Santa Cruz Sheriff Says Illegals Aren’t ‘Criminals’?

November 30, 2007 | Filed Under Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Immigration/Immigrants, Media Bias, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Taxes, The Law, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

The AP has used the somewhat heartwarming tale of an illegal alien who found an American boy and his mother suffering from a car accident in the Arizona desert and stayed with them until help arrived as an excuse to plead that illegals aren’t “criminals” and should somehow be given a break. The AP tried to pin this wild leap in logic on Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, but they offer no quote marks around the sentence, so it is hard to say if the Sheriff really said that or the AP was extrapolating and putting words in the Sheriff’s mouth. Still, that this one illegal did something morally right even while he was breaking our laws, does not erase all the illegalities and law breaking that every other illegal immigrant has done over the last 30 years. Nor does it erase the fact that this particular illegal was breaking the law even as he was nice enough to help the little boy and his mother.

Here is the tale:

PHOENIX (AP) — A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said.

The 45-year-old woman, who eventually died while awaiting help, had been driving on a U.S. Forest Service road in a remote area just north of the Mexican border when she lost control of her van on a curve on Thanksgiving, Sheriff Tony Estrada said.

The van vaulted into a canyon and landed 300 feet from the road, he said. The woman, from Rimrock, north of Phoenix, survived the impact but was pinned inside, Estrada said.

Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help.

As night came on, Mr. Cordova built a fire to keep them warm and stayed with the boy until a couple of hunters spotted them and called for help. Cordova was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents and slated for return to his country.

OK, it was nice that Mr. Cordova had that pang of conscience enough to stay by this helpless child. It is possible he saved the boy’s life, and if he didn’t really save his life he certainly comforted the poor, scared kid through the trauma which may or may not have made the whole mess less of a trauma on him. For that Mr. Cordova deserves warm congratulations for his efforts and the knowledge that he did the right thing by the child.

But he doesn’t deserve a free pass into our country.

Here is how the AP ends their story (My Bold):

Cordova likely saved the boy, Estrada said, and his actions should remind people not to quickly characterize illegal immigrants as criminals.

“They do get demonized for a lot of reasons, and they do a lot of good. Obviously this is one example of what an individual can do,” he said.

Notice that they do not have quote marks around the words they attribute to Sheriff Estrada in the first sentence, there? The sentiment that illegals aren’t “criminals” is hard to square coming out of the mouth of a man tasked with upholding American laws via the office of county sheriff, isn’t it? If Sheriff Estrada really feels this way, it would seem to me that he is violating his oath of office at least in sentiment if not in actual operations. Still, since the AP did not use any quote marks, we cannot with any certainty say that Sheriff Estrada thinks illegals are all innocents, here. And with the track record of the AP, with its history of lies and obfuscating the truth, we cannot assume that they are actually presenting Estrada’s sentiments correctly. So, excuse me if I do not take for granted the AP’s claim that Sheriff Estrada said that illegals aren’t criminals.

After all, good people individually or no, illegals ARE criminals. You break a law and you ARE a criminal.

Further the sentence they do place quote marks around is not really the same sentiment as that in the unattributed sentence, exactly. Estrada says that illegals get “demonized.” I can agree with that. Sometimes anti-illegal immigrant activists get a bit carried away with how supposedly evil illegal immigrants really are. A dispassionate review of this issue can easily agree that illegals are sometimes overly “demonized.” Then the Sheriff says they “do a lot of good.” No one is saying all they do is necessarily bad, you know? Illegally immigrating here is the bad thing, but it does not follow that all illegal immigrants are somehow bad people because of it. But, like I said, even if they are basically good people, that inherent goodness does not absolve them of their lawbreaking.

So, I have suspicions that the AP might have exaggerated our good Sheriff’s words a bit. I have sent a query to the Sheriff’s dept. to see if they will respond and if I get an answer, I’ll post an update. But, even if the Sheriff agrees with the APs characterization of his words, Mr. Cordova was a nice guy — that is beyond dispute and no one should quibble with that. But, he still does not deserve to enter our country illegally solely because he was a nice fellow!

This treatment, however, so easily fits the leftist playbook that guides the APs writing. You see, in that vein of thinking, it doesn’t matter that laws were broken. And it’s all because he “meant well.” For the left, the ends always justifies the means.

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston