and then a second vetting by the nonprofit Border Angels, a migrant-advocacy group that started the brief open-border meeting in 2013. She crossed the desert with her mother when she was 8 to join her father, who already was in California. When Esparza was 16, her sister needed gall-bladder surgery, and lacking affordable medical options in the United States, her mother took her back to Mexico for treatment.

Without papers, they couldn’t get back in.

That left Esparza needing to live with relatives. After President Obama announced his executive order for young, undocumented immigrants in 2012, she got an employment card, but she can’t leave the United States.

Her long hours working at a company that leases cellphone towers left her little time to think about this reunion, where nearly a hundred people were gathered to watch her hug her mom.

Esparza closed her eyes and swallowed. It was the day before her birthday, but this was “more than a birthday present,” she said, tugging at the sleeve of her burgundy sweater. “It’s a blessing.”

Still, she was nervous. Less than 30 seconds for every year apart.

Before a crowd of reporters and photographers, three Border Patrol agents and Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) lifted the door’s bulky, rusted lock and pulled — hard — to get it to slide open.

‘May there never be a wall’

Esparza’s journey joins her to tens of thousands of Latino families that have convened through the fence at Friendship Park, a place whose story changes depending on who is telling it.

To the community organizations that have fought to keep it open, Friendship Park is a space for intercultural exchange: shared communions, drum circles, even yoga classes across an increasingly fortified divide. It is a wish for immigration reform on physical display.

To the Border Patrol, Friendship Park is a goodwill gesture. Once accessible at all hours, it was closed when a secondary border fence was built in 2009, then reopened in response to protests.

And to the families that arrive week after week, many from distant parts of the state and without the necessary documents to freely cross the border, a trip to Friendship Park is best described as “agridulce,” the Spanish word for bittersweet.


First lady Pat Nixon visits Friendship Park in 1971. “I hope there won’t be a fence here too long,” she said that day. (National Archives and Records Administration)

The park has transformed since the summer of 1971, when then-first lady Pat Nixon walked up to threads of flimsy barbed wire and asked her security escort to cut an opening.

Nixon stepped easily into Tijuana, to the cheers of a crowd. This inaugurated Friendship Park, a spot so chosen for an obelisk marking the boundary established at the end of the U.S.-Mexico war in 1848. There are now 276 such monuments across the border; the one on the edge of San Diego was the first.

“May there never be a wall between these two great nations,” said the first lady. “Only friendship.”

On Saturday, 45 years later, the political figure at the fence was Vargas, the California congressman. “I’m here to support the families that have been broken up,” he said, evoking President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty act. “The current immigration system is very cruel. You can’t separate children from their parents.”

The weekend before the Children’s Day event, there were no TV crews or politicians at Friendship Park. For a while, there was just one woman who arrived minutes after the gate opened.

Wearing a long turquoise dress, high-heeled pumps and sparkling jewelry, she walked straight to where the silhouetted outlines of a man awaited her. This was Rosalina Ascencio Leon, 43, here to see her deported husband.

Neither made a big show of the reunion. Leon was a regular; she had been here last month. They started talking as if they were standing in their kitchen.

About a half-hour later, Leon was joined by a man visiting his wife, then by a couple pushing a stroller. By noon, a handful of families — one with collapsible lawn chairs — had stationed themselves by the fence and were peering into the other side.

Julian Rodriguez, 33, held his 6-month-old daughter up to the fence. His sister in Tijuana poked a finger through the mesh to meet the baby’s tiny thumb.

“It’s like having a piece of chocolate and not being able to eat it,” said Maria Teresa Fernandez, a local photographer who has been documenting the border for 15 years.

Sonia Roman, 35, studied her father’s face and decided he looked better than the last time. “The first time, I couldn’t even cry,” she said. “I was just in shock. He was so skinny and aged. In my mind, I thought he was going to be the same as when he left.”

It was only the second time she had seen him since a speeding ticket turned into three months at a detention center, which turned into him resignedly signing his own “voluntary departure” almost a decade ago.

