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| Judge Shelly Joseph indicted. |
The move marks the latest skirmish over immigration between President Donald Trump's administration and local governments who have resisted his crackdown. The state's Democratic attorney general called the charges "politically motivated." The charges target Massachusetts District Court Judge Shelley Joseph, 51, and Massachusetts Trial Court Officer Wesley MacGregor, 56.
They focus on an April 2018 hearing in Newton District Court, outside Boston, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer intended to arrest an unidentified suspected illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic facing a drug charge.
They described a huddled conversation between the judge and the defendant's lawyer in which Joseph asks, "ICE is gonna get him?" and later says, "I'm not gonna allow them to come in here." She then arranged for the suspect to be released through the court's rear door while the ICE agent waited in the courtroom's lobby for him to emerge.
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, a Trump appointee, said the case was not intended to send a political message. "We did not bring this case in response to the public debate over immigration enforcement," he said.
State Attorney General Maura Healey rejected that assertion. "Today's indictment is a radical and politically-motivated attack on our state and the independence of our courts," Healey said in a statement. Representatives of the judge and court officer did not respond to requests for comment.
The state Supreme Judicial Court suspended Joseph without pay, but said its move "in no way reflects any opinion on the merits of the pending criminal case." The charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
The suspect has since been caught and is now in federal custody. Massachusetts' top court in 2017 ruled that state police cannot detain illegal immigrants solely to buy time for federal officials to take them into custody.
One of Trump's top priorities in office has been cracking down on illegal and legal immigration and he has regularly railed against "sanctuary" cities and states that do not cooperate with all aspects of federal immigration enforcement.
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| US Attorney Andrew Lelling a Trump appointee. |
“This case is about the rule of law,” said United States Attorney Andrew Lelling in the press statement: We cannot pick and choose the federal laws we follow, or use our personal views to justify violating the law. Everyone in the justice system – not just judges, but law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and defense counsel – should be held to a higher standard. The people of Massachusetts expect that, just like they expect judges to be fair, impartial and to follow the law themselves.
Nationwide, roughly one million illegals have been ordered home by judges but have not yet been detained and deported. Many of those illegals are living in communities populated by the nation’s illegal immigrants, whose numbers range from 11 million to 22 million.
Thousands of Illegal Aliens from Terrorist Nations Live in US
Months after Judicial Watch reported that migrants from terrorist nations try to enter the U.S. via Mexico at record rates, government figures show that more than 10,000 illegal aliens from countries that sponsor terrorism currently live here.
It’s not clear how they entered the country but federal authorities know about them because they have either been deported or have final removal orders pending. Nevertheless, they are not in custody and roam freely in unsuspecting communities throughout America.
The distressing statistics were obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by a public interest group that favors secure borders and exposes the harms of mass migration. The Washington D.C. nonprofit filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and made the figures public this month.
They show 10,340 non-detained illegal immigrants from Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea on ICE’s national docket as of June 2018. Iran tops the list with 6,331, followed by Syria (2,128), Sudan (1,860) and North Korea (21). All four countries have been designated as sponsors of terrorism by the State Department.
The U.S. government has determined that Iran is the “foremost state sponsor of terrorism” because it provides a range of support, including financial, training and equipment, to groups worldwide, particularly Hezbollah. Syria is also a hotbed of Hezbollah militants and Al Qaeda-linked jihadists.
A recent RAND Corporation study concluded that the most significant threat to the United States comes from terrorist groups operating in a handful of Middle Eastern countries that include Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The State Department also classifies Syria as a dangerous country plagued by terrorism.
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| 76 Bangladeshi illegals crammed inside a cargo truck at border. |
During the Syrian refugee crisis, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted that dozens of Syrian nationals suspected of having terrorist ties slipped into the U.S. The agency tried to downplay the travesty, claiming that federal agents missed “possible derogatory information” about the immigrants due to “a lapse in vetting.”
Among those who slipped through the cracks is a man who failed a polygraph test after applying to work at a U.S. military installation and another who communicated with an Islamic State leader.
Regardless, President Obama the Muslim let thousands of Syrians settle in the U.S. even as his own intelligence and immigration officials warned that individuals with ties to terrorist groups used the program to infiltrate the country and that there was no way to properly screen refugees.
Along the southern border federal agents routinely encounter individuals from terrorist nations and DHS considers them one of the top threats to the United States. The government classifies them as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and they are flowing north via Latin America in huge numbers thanks to established Transitional Criminal Organizations (TCO) that facilitate travel along drug and migrant smuggling routes.
An investigation completed by Congress earlier this year found that tens of thousands of SIAs—from the Middle East, Asia and Africa—entered Panama and Colombia in the past few years. Nearly all the SIA migrants were headed to the United States and most came from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bangladesh and India.
Encounters with the special interest individuals resulted in the seizure of tens of thousands of fraudulent documents—including passports and visas—that facilitated travel from their countries of origin through the Americas, according to a report released earlier this year by the congressional committee that conducted the probe.
The famously porous Mexican border is an easy pathway into the U.S. for many SIAs. In Laredo, Texas alone authorities report an astounding 300% increase in immigrants from Bangladesh, a south Asian Islamic country well known as a recruiting ground for terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).
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| Eight Bangladeshi illegals captured at the Mexico border. |
The number of Bangladeshi nationals apprehended after illegally crossing from Mexico into Laredo, Texas, has grown dramatically over the past two years from just one person in fiscal year 2016 to more than 400 so far this year, a trend one border official attributed to poverty in Bangladesh.
Eight more Bangladeshi citizens were taken into custody by federal agents patrolling the border on Sunday, bringing this year's total to 400, a Border Patrol spokesman for the Laredo Sector in south-central Texas told the Washington Examiner.
Through roughly the first six months of fiscal year 2018, 183 Bangladeshis were apprehended by Laredo agents, more than the total number apprehended in all of 2017. Apprehensions more than doubled from 183 between April and July, even though apprehensions usually drop during the summer months.
Bangladeshis still make up a small portion of the hundreds of thousands of people apprehended at the border each year. But Laredo Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Gabriel Acosta told the Washington Examiner that Bangladeshis are enticed by both push and pull factors. The poor economy in their home country is a push factor, and they are going to the U.S. to "take advantage of immigration laws here."
But being smuggled to the U.S. is not cheap. Bangladeshis pay smuggling organizations up to $27,000 per person, Acosta explained. They will fly to South America, where the smuggling organizations who have organized their trips have infrastructure and contacts in place to begin moving them north.
Acosta said Laredo happens to be where the trafficking organization has people in place to get those being smuggled into the U.S. "Once they turn themselves in, they claim asylum. They have also been coached what to say. After some time in DHS custody, they are given a court date and released. Most are never seen again," he added.
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| Five Bangladeshi illegals captured at the Mexico border. |
