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Cop's Shooting Death May Upend Debate Surrounding Government Shutdown
Townhall.com ^ | December 30, 2018 | Debra J. Saunders

Posted on 12/30/2018 6:46:34 AM PST by Kaslin

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump found a strong political issue in a brutal and needless crime on Thursday when he tweeted about the murder of a central California police officer at the hands of a man believed to be an illegal immigrant.

This awful crime is likely to upend the debate surrounding a government shutdown that began because Trump rejected a compromise budget -- which the White House had signaled he would sign -- that did not include some $5 billion for border wall funding.

For their part, Democrats don't want to give him that victory.

That could change.

On Friday, Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson announced that authorities had arrested a suspect, Gustavo Perez Arriaga, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, in connection with the shooting death of Newman police Cpl. Ronil Singh. Singh had pulled over Arriaga for suspected drunk driving Thursday at 1 a.m.

The suspect, he said, had two prior convictions for drunk driving, a "known gang affiliation" and was trying to flee to Mexico. "We can't ignore the fact that this could have been preventable," the sheriff said.

Christianson faulted California's sanctuary state law that prohibits local enforcement from communicating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless authorities are holding an undocumented immigrant convicted of certain felonies within 15 years.

"Ladies and gentlemen" he warned, "this is not how you protect the community."

Singh was the personification of the American dream -- a legal immigrant from Fiji who "came to America to become a police officer," a grief-stricken Police Chief Randy Richardson told reporters.

The 33-year-old Singh leaves behind a wife and a beautiful five-month old baby boy. "He had a fascination for making himself better," said Richardson.

It is impossible to learn of Singh's death and not think of Kate Steinle, the San Francisco woman who was fatally shot in July 2015 as she walked along the city's waterfront with her father and a family friend. The man who shot her, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, was an undocumented immigrant with a long criminal record that included seven U.S. felony convictions and five deportations to Mexico -- and he was on the streets courtesy of San Francisco's sanctuary city law.

After Garcia Zarate was released from a federal prison in 2015, authorities transferred the multiple felon to San Francisco based on a warrant for a 20-year-old marijuana charge. The district attorney's office then dropped the moldy charge. Rather than comply with an ICE detainer request, the sheriff's office freed the career criminal in keeping with the sanctuary city policy.

Steinle's death was completely preventable. "She was murdered because of a failure of immigration policy," said Mark Krikorian of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies. San Francisco's 2013 sanctuary ordinance protected undocumented immigrants in custody unless they had been convicted of a violent felony in the past seven years.

Supporters of sanctuary laws essentially believe that noncitizens not only have the right to break U.S. immigration laws, but also the right not to be deported if they are convicted of many felonies and misdemeanors.

No wonder Trump accuses them of supporting open borders.

As a Republican candidate for president in 2015, Trump quickly seized on Steinle's preventable death as "yet another example of why we must secure our border immediately. This is an absolutely disgraceful situation and I am the only one who can fix it Nobody else has the guts to even talk about it. That won't happen if I become president."

Singh's death shows how a legal immigrant who did everything right can be the one who pays for bad laws.

Shortly before Christmas, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux blamed California's sanctuary state law from preventing his officers from honoring a detainer request by ICE for Gustavo Garcia, who had been arrested for erratic behavior and testing positive for a controlled substance. Rather than hand Garcia over to ICE, Tulare released him. Within minutes Garcia began shooting people. He killed two and injured others.

"That tool has been removed from our hands," Boudreaux told reporters, "and because of that, our county was shot up by a violent criminal."

Washington should do something about this.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: aliens; bordersecurity; crime
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To: Lazamataz

the liberals along with the media may frame this exactly as you said and may offer that as the trade for a wall


21 posted on 12/30/2018 7:31:33 AM PST by no-to-illegals (Liberals, Rinos, moslems, illegals, lamestream media. All want America to fail and die)
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To: Kaslin

Trump rejected a compromise budget — which the White House had signaled he would sign...

In other words, the media made up stories based on unattributed “reports” that he would sign it in order to undercut his standing with his base. When THAT didn’t turn out to be true, the narrative is that he’s STILL at fault because now he’s doing something other than what the “White House” originally “signaled”.


22 posted on 12/30/2018 7:32:35 AM PST by Pravious
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To: bgill

Makes more sense than naming a piece of highway after obama.


23 posted on 12/30/2018 7:33:15 AM PST by Leep (Leftist are neither liberal or democratic. Nor are they pro American.)
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To: ChildOfThe60s

She is conservative but I think she writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, which forbids the term “illegal alien”.


24 posted on 12/30/2018 7:34:05 AM PST by Sicvee (Sicvee)
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To: no-to-illegals

I’m a little worried about Trump on the gun issue. I’ve seen him enact gun control by Presidential Fiat already, and he doesn’t seem like this is one of his core issues. I, too, could see him bargaining away our rights to get a concession on another (to him) more important issue.


25 posted on 12/30/2018 7:34:43 AM PST by Lazamataz (You know, when I advised Democrats to vote AFTER Nov 6th, I didn't think they'd actually DO it.)
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To: TADSLOS; Tennessee Nana

ping


26 posted on 12/30/2018 7:35:03 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: HotHunt

After reading an interview with Gen. Kelly in the LA Times taking a shameless, petty swipe at President Trump on his way out the door, I don’t think there’s anybody in DC I trust anymore but Trump himself.

Ditto.

What a classless parting shot from General Asshole. It shows very well why, once again, Trump was correct in not trusting - or retaining such people.


27 posted on 12/30/2018 7:35:42 AM PST by Pravious
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To: Lazamataz

Valid thought regrettably


28 posted on 12/30/2018 7:37:41 AM PST by no-to-illegals (Liberals, Rinos, moslems, illegals, lamestream media. All want America to fail and die)
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To: Kaslin

ALL Demoncrat and open border GOP voters have blood on their hands...you OWN IT!


29 posted on 12/30/2018 7:39:36 AM PST by who knows what evil? (Yehovah saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.com)
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To: Kaslin
Open borders are in violation of the law and undermine the concept of law and society itself.

Please check my tagline.

30 posted on 12/30/2018 7:40:04 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Liberals/Democrats/GOPe's 2019 Strategy, mantra, plan = 'No Borders, No Walls, No USA at All!')
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To: ChildOfThe60s

“When are these writers going to stop calling illegals “undocumented immigrants”? There is no such thing as an “undocumented immigrant”, it is an oxymoron.”

Maybe they’ll agree to a compromise - Undocumented Illegals!


31 posted on 12/30/2018 7:40:49 AM PST by ProudVet97
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To: ChildOfThe60s

A “undocumented immigrant”, would be someone who legally is here and simply left their green card at home when they went out to run an errand.


32 posted on 12/30/2018 7:41:50 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (I don't want better government; I want much less of it.)
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To: central_va; Kaslin

This is very personal for me. My aunt was crossing a street — in a crosswalk— when she was struck by a car driven by an illegal. She was in hospital and rehab for over a year, and we didn’t think she would live, or if she did, might never walk again. Thank God, she recovered, but she was never the same. BTW — we never found out what, if anything ever happened to the POS.


33 posted on 12/30/2018 7:43:10 AM PST by Polyxene (Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.)
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To: Kaslin

It won’t.

In the minds of these Facists, this event was just collateral damage in their efforts to destroy America’s foundational principles and the rule of law.


34 posted on 12/30/2018 7:43:33 AM PST by gov_bean_ counter (Ruth Bader Ginsburg doctor is a taxidermist.)
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To: Candor7

“The BIG HURT will soon descend on these leftist Anti-ICE traitors.”

I am not so sanguine given the stupidity of American voters. After all, they just gave the very party that supports open borders, abolishing ICE etc. majority rule in the house. All these filthy bastards care about is a steady stream of new democrat voters. May the wrath of Thor fall upon them.


35 posted on 12/30/2018 7:48:29 AM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Kaslin

“.... the murder of a central California police officer at the hands of a man believed to be an illegal immigrant.”

BELIEVED to be an illegal immigrant! There’s nothing BELIEVED about it at all. He IS an illegal immigrant. Just wished we had a reasonable BELIEF that he would be executed for his crime.


36 posted on 12/30/2018 7:50:46 AM PST by vette6387
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To: Polyxene

What state?


37 posted on 12/30/2018 7:55:58 AM PST by vette6387
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To: Pravious

What, specifically, did General Kelly say? I missed that interview.


38 posted on 12/30/2018 8:03:24 AM PST by Spacetrucker (George Washington didn't use his freedom of speech to defeat the British - HE SHOT THEM .. WITH GUNS)
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To: Kaslin

Here is an example of where conservative journalists have been losing this for us.

“Democrats don’t want to give him that victory.”

Why not “Democrats don’t want to give the American voters that victory.”

?


39 posted on 12/30/2018 8:03:42 AM PST by stanne
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To: bgill

how bout...……….the “Steinle, Singh, Kunhardt, Trenchant” Defense of American Citizens Act”...………….


40 posted on 12/30/2018 8:07:24 AM PST by Cen-Tejas
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