Back then, Francisco Hernandez, now 52, was working construction across the South and was rushing home to Pomona, Calif., when a police officer pulled him over, ran his name through the system and discovered that he didn’t have papers.

Now a two-hour drive and 30-minute hike had brought Roman a few inches of metal away from a father she barely recognized.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Roman said. “Would I rather not have to see him through the fence, where we can’t even touch or hug, or should I be thankful that I can see him at all?”

Leon, who had been standing at the mesh in her high heels for two hours, walked away from her husband in tears. “We broke up,” Leon said. “He don’t want to wait for me.”

Leon had crossed into the United States when she was 16 years old. “It was easy,” she said. “Now it’s hard.” After her sister’s ex-husband tried to run her over with a car, she obtained a visa reserved for victims of crimes on American soil. But it required her to wait two more years before she could visit Mexico without the risk of losing the visa.

And now, the couple had concluded, that was too long for a marriage to survive through the fence.

The border here is actually two fences. The first real barrier between San Diego and Tijuana was constructed as part of the Clinton administration’s Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, using steel airstrip landing mats from the Vietnam War. By 2009, a second fence was built parallel to 13 miles of the first’s 44-mile length.

It is now crowned with razor wire and has stakes reaching into the ocean. A sophisticated network of motion sensors and surveillance cameras detects any movement that could indicate an illegal crossing.


The western end of the U.S.-Mexico border fence extends into the ocean. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)

All this has curtailed migrant activity in the area, where three decades ago the apprehensions comprised nearly half the nation’s total. It is estimated that 6,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the border since Operation Gatekeeper, which has reduced illegal entries by about 75 percent.

The latter figure is recited with pride by the agents stationed at Friendship Park, a coveted assignment among the detail because of the reprieve it offers from scouring empty mountains. Fluent in Spanish, the agents share an easy rapport with the visitors, all the while governing access to their families.

Agent Frank Alvarado, who grew up in San Diego, recalled that “as a kid, you could buy tacos through the fence.” Now he patrols it, charming tourists and talking superhero comics with one visiting 11-year-old boy.

He rejected the common refrain that Friendship Park is “like a jail.”

“People say it’s sad, but most of the time you see tears of joy,” Alvarado said. “It’s a very festive area. Who wouldn’t want to work where it’s always a party?”

“I’ll take you to eat churros and chamango,” Hernandez promised his daughter, if she ever could visit Tijuana. “There’s a really good place here.”

Juan Suarez, 50, whispered to his 11-year-old son through the barrier: “I love you, okay? Behave, okay? We’ll be together soon.”

The boy lingered as his father walked away, his small hands clutching the tall fence. Behind Suarez, an agent told another visitor: “Five minutes.”

Friendship Park, where separated loved ones meet at the U.S.-Mexico border



View Photos

Tucked into San Diego’s Border Field State Park, the area is the only federally established binational meeting place along the 2,000-mile border.

A door opens and shuts

“Three minutes,” Enrique Morones, the founder of Border Angels, repeated to the crowd on Children’s Day. “Each family is going to have three minutes to hug.”

The lock on the gate finally gave way with a groan, to cheers and applause.

The families were lined up, and Alvarado checked their names off a list. “Sergio Graciano Paredes?” he said. No response. “Sergio? Doesn’t look like Sergio is here.”

The 19-year-old had driven for an entire night from the Bay Area to San Diego, only to be stalled on the wrong highway exit. His father, who traveled for more than a day by bus to arrive in Tijuana from central Mexico, was already waiting for him on the other side. But it was past noon, and the event was starting.

Alvarado shrugged. “That’s what the alternate is for.” A family who had been on the waiting list was ushered forward.

The door on the fence opened to reveal a canopy of cameras and microphones hovering over a wide-eyed elderly woman.

She was the mother of the first participant standing across the lawn on the U.S. side. As the daughter started walking toward the opening, the onlookers quieted to a hush.

The rest of the event proceeded in virtual silence. The Border Patrol agent who held the door turned her gaze to the sky, blinking back tears.

