What does it take to tell a foreign national who's up to no good that he or she doesn't have a "right" to live in this country?

For leftist judges, apparently nothing.

Following the Supreme Court's May 19 ruling that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had the right to terminate "Temporary Protected Status" for 350,000 Venezuelans, hastily issued in the last week of his term, a group of 5,000 went back to a lower court, court shopping to locate one in Northern California, where few Venezuelans live, and found a judge who would overrule the Court on a Friday night.

The Epoch Times explained the logic as this:

The federal government cannot invalidate immigration documents that allow roughly 5,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the United States to remain in the country until October 2026, a federal court in California ruled on May 30.

A TPS designation protects individuals from deportation and allows them to apply for authorization to work in the United States.

The Associated Press explained that the plaintiffs didn't like the ruling, and Reuters explained that the argument was over the documents that they had been issued by Joe Biden which they claimed were still valid through 2026 despite the termination of the program. Reuters also noted that the Supreme Court did say in its ruling that individual Venezuelans could still apply for redress, so that must be where this comes from.

But why the suit, brought on by the ACLU and other activist groups included only 5,000 and not all of the 350,000 is still not entirely clear. It may be that the other 345,000 in the mass two-year amnesty issued at the 11th hour of Biden's presidency didn't apply to get the documents by the time the program was terminated.

One thing I do know from the court papers is that one of the 5,000, presented as a model non-citizen with a sob story, not only seemingly exaggerated a lot of the sob story part but was openly seeking to influence U.S. elections as a foreign national in Florida in a way that coincided with the interests and values of the Venezuelan government. That would support the national security argument the Trump administration put out about ending the TPS program.

In the suit, the usual blather about migrants contributing to the economy and a lot of racism charges directed against the Trump administration over Trump's campaign rhetoric about criminals being let in, as well as phony claims about the educational attainment of Venezuelans who rolled in during Biden's border surge were made, and the Northern California judge, who's probably never been to south Florida, bought those arguments hook, line, and sinker.

Then came the sob stories within the court papers, which, given the recent news narratives that rapidly fell apart, make me think they are never be what they claim to be.

This one caught my attention:

There is a Facebook page of a person with the same name in central Florida who has worked for a voter-registration project out there, and assuming it's the same person, I don't see any evidence of activities that would indicate political persecution -- no participation in the mass protests that have engulfed Venezuela over the years, no anti-Maduro or anti-Chavez memes posted. I know a lot of Venezuelans, and they all post pictures of this kind. There is a period around 2017-2018 on her page which might have been scrubbed -- there are no photos from the time, though it's possible she just stopped posting on Facebook. If it were scrubbed, I wonder what was scrubbed.

Her photos indicate that she already graduated from the University of Central Florida just fine, so it doesn't look like she was terribly debilitated in her studies. She also poses for a lot of pictures in public places -- at the beach, in front of an Orlando sign, at a public park -- so it doesn't look like she was too scared to walk around in public. The idea that she would be racially profiled in a place like Orlando or its suburbs, where almost everyone is Hispanic, is laughable. The "no family" left in Venezuela claim is a little weird, too -- everyone has extended family, though it may be that they were granted residency or asylum in some place like Spain or another country. But it's also possible that they are part of the repressive Venezuelan government, which she probably wouldn't want anyone looking too closely into. This is the problem with mass blanket amnesties like Joe Biden gave -- there is no distinction as to the merit of claims.

Her work history page on Facebook says she was a digital coalitions manager as of 2022 to Rep. Val Demings, a Florida Democrat. For about eight months before that, she says she worked for what is known as a third-party voter registration organization (3PVRO) called Mi Vecino, which make no secret of its goal of registering Democrats from among Hispanics in Florida and now in swing states. They raise their cash through ActBlue, and their social media shows pro-Kamala Harris signs from the last campaign.

Which is to say, she would have sought to influence U.S. elections as a foreign national.

