A solution to a
problem that does not solve the problem but instead creates in the public mind
the appearance of a solution is often a useful political gambit. This appears
to be the case with “Casey’s Law,” a non-solution that saves politicians the
trouble of bruising their knuckles on the destructive policies they support –
such as sanctuary cities.
It is a fiction that
there are only a limited number of sanctuary cities in Connecticut. The truth
is – the entire state is a sanctuary state.
Sanctuary states and
cities are cesspools of nullification, a throwback to a time in U.S. history
when Confederate States and some local jurisdictions nullified federal laws for
racial reasons. The nullification of U.S. Congress approved federal laws is
especially curious in Connecticut within an administration that recently insisted
in state courts that the state’s Clean election laws, which prevent state contractors
from making election contributions to politicians who may be in a position to
reward them with political favors, must give way to Federal procedures and laws
that permit state contractors to make such contributions when the insertion of a
voting instruction into a gubernatorial campaign brochure magically transforms
the document into federal literature.
Once Governor Dannel
Malloy and his accomplices in the General Assembly decided to establish sanctuary
cities in Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, they sidestepped immigration and
naturalization laws that had apply in those cities. It is a supreme irony
unnoticed by critics of Mr. Malloy that the same state and governor that
decided national campaign laws preempt Connecticut’s Clean Election Laws, here decided that a state processing rule –
thou shalt not deport illegal aliens in sanctuary cities – preempts national
immigration and naturalization policy enforced by ICE, a federal agency charged
with applying federal law uniformly to all
the states in the union, including Connecticut.
Once sanctuary
cities were allowed in Connecticut, the whole state became a sanctuary-nullification
state – because the whole purpose of sanctuary is to provide a space outside
the law for potential criminals, and what holds in one municipality applies to all.
The Federal Government has not applied
effective sanctions to Connecticut – say, a reduction in federal grants – to induce
the state to obey applicable laws, and it will not do so.
Federal agencies in
the age of President Barack Obama also are engaging in nullification. The Department
of Justice, for instance, has showered $342,168,401 upon 10 sanctuary states
and cities, Connecticut among them, that reject federal claims for criminal
illegal aliens earmarked for removal, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General.
According to a
recent report in Judicial Watch, Connecticut is “a trailblazer in the sanctuary
movement that received more than $69 million in grants from the DOJ.
Connecticut has long protected illegal immigrants with sanctuary policies and
even offers them special drivers’ licenses, known as Drive Only. The state also
gives illegal aliens discounted tuition at public colleges and universities and
authorities work hard to restrict the Feds from deporting illegal immigrants.
Last year an illegal immigrant who had spent 17 years in prison for attempted
murder stabbed a 25-year-old woman to death in
Norwich, a city of about 40,000 residents. The murderer had been earmarked for
deportation at least three times.”
The Obama
administration has winked at the penetration of U.S. borders by illegal aliens,
which may help to explain why Jean Jacques, an illegal alien from Haiti was
released into the general population after serving seventeen years in
Connecticut prisons after having been convicted of attempted murder.
The state of
Connecticut has had 17 years to be certain that Mr. Jacques, upon release from
prison, would be deported to Haiti. This did not happen.
When Mr. Jacques cruelly murdered Casey Chadwick in Norwich shortly after his release – the 25
year-old victim was stabbed 17 times, her bleeding body dumped into a closet –
the crime soon reached the attention of the members of Connecticut’s
all-Democratic U.S. Congressional Delegation. John Berry of the Norwich Bulletin had covered the gruesome murder and
subsequent trial of Mr. Jacques in painful detail. Senator Blumenthal, after having
been approached at one of his frequent media opportunities by Wendy Hartling,
Ms. Chadwick’s stricken mother, and radio talk show host Lori Hopkins
Cavanagh, seemed particularly empathetic.
Mr. Blumenthal’s
answer to a President that scoffs at laws passed by Congress is yet another
law, “Casey’s Law,” that would, according to a piece in the Norwich Bulletin “hold accountable countries that systematically refuse or delay the
repatriation of their citizens who have been convicted of a violent crime, or
who pose a threat to public safety” by notifying foreign governments that
refuse to accept repatriated illegal aliens “that the United States may deny
visas to their citizens.”
Of course, it is the
United States and its nullification president that has been refusing to
repatriate illegal aliens. Indeed, the Obama administration has been rewarding
with loads of cash sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to abide by laws passed
by, among other lawmakers, Dick Blumenthal. Why not punish sanctuary cities for
doing what Haiti has done, refusing to honor laws passed by Mr. Blumenthal’s
Senate?
It is laughably
doubtful, Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer Chris Powell writes in a recent column, that Haiti or other countries will be deterred by a NOTICE that
the United States MAY deny visas to counties that refuse U.S. repatriations –
or not, if the lawbreakers reside in sanctuary states like Connecticut:
“Haiti and other sources of illegal immigration might cooperate more with deportations if failure to cooperate triggered suspension of U.S. financial aid or an economic embargo. Indeed, such countries might cooperate more if, as Republican members of Congress have proposed, the federal government cut off financial aid to ‘sanctuary cities’ to stop their obstruction of immigration law.
“But illegal immigrants and their enablers have become a big constituency of the Democratic Party, and Blumenthal and Courtney are Democrats. While they regret Chadwick's murder and the many crimes committed by other illegal immigrants, Blumenthal and Courtney don't regret them enough to risk proposing anything that might be effective. Their legislation is only guilty posturing. They should have skipped it and just sent flowers to Chadwick's funeral.”
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