“I wanted to run,” Esparza later recalled of when her turn had arrived. The distance felt so long, and everyone was watching.

But then, there her mother was, clutching Esparza’s head, kissing her cheek. Her sister was there, too, putting her arms around Leonel.

“Stay strong,” Esparza sobbed.

Three minutes, and she felt a man’s hand on her shoulder. It was Morones, telling her time was up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-families-divided-by-a-mesh-fence-a-rare-chance-to-embrace/2016/05/01/d0fdcf08-0b07-11e6-a6b6-2e6de3695b0e_story.html

593 Comments


yogibuffy
10:15 AM PST

They separated themselves

Robert Gornowich

8:17 AM PST
A guy broke into my house last night: I found him sitting on my couch and watching TV. I told him to leave but he refused, so I called the cops.

The cops told me that now he is in my house I have to let him stay and I also have to feed him. I said that was ridiculous and I refused. The cop said what I wanted didn't matter anymore: the guy wants to stay and eat my food and also wants me to go buy him some cookies.

I said this guy has no right to tell me how to spend my money in my own house when he is clearly here illegally to begin with. The cop said it didn't matter, and by the way, since my illegal 'guest' was from Jibber and I was to make him feel at home; I now have to begin each conversation by asking if I should speak English or Jibberish,

Just then, the burglar got up and announced that his cousins would be moving in to my house later today. There were 12 of them; two of which are hardened killers that had just escaped from prison, but he wouldn’t tell me which ones were the killers.

I said I wouldn't speak Jibberish, I won't buy him cookies and I won't allow him, or them, to stay in my home. The cop told me that if I didn't give my illegal 'guest' what he wanted he would arrest me for being a racist.

I reminded the cop that this was not about race, but about having to give away the things I worked hard for simply because a criminal managed to be successful at sneaking into my home illegally.

Anyway... if you can contribute to my bail fund, I sure would appreciate it. I hear his cousins are on their way and I gotta get back to work so I can afford to buy more cookies.

Robert Gornowich

8:16 AM PST

Esparza cried and cried.

"Why must we criminals obey the law?" she demanded to know.
"How can the citizens of the United States be so cruel as to insist that we illegal ailens follow the same laws as they do? Don't they know we are criminals that ignore the law and feel we are special and that your stupid laws mean nothing to us? How can they do this to us?"

golfrmyx
5/2/2016 9:08 PM PST

Interesting to ponder how two countries so close together could be so different that things like this have to be. We do business across the border with many companies and thus individuals.

Darrell Guill
5/2/2016 8:49 PM PST

Cry me a river.

Diane Harper
5/2/2016 8:05 PM PST

There is a 4 year waiting list to come legally into US from Mexico. In central America, Honduras is violent from deporting American prison gang members -even those here legally.

vladus
5/2/2016 7:11 PM PST

"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it." --Theodore Roosevelt.

MickiSue
5/2/2016 7:08 PM PST

As I sit here, blinking back tears, the first two posts I read are tirades from hateful people.

It may be easier to just hate people who are different. But it's bad for your heart.

will@work
5/2/2016 8:52 PM PST

There are five billion people in the world who are poorer than Mexicans. Cry for them if you want, but don't expect us to invite them all here.

Robert Gornowich
8:25 AM PST

Nobody hates these people, but to say that criminals should be rewarded for breaking the law is downright stupid. To suggest they get to keep breaking the law is cultural suicide.

Do you feel sorry for bank robbers that get caught and sent to jail? Do you cry for their kids now that their Dad is in jail?
Do you think bank robbers should get to keep the money since giving it back to the bank would create a hardship for the robbers family? After all: he is only triying to feed his family, right?

Bank robbers go to jail for stealing, but illegal immigrants get paid for it?

Why is that? Why should your favoirte criminal get a pass while my favorite criminals has to go to jail?

JUST SAY NO
5/2/2016 5:55 PM PST

I don't care what country they come from. Or how or why they got here. If they are not here LEGALLY, they are not undocumented immigrants. They are LAWBREAKING FOREIGN NATIONAL ILLEGAL ALIEN INVADERS!!! And as such, THEY ARE BREAKING THE IMMIGRATION LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY!!! So they don't need a "voice".