That's pretty skeevy, particularly since the Facebook page, if it's the same person, shows no evidence of any activity with the Venezuelan opposition before she would have come to the U.S. in 2017.

The person on the Facebook page is a wokester activist, involved in lots of radical leftwing activism against the governor of Florida and his laws to protect children from porn literature, writing her undergraduate thesis on opposing things like gay porn directed at seven-year-olds as "censorship."

Her brother, whose Facebook page says he works for Facebook, which actually has been involved in censorship of Americans, indicates on his site that the family comes from Barinas, in Barinas state, in western Venezuela, which is Hugo Chavez's home state. That area has been identified as a Chavista stronghold, and the cradle of Chavismo, by the Associated Press (it's with the opposition now, since at least 2022), with Barinas itself a university town, and Chavez from Sabaneta, about 54 miles away. The state elected Hugo Chavez's dad as its governor during the time they would have lived there, by a 76% majority.

One other thing that raises flags about that is that she has an unusual resemblance to Hugo Chavez's eldest daughter, Maria Gabriela, making one wonder if there is a familial relationship, meaning, loyalty to Chavismo, which has always sought to influence U.S. elections. For sure, she'd probably be quite rich if she were in close, but families like Hugo's undoubtedly have a lot of extended hangers-on.

Now she comes here and engages in Chavista-friendly leftwing activity, including voter registrations for Democrats (I wonder what she would have said to all those Venezuelans who hate communism the way Cuban-Americans do) and one wonders about why she has such an odd agenda promoting leftists (who are often loyal advocates of Chavismo) through voter registration efforts, with herself being unable to vote as a foreign national. She's been involved in U.S. politics since at least 2020.

She was trying to cancel out Republican votes as a foreigner by using other Americans as pawns, so that amounts to foreign election interference. Whether she did it to support Chavismo, or just because she was radicalized in U.S. universities is unknown but that's where the national security risk lies. No one knows, but as a practical matter, there is no material difference, and it raises questions about potential Russian, Iranian, Cuban and Chinese agents participating the same way on behalf of their hate-America regimes.

Now she says she's entitled to TPS protection from deportation back to her homeland, when the rationale for ending TPS is that it covered a much-too-broad range of people, including criminals, and that asylum was available for those who think they need it. I haven't heard anything about her applying for asylum and it's possible she has, but it would be pretty interesting if she hasn't. The TPS protection extends to 2026, which would be in time for midterms. Her work history ends in 2022 on Facebook and she probably doesn't work for Mi Vecino now, but she says she is out registering voters in her court papers, so she may be with another group.

There was a controversy in Florida a couple years ago when the GOP-led state legislature reasonably tried to ban foreigners from participation in the U.S. election process, including registration of voters. A law, SB 7050 was passed in 2023, and a leftist judge overturned the part about keeping foreigners out of registering voters for elections, with the argument made that the foreigners found it "humilating." Some even made the argument that keeping noncitizens from voting was "unconstitutional." An argument was made that the foreigners were well trained in election matters, as if elections were just consumer durables and there was no need for sworn loyalty to the interests of the country, and the argument was made that when Mi Vecino found some registration irregularities in 2022 in Orange County in the Orlando vicinity, meaning, cheating, and they fired the people involved, which included one citizen and three noncitizens, as an honest broker of registrations. Since this person's Facebook page said she was with them in 2022, I wonder what she knew about that matter. 

The bottom line here is that it is passing strange that a foreigner would come here, seeking "protection" from Chavismo as a terrified refugee and then go right on promoting the Chavista agenda by trying to influence U.S. elections in the way most helpful to the regime of Nicolas Maduro.

People who are scared and just want protection don't do that, and TPS protectees shouldn't be engaged in politics at all, but people with other agendas, including national security-unfriendly ones, do.

Now a federal judge has ruled in her favor, allowing her to stay through 2026 so she can carry on her work registering Democrats to vote for leftists like she knows back home.

What's wrong with this picture?

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License