Leftists never seem to tire of going to the same page from the "H" section of their playbook, likening anyone who disagrees with them, and especially anyone who threatens their agenda, to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. In one of the laziest such comparisons yet, Washington Post staff writer Amanda Erickson played the Hitler card in decrying President Donald Trump's move to assist the victims of violent crimes committed by those who are in this nation illegally — because (gasp!) there are going to be published reports on illegal-immigrant crime.
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You see, Erickson hysterically explained on Thursday, complete with photos from Nazi-controlled newspapers in 1935, this is just what Hitler did to the Jews.
The Hitler comparison, which has become so hackneyed that it has very little effect on real people any more, and which desecrates the memory of the millions who died under or because of his genocidal totalitarian regime, isn't why Erickson's column merits attention. It's her deliberately incomplete description of Trump's VOICE program, and her flat-out, misdirection-driven falsehood about the criminal tendencies of people who, if this nation had the control over its borders its citizens have every right to expect and demand, would not be here in the first place (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Adolf Hitler also published a list of crimes committed by groups he didn’t like
In his Tuesday speech, President Trump was light on specifics, except when it came to one of his favorite subjects — crimes committed by immigrants.
Trump celebrated the creation of the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office, or VOICE. It will, among other things, put out a regular report on the illicit doings of the undocumented. “I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American victims,” he said. “We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media and silenced by special interests." (It will be paid for by money spent, in the Obama years, on advocating for undocumented immigrants.)
The program is controversial (when Trump referenced it Tuesday, Democrats groaned). There's no evidence that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans, and critics worry the reports will skew public opinion unfairly.
The PC-infected Erickson only described one tiny aspect of VOICE, and then disingenuously changed the subject from "illicit doings" (are you kidding me?) by "the undocumented" (i.e., illegal immigrants) to all immigrants in waving away crime rates.
Friday morning at the Associated Press, Astrid Galvan, reporting from Phoenix, at least gave a good overview description of VOICE. Additionally, in telling the individual stories of families victimized by violent illegal immigrant crime (not excerpted because of space limitations), particularly by perpetrators who should have been deported or at least in jail when they committed their crimes, he at least identified one of the reasons why it's especially important. He also reminded readers of the outrageously illegal immigrant-sympathetic practices of the Obama administration:
Victims of immigrant crime now have advocate in White House
... families who have lost loved ones to crimes committed by immigrants now have a forceful advocate at the highest level with President Donald Trump in the White House. During his speech to Congress on Tuesday, Trump announced that he would create a new office to serve victims of immigrant crime and their relatives.
... Under President Barack Obama, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency protected information about immigration cases from public inspection, including from victims. It also created a public advocate position in 2012 that helped immigrants facing deportation and answered complaints or offered explanations about the agency's work.
Opponents criticized the administration for using government money to advocate for immigrants in the country illegally.
Sadly, Galvan also engaged in the same illegal immigrant crime-related misdirection Erickson did.
Though the government has made accumulating comprehensive statistics difficult, what has been determined refutes any argument that illegals aren't disproportionately involved in crime, particularly violent crime.
Here are just a few of the "9 Things You Need To Know About Illegal Immigration And Crime" Aaron Bandler at the Daily Wire cited in October, representing just a tiny sample of the available data:
... Illegal immigrants accounted for nearly 75 percent of federal drug sentences in 2014.
... A disproportionate amount of illegals are in state prisons.
... Tens of thousands of criminal illegals have been released by ICE and are at large in the country. ... the Obama administration released "86,000 illegal immigrants who have (previously) committed over 231,000 crimes in just the past two and a half years," according to Independent Journal Review.
... The rise in illegals crossing the border has fueled gang violence.
... Crime has also increased among major cities that are "immigration hubs."
Separately, former Congressman Tom Tancredo noted in 2015 that "Illegal Alien Crime Accounts for over 30% of Murders in Many States," and a wildly disproportionate percentage of all murders nationwide.
Academic studies of immigrant-related crime have typically looked at all immigrants, causing their published results to represent a mix of people who have played by the rules to become citizens (and whom one would expect to have little in the way of criminal activity) and those who haven't (about whom the same thing can certainly not be claimed). The blended results of such studies usually end up looking benign, but those results don't tell us a darned thing. All they do is provide fuel for dishonest claims such as those made by Erickson and Galvan.
Illegal-immigrant crime also has the galling aspect of being committed all too often by people who were under deportation orders but hadn't been deported, who had been deported but entered the U.S. a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) time, or who should still have been in prison.
Neither reporter focused on the VOICE's intended assistance to victims, which is virtually the entire focus of the related portion of DHS head Michael Kelly's longer February 20 memo. Also note Kelly's focus on "removable aliens," referring to anyone who is here illegally and not under some form of protection from deportation:
With all of this, Erickson chose to focus on the somehow offensive interest Trump has in telling America about crimes, particularly violent crimes, committed by illegal immigrants. After at least two decades of the press all too often failing to report these details, often deliberately so, government indifference towards the victims, and, more recently, "sanctuary cities" failing to cooperate with federal authorities in apprehending illegal-immigrant criminals, it's about flippin' time.
Since Erickson mentioned it, I'd like to know which words uttered by Trump in his Tuesday speech relating to VOICE made "Democrats groan":
And we must support the victims of crime. I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American victims. The office is called VOICE -- Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media and silenced by special interests.
I guess we should thank Amanda Erickson for telling us how callously indifferent Democrats have been and continue to be to the suffering of victims of illegal-immigrant crime.
Now for the Hitler-era comparison. I'll spare readers the ridiculous and supposedly comparative Nazi-era details. Erickson wasn't ever deterred when one of her interview subjects questioned what she thought she was accomplishing:
... This strategy — one designed to single out a particular group of people, suggesting that there's something particularly sinister about how they behave — was employed to great effect by Adolf Hitler and his allies. In the 1930s, the Nazis used a similar tactic to stir up anger and hatred toward Jews.
... Of course, a regular government report is a far cry from the Nazis' aggressive, constant drumbeat against the Jews. (Then why did you bring it up, Amanda? — Ed?) Third Reich officials had significantly more control over what people were exposed to than any American president. They controlled the media and decided what kinds of art were and were not allowed in the country. Drawing a straight parallel between Trump and Hitler is “misguided,” (California State Professor Richard) Weikart said. “Hitler’s great crime was to launch an expansionist war and kill millions of people in the name of human biological inequality,” he wrote. “This issue doesn’t really rise to that level, does it?” (It absolutely doesn't, which is why Erickson's column, and the Post's decision to carry it, are so contemptible. — Ed.)
The point is not that VOICE equals the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. But when leaders use the levers of government to drum up fear of one group of people, we should all be worried.
Erickson's overwrought concern about singling out "one group of people" is especially rich following the presidential administration of Barack Obama.
Obama's Department of Homeland Security devoted substantial financial and propaganda resources to speciously claiming that the nation had more to fear from, as Erickson would describe it, "one group of people" — namely right-wing, Christianity-motivated "terrorists" — as it does from radical Islamists who have sent women, children and the disabled into crowds of people throughout the world to detonate suicide bombs, and who have perpetrated 50 terrorist acts and "honor killings" in the U.S. which have killed 145 Americans since the 9/11 attacks.
At least three of the 9/11 terrorists were in the U.S. illegally when the attacks occurred — and a Washington Post writer and her editors believe that the real, Hitler-level danger is a U.S. president who wants to report on terrorist and criminal acts by people who are here illegally and assist the victims of their crimes.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