Give the power back to the border patrol and ICE SO THEY CAN DO THEIR DAMN JOB!!!

They need to start enforcing the immigration laws WHICH ARE NOT BROKEN!!! They need to start deporting these people as they are found. They need to start doing what is right for AMERICANS AND AMERICA, not these ILLEGALS!!! No more catering and pandering to these people. These people come here ILLEGALLY and demand things they are not entitled to while waving flags from their home countries. They are not willing to assimilate, they have no respect for our laws, for our culture or our way of life. They will not learn the language. They will not help the economy because they will send most of their money home while we pay for their care and housing and education. START ENFORCING OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS!!! START LOOKING OUT FOR AMERICANS AND AMERICA FIRST AND DEPORT!!! DEPORT!!! DEPORT!!!

yogibuffy
10:16 AM PST

Trump

cr1957ny
5/2/2016 3:10 PM PST

How about balancing these stories with ones about people waiting for years to enter the US LEGALLY while these line jumpers go on protests about their mistreatment?

will@work
5/2/2016 2:18 PM PST

Announcing Operation Family Reunion, where we devote resources to reuniting tragically sundered families...in Mexico. End the suffering

Michael
5/2/2016 1:55 PM PST

Just more BS propaganda from the left to make people feel sorry for them. Nothing is stopping you from going thru the gate from America back to Mexico to be back with your family. You know one of the thousands of families that separated THEMSELVES by coming here illegally. Take responsibility for YOUR OWN ACTIONS.

Second_Opinion
5/2/2016 1:25 PM PST

Unfortunately, Friendship Park is located along the US/Mexico border. It's unfortunate that most of the illegal immigrants here are from Mexico. I can see also that all the comments are opposed to illegal immigration. That's OK, I get it.

However, I think it's worth reminding you that, in many cases, Mexico is just a transit point. Many illegal immigrants transiting Mexico are from Central American countries: Honduras, Nicaragua, etc. There are also many illegals here from countries around the globe, not the least of which is China.

How do you define "illegal"? Is it someone who dashes across the border? Is it a pregnant Chinese woman who rushes to the US on a tourist visa in her ninth month to have her "anchor baby" here? Ever notice how many more Russian speakers you're running into these days? Is "illegal" the American born Chinese researcher who spies for China? Is illegal the arranged marriage - because it was their "culture" - of the San Bernardino shooter?

While it's true - and it really is - that immigrants and, yes illegal ones, do work that Americans won't do, e.g. picking crops, butchering chickens, etc. at least they are not actively betraying this nation the way some Chinese immigrants do. If you have a legitimate concern over threats to our way of life, you have to look at China. That's the real threat.

Those who say Americans would pick crops but not for $0.85/bushel, that's pure, distilled BS. If Americans were paid a competitive wage, even minimum wage, to pick crops, you could not afford to eat. Thousands would starve and we would see soup kitchens - and lines - everywhere.

I'm not condoning illegal immigration. I'm only saying we need to look at - and understand - the entire picture.

jjmdrop
5/2/2016 7:31 PM PST

"I'm not condoning illegal immigration"

Yes, you are, Sec.

will@work
5/2/2016 8:55 PM PST [Edited]

Uh, no. Food might be more expensive if we paid minimum wage, but not double or triple, because labor is only part of the food cost. And we haven't seen the prices of fast food or hotel rooms quadruple in places that have a minimum wage.

efg2
5/2/2016 1:15 PM PST

I'm sure the WaPo will be doing an article or two about the families who's members have been murdered by illegal aliens quite soon. Yep any day now, any day....

OK, maybe not.

Djones121
5/2/2016 1:14 PM PST [Edited]

Very moving. But, next year, Carrier Corporation employees in Indianapolis can come to this fence kiss their old jobs good bye. That will be a real tearjerker!

I am sure the Washington Post will want to cover it too - NOT!

CORavensFan
5/2/2016 1:06 PM PST

Boo f'ing hoo. Get legal or get out.

