Tuesday's Washington Post reported that immigration-amnesty advocates are upset that Maryland's Prince George's County is deporting more non-criminals than criminals under the federal government's Secure Communities initiative. Team Obama promised to focus its deportation efforts on criminals. Reporter Shankar Vedantam relayed the concerns of the left (classified only as "immigration rights groups"), but there was no spot in this story for advocates for increased deportations of illegals:
Immigration rights groups say the program has led to the removal of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have committed far less serious crimes or none at all.
"The numbers out of Prince George's are absurd," said Gustavo Andrade, organizing director of CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group that is active in the county. "Even one family destroyed because of this kind of program makes it unacceptable."
People enforcing the immigration laws are "family destroyers"? The Post just allowed that wild-eyed accusation to hang there in black and white. The only debate was between the CASA people and the liberal government types in Prince George's and the Obama administration. Conservatives are smeared without rebuttal. The Post tried to explain away the obvious point that every illegal immigrant is a law-breaker -- whether they crossed the border illegally or stayed after a visa expired:
(Although being in the country without papers can sometimes be a crime - especially when the person is a repeat offender - undocumented immigration is usually an administrative violation.)
Vedantam also claimed the Obama team has "record deportations" on its resume.
The Obama administration has sought to demonstrate that it is serious about enforcement even as it has pushed for an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. But reform has stalled despite a record number of deportations over the past two years.
That links to another Vedantam story touting Team Obama that included only its critics on the "immigrants rights" groups of the left. Does Vedantam realize that border-control lobbying groups exist? James Antle in The American Spectator reported that the Obama folks are cooking the "record" books on deportations -- based on a report on the Washington Post website. Vedantam and his editors can't even seem to read their own site before boosting Obama "records."
