(Freedom.news) Overburdened American taxpayers already pony up for their health care, education, child care and other benefits, and now top Democrats in Congress want more: Taxpayer-funded attorneys for illegal immigrants.
As reported by the Washington Times, top Senate Democrats introduced legislation last week that would give attorneys to tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children and their mothers who surged across the U.S. southern border from Mexico and Central America, proving once again that there’s nothing more pressing for Senate Democrats than finding out new and interesting ways to spend more of your hard-earned money.
In arguing that the Obama administration hasn’t been fair to illegal immigrants by [egads!] forcing them to wind their way through a complex legal system without paying proper attention to their rights [wait – didn’t they break into the country of their own volition? And who’s responsible for actually creating that “complex legal system” if not lawyers-turned-lawmakers in Congress?].
As you might expect this effort is being spearheaded by Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader, who is demanding lawyers for illegals as well as other protections – like permitting them to delay their trials until being given access to their entire government file [the government has entire files on all illegal immigrants?].
At present illegals can hire their own attorneys – like American citizens must do – but the government is barred from paying for them [like it doesn’t pay for a citizen’s lawyer, either].
This legislation doesn’t have much of a chance in the Republican-controlled Congress, thankfully, because there’s no question that if it passes before President Obama leaves office he would likely break a leg running to the Oval Office to sign it.
“Look, deportation means death for some of these people,” Reid said. “Given the life-and-death consequences of deportation to this region, we must ensure that we are not putting asylum-seeking women and children in harm’s way. We can do this by making sure that these desperate women and children have a lawyer.”
Oh, sure – it’s our fault that these people come from failed countries that are chronically violent and impoverished. What Reid purposefully fails to mention is that the United States has always served as a beacon of freedom for just about anybody, but they must follow a prescribed legal process in order to come here – just like in every other country. And besides, it is policies that his president has implemented that has caused the migrant surges in recent years in the first place – policies Reid has said he approves of.
Meanwhile, back the [sur]real world of the hapless American, lawyers remain a luxury that few can afford, given the high fees most charge for even rudimentary services (hey – when are all the lawyers in Congress going to call for “legal reform?” Can you imagine Congress promising to “reduce legal bills up to $2,500 a year” and “if we like our lawyer, we can keep our lawyer”?). Granted, we do have to right to a court-appointed attorney if we can’t afford one – but those men and women are generally so overworked they are unable to concentrate on cases like they should.
Besides that, this sad episode vividly points out, once again, that the Party of Washington is hopelessly out of touch with the citizens it purports to represent. You can’t tell us that the people in Nevada whom Reid has all but forgotten – er, says he represents – are clamoring for him to take up this fight. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the country who is pressing his or her representative to introduce a “lawyers for illegals” bill. Fact is, the majority of Americans don’t like Obama’s and Reid’s “if you can run, walk or crawl to the U.S. you can stay” approach to immigration.
So while this particular bill won’t go anywhere, thankfully, it will nonetheless throw another wrench into the overall immigration debate, further complicating an already contentious, over-sensitized issue that seems impossible to solve in today’s political climate. And maybe that’s all Reid, a long-time political bomb-thrower, wanted to do.
Sad, but typical.
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