Laajleeb X Vaaj
5/2/2016 1:02 PM PST

Touching story but it's all propaganda. No one is stopping illegals from the US from going back to Mexico.

Steve Jordan
5/2/2016 12:35 PM PST

It's not a problem, they can sneak right back into Mexico, where they came from. Then....wait for it.....they are no longer separated. TA DAAAA. Problem solved

Crystal Cogdill Cannon Myers
5/2/2016 12:25 PM PST

Oh, another sob story to try and gain sympathy for ILLEGAL ALIENS!!! Ain't working!!!! TRUMP 2016!!!

Steve Jordan
5/2/2016 12:34 PM PST

Trump supports "Touch-Back Immigration " for the illegals. Hell, he hired hundreds of them in Florida. And YOU BELIEVE him? That my dear, is insane. He funded amnesty. Cruz 2016. Think and get facts on Donald the rapist Trump

CORavensFan
5/2/2016 1:07 PM PST

Cruz? You're kidding right? I hope this is sarcasm.

Illegal is not a race
5/2/2016 12:10 PM PST

The illegal aliens somehow think that it is the US government that is taring their family apart. However the truth is that it is their choices that are taring their family apart. If Ms. Esparza's family had never come to the US illegally, then they would not be separated now. If she had gone back to Mexico when her mother and her sister went back, then they would not be separated right now. These people make the decision to illegally enter the US and then blame the US government for what befalls them after that point. If they had come here legally, they would be welcomed with open arms, but since they chose to break the law to enter the US they are not welcome here.

Nia Provenzano
5/2/2016 11:24 AM PST

So millions of men and women come here and work and leave the family
behind. Including their children.
But this is not "tearing a family
apart"But if an illegal is caught
here this is "tearing a family
apart" if they are deported.
Got it.So all people here who
left children or spouses in
the old country must be
sent back.So the family
isn't "torn apart"

swanjame
5/2/2016 11:10 AM PST

A lot of immigrants who came to this country over the years left families and others behind. They adjusted. They were not illegal aliens and did not think that entering the country illegally would some how confer immigrant status on them.

Jim

finn43
5/2/2016 11:20 AM PST [Edited]

They weren't imbued with the sense of entitlement endemic to Illegal Aliens

onlyhappensinamerica
5/2/2016 11:05 AM PST

Now that Trump is winning, the criminals are trying to become legal. Imagine that, enforce the law, punish the criminals and many stop breaking it. Who would have guessed that.

CORavensFan
5/2/2016 1:08 PM PST

I love when a plan comes together.

AKhiker
5/2/2016 10:55 AM PST

Every last one of these foreign criminal parasites and their anchor baby cash cards should be deported at their own expense AFTER every penny they illegally earned n the US is confiscated as they do in England. The crime they bring down on Americans is unbelievable. >>2/3 of all taxpayer funded births in border states are anchor babies. Identity theft has increased many fold thanks to illegal immigrant criminals. Surprise, surprise the top 10 states where Americans are victims of identity theft are the exact same top 10 states where illegal aliens and their anchor babies live in the greatest numbers.

will@work
5/2/2016 10:41 AM PST

A few points on the often-repeated claim that illegal immigrants help our economy by doing necessary work that Americans won't do.

*There are no jobs Americans won't do, just jobs we won't do for 50 cents an hour.
*It isn't just mowing lawns and picking vegetables either. It's construction, hospitality and retail. All these industries have suppressed wages thanks to illegal immigrants.
*Each illegal family costs $25K in social services more than they put in.
*And we pay again for social services for out-of-work Americans who would be able to find work if not for illegals. This is rarely factored into studies of the "benefit" of illegals.
*We keep hearing that we can't afford to deport. But we could spend almost $50k per year per family deported, and make our money back in one year.

ALC110
5/2/2016 12:40 PM PST

And only 4% of illegal Mexican immigrants in the US work in agriculture anymore, according to Pew Research.

