Lux Lucet

Today’s post is a continuation of last week’s, which concerned the deportation of Maribel Trujillo-Diaz. Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz, who had been living illegally in the US since 2002, was deported to her native Mexico on April 19.

The deportation took place despite an aggressive and emotional campaign by the Cincinnati Archdiocese and other social justice groups to subvert actual justice and keep Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz in the US.

It seemed good to write about this particular case, because it encapsulates many of the issues related to the current immigration debate in the US.

Last week we looked specifically at the intellectual arguments upon which Rome bases its immigration stance. Specifically, Rome’s erroneous doctrine of the Universal Destination of Goods (UDG). This communist doctrine, which teaches that “all the earth’s goods belong to all people,” informs all of Rome’s social teaching, including its position on immigration.

Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election in part on his promise to build a wall along the US southern border and make Mexico pay for it.

Rome’s immigration program, on the other hand, aims to flood the US with Roman Catholic immigrant welfare cases, in order to Romanize America and at the same time to stick the historically Protestant American people with the bill for their own dispossession.

But almost no one understands this.

That Rome has for decades succeeded in cloaking its wicked intentions behind a shroud of pious sounding social just platitudes serves to underscore the evil genius of Antichrist.

It would be a fairly simple thing to write another whole post on Rome and immigration. The subject is worthy of a whole book just by itself. But as time is limited, I must pass on to other subjects.

This week, I would like to review some of the other important aspects of this particular case, using them to highlight other facets of the immigration issue.

Apostate Protestants, Rome’s Useful Idiots

While reading through the many local and national reports on the Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz’ case, it became abundantly clear that the liberal, apostate Protestant denominations serve as an echo chamber for Rome’s social teaching. In essence, they are Rome’s useful idiots.

For example, the Cincinnati Enquirer carried a story titled “Faith groups uniting to keep Trujillo-Diaz family together” by Alan Dicken, pastor of Carthage Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who writes,

The Cincinnati Sanctuary Congregation Coalition is a coalition made up of nearly 20 congregations from many different faiths and denominations. The list [of] congregations that are involved is growing every week as more and more faith communities recognize that we need to be a city and a nation that respects the shared humanity of everyone who calls our country home.

Note well, this liberal pastor speaks of “faith communities” as if generic faith itself, apart from the object of that faith, is somehow commendable.

The article goes on to list the “faith communities” that are part of the coalition, which reads as a list of the usual liberal, apostate Protestant suspects with a smattering of Jewish, Muslim and Roman Catholic congregations.

One of the congregations listed in this article is the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection (ELCA). This is noteworthy for two reasons.

First, the ELCA is listed on the website of the Archdiocese of the Cincinnati’s website as one of the “other faith communities” the Archdiocese works with “in our common efforts to promote human life, dignity and care of God’s creation.”

Under the heading “Commemoration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation: Beginning Oct. 31, 2016” the Archdiocese explains,

On October 31, 2016, Pope Francis joined with representatives from the Lutheran World Federation in Lund, Sweden to launch a year-long commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Locally, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and ELCA Southern Ohio Synod are recognizing this anniversary as an opportunity to advance our ecumenical efforts towards unity in Christ.

Apparently, part of that unity is the work of undermining the rule of law in the United States. Which brings me to the second reason why the inclusion of the ELCA in the immigration rogues’ gallery is noteworthy.

The April 17, 2017 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer featured an article penned by Henry Zorn, pastor of the afore mentioned Lutheran Church of the Resurrection ELCA.

In his opinion piece, Zorn admits to participating in an ecumenical prayer vigil for Trujillo-Diaz at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Hamilton, OH, and liken the (at that time pending) deportation of Trujillo-Diaz to the deaths in Syria from the alleged sarin gas attack in early April.

In acting as he did, Zorn allowed himself to serve as a dupe of the Roman Church-State. In writing as he did, he shows himself incapable of making the simple, logical distinction between the murder of civilians in a gas attack and the lawful deportation of an individual who willfully violated US immigration statues.

But then, we have come to expect such nonsense from apostate 21st century Protestants, who have allowed themselves to become little more than props and useful idiots of the Roman Antichrist.

Appalling Appeals to Pity

The appeal to pity is considered and informal logical fallacy. The one who makes such an appeal asks his listeners to agree with him, not because he has a sound argument, but because they feel sorry for him.

