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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: ChildOfThe60s

We need fancier names for bank robbers, drug dealers and murderers too :)

Legally Challenged could be one :)


41 posted on 12/30/2018 8:07:58 AM PST by dp0622 (The Left should know if.. Trump is kicked out of office, it is WAR!)
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To: Leep
No problem for the left at all. they don't like cops and want them all dead. They publicized their intent on the streets of NY.

"What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!"

A day later two NY cops were shot point blank in their patrol car by a NJ insane man who was inspired by the BLM march. Same as in Dallas, TX except the deranged shooter killed 5 more cops. Dead cops are good for illegals, thus good for the leftists.

42 posted on 12/30/2018 8:16:39 AM PST by thirst4truth (America, What difference does it make?)
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To: CottonBall

All of this is so incredibly sad and maddening. What this country is turning into is disgusting and I hate every leftist who supports agendas that are killing Americans and killing America. The attention span of the average American is that of a gnat so this will be forgotten.


43 posted on 12/30/2018 8:19:57 AM PST by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: Kaslin

The lawsuits need to start flying like crazy.


44 posted on 12/30/2018 8:19:59 AM PST by headstamp 2
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To: Kaslin

7 others have also been arrested for aiding & abetting the escape of this killer.

Family & other GANG members assisted him.


45 posted on 12/30/2018 8:26:46 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: CottonBall
They are not illegal aliens.

An action is illegal.

A person who breaks the law isn't called an illegal, he or she is called a criminal.

They are criminal aliens.

46 posted on 12/30/2018 8:27:07 AM PST by null and void (The Deep State is why even though our economy is booming, the stock market is losing ground.)
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To: null and void

That works for me also. But the term illegal alien has been around for a long time, used well before all the political correctness changed it.

But I like that, if someone ever tells me not to call them illegal aliens I will say okay I will call them criminal aliens. Luckily since I moved to Tennessee, nobody’s going to tell me that. So glad we escaped Mexifornia.


47 posted on 12/30/2018 8:39:51 AM PST by CottonBall (Thank you , Julian!)
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To: Kaslin

When liberals say Trump is anti immigrant, they are actually projecting their own views. Liberals are not pro-immigration, they are pro illegal immigration. Immigrants who respect our laws and our culture and history, like this slain police officer, are not the kind of people liberals want coming to this country.

And while a large percentage of Asian and Hispanic immigrants vote for the Democrats, that could always change if these people wake up and realize that the Liberals who pretend to care about tolerance and equality actually use issues like racism just to attack America.

The only kind of immigrants that liberals want coming here are those who have no desire to assimilate, and will take whatever the government is willing to give them while criticizing and condemning this country, like that b**** who shut down the Statue of Liberty on 4th of July.

So instead of simply Defending Trump for only being against illegal immigration, we should be attacking liberals for only wanting one kind of immigrant to come to America..... The kind that hates this country and has no respect for our laws or anything else about us.


48 posted on 12/30/2018 8:40:03 AM PST by The Fop (God Bless Donald Trump, Frank Sinatra, Joan Rivers, and the Fightin' Rat Pack Wing of the GOP)
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To: shanover

I agree, it seems the situation gets more hopeless with each passing generation. The new ones are being brainwashed in the schools and cannot think for themselves.


49 posted on 12/30/2018 8:42:17 AM PST by CottonBall (Thank you , Julian!)
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To: Kaslin
...at the hands of a man believed to be an illegal immigrant.

...authorities had arrested a suspect, Gustavo Perez Arriaga, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico...

He's not an immigrant, he's an illegal alien, Debra.

50 posted on 12/30/2018 8:43:43 AM PST by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: null and void
They are criminal aliens.

Thank you. I am sure I'd heard the argument before; never so clear and to the point by my recollection, though. I am going to make a concerted attempt to never use the phrase "illegal immigrant" and to correct those I hear using it.

51 posted on 12/30/2018 9:20:41 AM PST by Turbo Pig (To close with and destroy....)
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To: ETL

The baby has on a “MY FIRST CHRISTMAS” shirt.....and this was his father’s LAST Christmas! SO DAMN SAD and PREVENTABLE!


52 posted on 12/30/2018 9:20:43 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: ETL

Makes my blood boil.
His baby’s 1st Christmas was Officer Singh’s last Christmas.


53 posted on 12/30/2018 9:34:20 AM PST by kanawa (Trump Loves a Great Deal)
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To: Kaslin

We need a memorial wall of all killed or maimed at the hands of illegals.


54 posted on 12/30/2018 9:44:08 AM PST by umgud
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To: vette6387

California, of course.


55 posted on 12/30/2018 9:57:45 AM PST by Polyxene (Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.)
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To: central_va; Liz; AuntB; greyfoxx39; La Lydia; sickoflibs; stephenjohnbanker; ...

Jamiel Shaw was 17 and living in LA, a sanctuary city, and planning to go to college...his mother was in the Army and stationed in Iraq..

His father was at home that afternoon waiting for his son to return from the store just a few blocks away..

An illegal alien who had just been let out of jail the day before, gunned down Jamiel as he walked just steps from his front door...in the house his father heard the shots but didn’t realize he was hearing the death of his own son ...

I’ve met these good parents at a House panel with Congressman Lamar Smith for the parents of the victims of illegal aliens...the stories were horrible ...it was sadly very small and few extra politicians attended the event...


56 posted on 12/30/2018 10:15:53 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: Bonemaker
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.

How much of that was really the work of the voters?

California has enshrined vote fraud into the law. Hence, whenever an election turns out against the will of the elite, the elite only have to manufacture as many ballots after the fact as they need, and that pesky will of the voters can be ignored. Vote fraud is a long-standing issue in CA and, I am sure, in many other places.

We also cannot discount the fact that once politicians get to DC, they are subjected to a harsh environment, one in which every belief they have is challenged, and in which they are surrounded with propaganda designed to make them believe that whatever core principles they had going in are aberrations which are not representative of the majority of Americans. In this environment, many of them succumb to Stockholm syndrome. The Republicans who became examples of the Stockholm syndrome did not do the job we elected them to do, and we fired many of them for it.

We are in a really bad place right now. Unless we can somehow protect the good politicians or convince the bad ones to realize that they are elected to do a job, not to amass more power, we are hosed.

57 posted on 12/30/2018 12:16:36 PM PST by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: exDemMom

I agree with everything you say. The problem remains though that a significant number of people vote democrat such that if they don’t win outright then the margin is close enough for the fraud factor to carry the day.


58 posted on 12/30/2018 12:22:00 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Tennessee Nana

Believe me, if I were a Congressman, I would have been there!


59 posted on 12/30/2018 6:11:01 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Ya lyublyu kovfefe!)
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To: dp0622

bank robbers = Undocumented Financial Transaction Specialists

Drug Dealers = Undocumented Pharmaceutical Distribution Specialists

Murderers = Unlicensed Life-Transition Facilitators


60 posted on 12/30/2018 10:36:31 PM PST by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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