Another favorite lie of the left

EOS13
5/2/2016 10:34 AM PST

It appears that many of the people mentioned who are illegal and working in the U.S. are not picking lettuce or otherwise "doing the jobs Americans won't do". How is it that the libs in this country think it's OK for these illegal people to have jobs? Without those jobs, they would GO HOME and there would be no need for this B.S. hug-a-thon.

will@work
5/2/2016 10:25 AM PST

Some idiot Trump supporter shoves someone at a rally and it stays on WaPo's front page for days and days. This article was posted at 7:00 this morning, and pulled from the front page before 1:00. WaPo does this every time a piece of activist journalism fails to elicit reader sympathy; it's obvious from the comments that has happened here. Don't worry, dear readers, WaPo will be back next week with another heart-wrenching story about the travails of illegal immigrants.

Michael
5/2/2016 2:02 PM PST

What's even worse, many of these people at Trump's rallies are paid to create turmoil at the rally in order to make Trump look bad. Then the news outlets are there to report it just to influx the left agenda and ideas. This is the most corrupt administration this country has ever seen. The internet is a huge tool in this deception and outright betrayal.

Hollif50
5/2/2016 10:20 AM PST

Psssst! You can hug your family members all you want if you go back to the country where you are a citizen; which is not this country...

Marian Bryant
5/2/2016 9:53 AM PST

Too bad so sad. Not

Focus_think
5/2/2016 9:46 AM PST

Think back to the riot illegals caused at the recent Trump campaign stop. If you went to Mexico and took Old Glory, our flag, down to a demonstration and the broke out the windows and jumped up and down on a Mexican police car, do you think you would ever be seen again in the USA?

CH-ican
5/2/2016 9:31 AM PST

WHAT A BUNCH OF EMOTIONAL BS ...

WHO are these people to believe they are somehow MORE than all citizens of any other country? WHO do you think you ARE?

Chrondite
5/2/2016 9:27 AM PST

This article is crap. It is pro-illegal propaganda at its lowest.

kosciuda
5/2/2016 9:21 AM PST

THey don't have to stay separated. The illegals here can always go home. That's ok with us.
No other country in the world tolerates illegal immigrants. Every other country knows immigration should be based on what's good for the country, not the immigrant.
Allowing illegals to stay in this country is insane. We have millions of Americans, especially black americans, with very limited access to economic opportunity. Allowing illegals to work here keeps millions unemployed, keeps wages low, and disproportionally hurts black Americans.

never learn
5/2/2016 9:00 AM PST

If your family is in Mexico and you want to be with them, your choice is to be stuck in the US without papers or go back. End of story. Nobody is keeping illegals in the US.

Gametime
5/2/2016 8:50 AM PST

Cue the liberals to start crying and throwing themselves in the streets to protest "broken families." Notice how the headline doesn't tell us "Illegal Immigrants Deported." No, it has to have that Liberal Loon Touchy-Feely Kodak Moment.

Liberalism requires one to suspend reality and run straight to denial where the feel-good, taxpayer-funded stuff is stored.

lownslown
5/2/2016 8:48 AM PST

The only problem is that there are groups who wish the US destroyed, and those groups will happily use the same illegal paths of entry that these possibly well intending and hard-working otherwise honest people might be using.

If there is no discussion or recognition of that problem, we may be blind to the threat of literal destruction until the moment something terrible happens.

Gametime
5/2/2016 8:52 AM PST

Until the Democrats start understanding the difference between illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and terrorists, there is no discussion or recognition of "the problem."
The problem is how Democrats keep coming up with new names to evade the truth of the matter.

DRCJR63
5/2/2016 8:44 AM PST

Well you could have followed the law in the first place but did not. Knowing you were illegal and you still had children. Again, a choice you made. But let me guess, you did not have to pay that hospital bill? And those benefits for US born kids? Who paid for those? America, the great Central American entitlement program.

Rick Rolled
5/2/2016 8:36 AM PST

Time to finish the fence and wall and this problem will be eliminated in the future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_...

Roundingabout
5/2/2016 8:38 AM PST [Edited]

it's a start, the best solution will force illegals to leave on their own. Make being here legally a requirement for doing any business in the U.S. and they'll leave as they won't be able to exist otherwise.