Zorn’s article above is one such example. “We can’t deport Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz, because it would be causing the ‘death’ of a mother and wife,” is the essence of his argument.

As the old saying goes, I wish I had a dime for every appeal to pity I have read by advocates of taxpayer subsidized, mass immigration. I’d be a rich man indeed.

In the case of Trujillo-Diaz, writer after writer cried a river over the injustice of her deportation. But of all the appeals to pity I read relative to this case, the following headline from latina.com took first prize: ICE SET TO DEPORT LAW-ABIDING MOTHER OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS WHO ESCAPTED MEXICAN CARTELS.

Good grief! The article goes on to report that one of Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz’ children is pre-diabetic and another suffers from seizures.

But how any of this justifies Trujillo-Diaz’ law breaking is never made explicit. She came to the US in 2002 and has had four children.

The fact two of them have special needs is the responsibility of the American people, how?

This reminds me of the definition of chutzpah as a man who murders his parents and then begs mercy from the court because he’s an orphan.

The fact is, by her actions Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz created the very situation that being advanced as a reason for lenience in her deportation case. This is absurd.

Further, Mrs. Trujillo-Diaz is not law abiding. She came to the US in violation of our immigration laws, worked here for five years before getting caught, and then spent the next ten years appealing her case, eventually losing and being deported.

Much has been made about Trujillo-Diaz escaping Mexican drug cartels. Given the lack of specific information, it’s hard to judge whether this is a legitimate claim.

It has been reported that Trujillo-Diaz has a pending asylum request. This sounds suspicious to me. If t he main reason Trujillo-Diaz came to the US was to escape drug cartel violence, why did she, apparently, file her asylum request only recently? Why didn’t she file it in 2002 when she first came to the US.

From a distance, it appears to this author that the claim she escaped drug cartels is simply another appeal to pity, a device used to justify her law breaking after the fact.

Anchor Babies

Anchor babies are children born in the US to non-citizens, who nevertheless, due strictly to the circumstance of their being born on US soil, are American citizens.

Due to lack of clear information, it is impossible to say with certainty whether Trujillo-Diaz’ four American born children fit this description or not.

For the sake of this discussion, I will assume that they are, in fact, anchor babies.

According to this 2016 article from Forbes, “roughly one out of every 12 newborns in the United States [approx. 8%] can be classified as a so-called ‘anchor baby.’ ” This includes 295,000 children born to illegal immigrants and an estimated 36,000 births that occurred as a result of “birth tourism” in which the parents deliberately travel to the US in order for the mother to give birth on US soil and have US citizenship automatically conferred upon their children.

Assuming that Trujillo-Diaz’ children were born as anchor babies, statistics from the Census Bureau tell us that she probably requested welfare benefits on behalf of her US born children.

But even if her children were not anchor babies, Mexican immigrants have one of the highest rates of welfare usage of any immigrant group, clocking in at the rate of 75%.

It is a near certainty that American taxpayers have paid, and will continue to pay, for Trujillo-Diaz’ 2002 violation of American immigration law in the form of welfare.

The fact that the welfare system exists is, of course, not the fault of Trujillo-Diaz, nor is the anchor baby provision that has turned obtaining US citizenship into something of a joke. These are problems made in the USA. Trujillo-Diaz simply took advantage of them.

But the fact that such laws exist is alarming. They have created a giant magnet for illegal immigration. And as long as they are in place, foreigners were continue to take advantage of them.

Illegal Immigration Not A “Real” Crime

A consistent theme that runs through the articles about Maribel Trujillo-Diaz’ deportation is that she is an innocent, law-abiding resident.

This claim ignores completely the fact that her very first act in coming to the United States involved in breaking US immigration law.

Her lawyer described Trujillo-Diaz as having “lived here peacefully since 2002 with no criminal record.” Now perhaps the lawyer is using the term “no criminal record” to refer to the fact that she committed no legal violations since coming to the US.

If so, at least one observer is not impressed by this distinction. Trujillo-Diaz’ first act in coming to the US was to violate American immigration law.

Now maybe the lawyer meant by this that, because Trulillo-Diaz’ immigration case was still pending at the time she made the statement, she had not been found in violation of US immigration law and therefore did not have a criminal record.

