BY ERICK ERICKSON
One of my very first legal clients was an illegal alien named Alejandro. He migrated from Central America and lived in Macon, GA. He and his wife worked multiple jobs. They had children born in the United States. They sent much of their money back to Central America to provide for their families there.
Alejandro saved his money to buy a double-wide trailer with new appliances with cash. He hired me because he claimed that, when his trailer was delivered, it was single wide with used appliances and cracks in the countertops and cabinets. He claimed he went to the company from which he had bought it and the manager told him, "I know you're an illegal alien. I can have you deported you f -- king sp-c."
In the year of our Lord 2001, that sounded too good to be true. Nonetheless, I fired off a letter to the company in Boston. Two weeks later, I got a letter from the general counsel informing me that the company would make Alejandro whole and pay him some additional money for his inconvenience. I called the lawyer and fessed up. "Ma'am, I just want to ask you a question, lawyer to lawyer. I am only a few months into practice. He is just about my first client. Between us, can you explain what happened?"
She laughed and said, "I got your letter. There was no way something like this could happen, even in the South, in the twenty-first century. I called the manager in Middle Georgia and asked if he remembered the guy. His first words were, 'I remember that f -- king sp-c.' We fired him immediately."
Frequently, well-intentioned Democrats in the media ask who will pick our crops, or take care of our children, or grandparents or do other menial labor. Illegal immigrants are often taken advantage of by the people who call them "undocumented" and insist on letting them stay in the United States.
The conversations around the issue of illegal immigration have become mendacious. Former Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas said on CNN the other night that illegal immigrants -- who she insisted be called "undocumented" -- had not committed a crime coming here. Instead of a crime, she said, it was a misdemeanor like a DUI. As a recovering lawyer, I am pretty sure a misdemeanor is a crime, and DUI is serious. Progressives and their friends in the media have all embraced "undocumented" or "migrant," convinced that by changing the words, they change reality.
Ideally, I think someone who has been in the country for several decades and committed no crimes while here should be allowed to stay, but never be given citizenship. I think those who came here as infants and have no memory of their native land should be allowed to stay, but never given citizenship. But also, in the 1980s, Republicans and Democrats agreed to a mass amnesty and insisted it would never happen again.
Over the past decade, Democrats have not only opened the border but also allowed a flood of illegal immigrants into the country. They have, concurrently, denied they were doing so and insisted the border was secure. The American press corps has largely helped perpetuate the lies and cannot even use the accurate phrase "illegal immigrant" because they have convinced themselves that the legally accurate phrase is a pejorative.
My idealism has to give way to reality. Democrats have continued to lie about the problem and make it worse. The press corps cannot be honest either. The only way to fix the problem is to fully embrace the rule of law and restore it through aggressive deportations of illegal aliens, particularly those with criminal records.
In 2019, Chief Justice John Roberts, in rejecting President Donald Trump's ending of DACA, the Obama program that allowed illegal aliens to stay in the country, wrote, "The dispute before the Court is not whether DHS may rescind DACA. All parties agree that it may. The dispute is instead primarily about the procedure the agency followed in doing so." Roberts then outlined the procedure by which Donald Trump could end DACA. It is time Trump does so.