Gametime
5/2/2016 8:54 AM PST

Don't stop with having Mexico pay for the wall. Also have them pay half of what it costs the U.S. to deport it's citizens. The government of Mexico doesn't care about our illegal immigration problem. It means billions of money sent back to Mexico from the law-breakers.

Outside_the_Beltway
5/2/2016 8:29 AM PST

Make America Third World Again!

Roundingabout
5/2/2016 8:34 AM PST

obviously Hillary's unspoken slogan

Gametime
5/2/2016 8:56 AM PST

Well, she and Democrats really have in mind that Euro-Socialist junk that is currently floundering and failing through-out Europe. People came to America to get away from Europe for the last 400 years. Now, tell us, why would we want to be like Europe?

SimpleCountryActuary
5/2/2016 8:27 AM PST

Here's another story the WaPo won't print.
John and Mary Smith walk down to the Mexican border and peer through the fence looking at the factories where their jobs went.

JudyJupiter
5/2/2016 8:30 AM PST

Wrong. If you google Washington Post and Mexican factories you can find dozens of articles. Were you too lazy to even try?

MaryamtheProud
5/2/2016 8:52 AM PST

"Mexican factories", Judy. But never any mention that these were originally AMERICAN factories that NAFTA sent to Mexico for the cheap labor, leaving Americans in cities like Detroit and Flint to poverty.

Roundingabout
5/2/2016 8:23 AM PST

and to think...if Gabriela Esparza never entered the country illegally with her father, she'd never have been in this situation. I guess she could just leave right?

Gametime
5/2/2016 8:57 AM PST

Yes, the mind sets of the criminally stupid always brings a tear to my eyes, too.

thedefendantX
5/2/2016 8:14 AM PST

Maybe we should not have just a new wall on our border with Mexico. Deepen and flood the Rio Grande, with water flotation barriers, so as to make navigation very much impossible without detection! Our border ranchers and farmers could use the free access to fresh water irrigation. Demand Mexico have checkpoints for visitor entry across our border in coordination with our border patrol.

david_gaithersburgs
5/2/2016 8:13 AM PST

Where's the stories about foreigners in the US illegally attacking Americans for exercising their right to vote and free speech? Where are the denunciations from Clinton?

Why are they letting them hug in the first place?

Our government is so stupid.

STOP THE HUGGING CRAP. GET THEM OUT OF HERE.

Give them 6 months to sell out, pack up and get out.

Cut off all taxpayer benefits, no school, no medical, no housing, no welfare, no food stamps, no sanctuary cities, no jobs, no driver's license. Declare ALL driver's licenses' null and void.

Make it clear there is NO such thing as an Anchor Baby! All non-citizens who give birth on US soil whether here on vacation, a Visa, here illegally or otherwise shall be issued a "Certificate of Child Born Abroad" and deported. No US Birth Certificate, no taxpayer benefits, no medical, no public school.

Do not detain...deport! No rights, no court, no judge, no lawyer, no lawsuit.

Give them 6 months to sell out, pack up and get out.

Cut off all taxpayer benefits, no school, no medical, no housing, no welfare, no food stamps, no sanctuary cities, no jobs, no driver's license. Declare ALL driver's licenses' null and void.

Make it clear there is NO such thing as an Anchor Baby! All non-citizens who give birth on US soil whether here on vacation, a Visa, here illegally or otherwise shall be issued a "Certificate of Child Born Abroad" and deported. No US Birth Certificate, no taxpayer benefits, no medical, no public school.

Do not detain...deport! No rights, no court, no judge, no lawyer, no lawsuit.

I think 60 days is sufficient, if that long.

I think 15 days is more than enough time to pack up and hit the road. Think of all the unemployed Americans who have nowhere to go when after they lost their jobs or hours got their eviction notices. They don't 6 months, they don't get 60 days. They get a couple of weeks at most.

Works for me! They can use that new "train" project. Load 'em up and move 'em out one-way South.