That issue has now been settled. Because she was deported, the implication is that Maribel Trujillo-Diaz was found guilty of violating American immigration law and, therefore, has a criminal record.

All this ignores the fact that Trujillo-Diaz likely committed multiple acts of identity fraud during her stay in the US.

False Identification

As with many crimes, you can’t commit just one. After a person has entered the US illegally, in order to remain in the country to work, he almost certainly has to obtain a false Social Security Number (SSN).

What is the likelihood that Trujillo-Diaz used false identification? Listen to what Kevin De Leon, Senate President Pro Tem of California said.

I can tell you half of my family would be eligible for deportation under [President Donald Trump’s] executive order, because if they got a false Social Security card, if they got a false identification, if they got a false driver’s license prior to us passing AB60, if they got a false green card, and anyone who has family members, you know, who are undocumented knows that almost entirely everybody has secured some sort of false identification. That’s what you need to survive, to work. They are eligible for massive deportation.

If De Leon is right, and there’s no reason to doubt he is, it is a near certainty that Trujillo-Diaz used false ID, and that probably numerous times, during the five years between here illegal entry into the US in 2002 and when she was arrested in 2007.

While I’m not an expert on the legal issues surrounding the use of false ID, I feel fairly comfortable in saying it’s probably illegal to do so.

We Must Not Separate Families

A common argument against deportation is that it splits up families. But by this reasoning, the only people who could be punished for committing crimes are those who are single with no living relatives.

As Richard K. Jones, the sheriff of Butler Country where Trujillo-Diaz lived, observed,

Everybody that’s n my jail, I have close to a thousand prisoners, most all of them have kids or grandkids, and when they’re in jail – and these are American born – they’re separated from their children.

What is usually not stated in deportation cases is that the family does not have to remain separated – they could chose to reunite in Mexico.

Because Trujillo-Diaz’ husband has elected to remain in the US along with the children, is not the onus for the separation of the family on him rather than on the US legal system?

Donald Trump Promised To Go After Only “Bad Hombres”

Trujillo-Diaz’ priest put forth the argument that she should not be deported because the Trump administration said they were going to deport only illegal immigrants who committed violent crimes while in the US.

But the Trump administration never said that. Trump has stated that deportation efforts would be focused on violent criminals, but he never said non-violent illegal aliens would get off scot-free.

Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr asked for continued prosecutorial discretion in the case of Trujillo-Diaz. But her case was pending for ten years at the time she was deported. That seems like more than enough leniency.

Besides, as Kevin De Leon noted above, Trump’s executive order concerning deportation includes those who have used false ID, a non-violent offense.

One immigration lawyer described this as “going back to enforcement chaos.”

But it seems better to describe this change as “moving away from immigration chaos.”

You Have No Compassion!

Unless you’re one who advocates anything less than amnesty for all illegals yesterday, if not sooner, or unless you believe that all deportations represent the very height of human rights abuse, you’re almost certainly going to be labeled as “heartless” and “without compassion.”

But this is to make a false dichotomy between Christian compassion and the rule of law. A passage from Proverbs is applicable here.

People do not despise a thief

If he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving.

Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold;

He may have to give up all the substance of his house (Proverbs 6:30-31).

The thrust of this passage is that, although there are extenuating circumstances that make the commission of a crime understandable, such circumstances do not justify the act of wrongdoing. It is still a crime and still must be punished according to the law.

For my part, I can understand why people come to the US illegally, especially those who face economic hardship or persecution in their own country.

Further, US immigration law creates all kinds of perverse incentives for people to violate immigration statutes as well, the anchor baby provision discussed above being one of the main ones.

The Roman Church-State also encourages its members to disregard and violate American immigration law. And since most illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American nations are Roman Catholics, they can plausibly say that they’re only following the teaching of their priests and their bishops.

In Strangers No Longer Together On The Journey Of Hope, the bishops of the United States and Mexico argue that, although people have a right to seek to better themselves in their native countries, if this is not possible, they have the right to migrate, legally or illegally, the Church doesn’t much care, to find opportunities elsewhere.

In fact, the Roman Church-State openly admits that it aids and abets migrants in breaking US immigration law. Write the US and Mexican bishops,

The reality of migration, especially when the journey entails clandestine [read illegal border crossing, but clandestine somehow sounds better] border crossings, is often fraught with uncertainties and even dangers [as most illegal activities are]. As migrants leave their homes, pastoral counseling should be offered to help them to better understand realities and to consider alternative option, including legal means of immigration [buy, hey, in spite of the good bishops’ best intentions and efforts, people are going to illegally immigrate into the US, and we can’t tell them “no,” so…]

Prayer books and guides to social and religious services should be provided along the way [doubtless Rome would never be involved in providing food or money or sanctuary to migrants, or in any way helping to get them over the border, or evade getting caught, just religious tracts].

As an immigration report from earlier this month reads, “Just five people were eating dinner on a recent weeknight at a Texas church that is a stopping point for newly arrived immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.”

The church is not identified by name, but given Rome’s admitted contempt for American immigration law, is it so unlikely that this is a Roman Catholic church that is providing these services?

The Mexican government is no better about respecting American law than the Roman Church-State. For example, in 2005 Mexican Foreign ministry published a guide which provided instructions to help Mexicans successfully cross the border illegally and avoid getting deported once in the US. You can view a copy of the guide here.

All of this is to say that if Maribel Trujillo-Diaz and other Mexicans show such disregard for American immigration law, the fault is not entirely their own. They have been well trained by both their Church and their government to hold American law, and by extension the American people, in contempt.

A Better Way

Under the present circumstances, it was right and proper for the US government to deport Maribel Trujillo-Diaz from the US back to Mexico. She knowingly violated American immigration law and very likely other laws as well while she remained in the country illegally for fifteen years.

The best thing that can be said of those individuals and organizations who worked so diligently to prevent justice from being served is that they were misguided. In some cases, such as the prelates of the Roman Church-State, it is this writer’s opinion that their behavior in the matter was treasonous.

But although practical considerations made deportation the right choice, this is not to say that circumstances could not be changed to allow for better options in the future.

This is a good land. And as a Christian, I am happy to share the blessing God has bestowed and the United States with other people of good will. But for that to happen, changes must be made.

I call upon all those who sought to prevent Maribel Trujillo-Diaz’ deportation to join with me in calling for,

1. An end to birthright citizenship. There is no sound Biblical reason why citizenship should be conferred upon a child simply because he is born within the borders of the United States. According to Scripture, citizenship is received in one of two ways: i) by children having at least one parent who is a citizen of the United States, and ii) adults who take an oath of citizenship. Further, the Constitution does not require the 14th Amendment be applied to the children of illegal immigrants. It is done so as a matter of interpretation which does not require a Constitutional amendment. Ron Paul has pointed out that Congress has the Constitutional authority to clarify how the 14 Amendment is applied.
   
2. The rollback, and eventual elimination of, the welfare state. Neither the Scriptures nor the Constitution permit the federal government to run a welfare state. All governmental authority is derived from Scripture, it is not original. That is to say it is ministerial, not magisterial. And according to the Apostle Paul, God has endowed civil authorities with two, and only two, tasks: i) the punishment of evildoers and ii) the praise of those who do good. Any government action beyond this represents a sinful usurpation on the part of civil authorities. The welfare state, properly understood, is theft.
   
3. And end of affirmative action. As with so many government programs, the 1964 Civil Rights did the opposite of what its name would suggest. Instead of ensuring the civil rights of all Americans, it served as a hammer blow to property rights, inviting the government into the private affairs of Americans in a way that hitherto had been unimagined. This act also encouraged the creation of professional ethnic lobbying groups whose goal is to help their particular group compete with other minority groups in extracting benefits from America’s racial spoils system. From the point of view of Americans, in particular white Americans, inviting large numbers of minorities into the country is almost an act of suicide, and it is unreasonable and unfair to expect them not to be concerned.
   

All that said, I’m under no illusion that the prelates of the Roman Church-State would agree to any of the above three points. In fact, the Roman Church has worked diligently over the years not only to bring such laws into existence, but to defend them and to expand their scope.

But perhaps there are some who, having supported Maribel Trujillo-Diaz, will read this and be inclined to consider what I have said. To them I extend my thanks for their honest consideration. My quarrel is not with you, or with immigrants or with immigration per se, but with those who seek to weaponize this issue to advance their ungodly political agenda.