None of my captions for this photo of Oliver Funes-Machado are in good taste. Pass.
I don’t know about you, but I’m thoroughly sick of the daily media stories about the hardship of illegal immigrant families being “torn apart” when a parenty finally is held accountable for breaching our borders and breaking U.S. laws. Here is a refreshing story about a likely deportation that everyone can get behind.
I hope.
ICE officials in North Carolina confirmed that Oliver Funes-Machado is an illegal immigrant, and I bet the news media makes sure the “illegal” is included when reporting on his case, if they do. The 18-year old has been charged with cutting off his mother’s head with a butcher knife.
This is unethical, by the way.
Originally from Honduras, Oliver is accused of repeatedly stabbing his 35-year-old mother before beheading her. He then walked outside, holding her head in one hand and the knife in the other, as he waited for Franklin County deputies to arrive. He called 911 to report the crime, just like a good citizen should .
Well, that’s a mitigation, I guess.
The teen told the 911 dispatcher that he killed his mother “because I felt like it.”
I don’t think Honduras is sending us their best people.
I’m sure he is a Dreamer, but I still think he should be deported.
Ethics Alarms 
His family’s literally been torn apart.
Come on, Jack, this is just “anecdotal!”
Like most immigrants, he just wanted to get ahead.
[I love that joke! It’s been my favorite joke my whole life!!!!! ]
I don’t think he should be deported. I think he should be executed.
This guy has clear five star ISiS recruit potential.
Donald Trump smiles.
“cutting off his mother’s head with a butcher knife… This is unethical, by the way.”
And messy.
“I don’t think Honduras is sending us their best people.”
By definition.
‘Best People’ usually rise to the top in their own society, given the freedom to do so. Unless some non performance related inhibitor (Jews in 1930s Germany, Koreans in 1930s Japan occupied Korea) is artificially present, people like to stay where they are successful and comfortable, in their own society.
Those that leave are of two types: those not allowed to rise and prosper based on merit, and those who are looking for the shortcut, criminal or otherwise. My contention is that this person is of the latter group, perhaps by being born into a family who feels the same, but ‘shortcut’ nonetheless. Also a criminal just for being here (don’t care about hypothetical ‘dreamer’ status) and a criminal for doing what he admitted to doing. Thus, not ‘best people’ by definition.
Breaking (and disregard for) one law breeds the notion that others are also breakable. This is human nature. Illegals drive cars without insurance, required by law in Texas, for instance. Stealing Social Security Numbers (and hurting the original owners) is a Federal crime. This kid killed because he ‘felt like it.’ Given the total disregard for other laws, who is to say his murder of his mother was not just another law he ‘felt’ did not apply to him?
Allowing criminal illegals in our country breeds this sort of thing, due to human nature. the fact that we do not go after those who hire them is as wrong as their acts, and must be addressed. (First time a CEO is standing before a judge in an orange jump suit would fix this)
Note there is a process (albeit broken, slow, and obtuse) that many like this family have successfully followed to be here legally.
Deport him to Antarctica if you can’t execute him; but if you deport him wait until it’s summer here. (SARC)
I saw a mention of this online yesterday but can’t remember where. Until reading this post now I was unaware the perpetrator was an immigrant. Hmmm…wonder why that detail was left out of the story I saw.
I doubt this guy was fearful, like so many people are supposed to be because, well, you know, Trump. Clearly he’s a sociopath.
Red Sox had one in Mauricio Dubon until they traded him away.
Interesting; can’t morally deport this guy right now.
This illegal immigrant and admitted murderer will get a defense attorney who will advocate for him, probably insanity defense, and that defense attorney will most likely be a public defender whose salary is paid for with taxpayers dollars.
Illegal immigrant; admitted murderer; publically funded defense; incarcerated within the United States, because they really can’t just deport an admitted murderer without punishing him first, and this incarceration will cost taxpayers a lot more money to house him in either prison or prison for the criminally insane; eventually he’ll given parole for and set loose on the streets of the United States because that’s what we do when we rehabilitate and parole with supervision; by that point in time non one will remember that he’s an illegal immigrant and he’ll get a job at Walmart as a greeter.
Illegal immigration doesn’t cost our country anything it only adds to the economy, look at all the jobs our tax dollars pay for to deal with this kind of illegal immigrant activity. It’s almost like an economic stimulus.
I have a better answer; I have a handy little item that is employed with a tool that I have the Constitutional right to own, that item cost less than $1.00 and I’ll even donate the parts and labor to accomplish the task. Service Master can perform the clean up.
There problem solved.
I felt a little bad about posting this. It is something of a cheap shot, but with all the illegal immigrant romanticizing this week, it struck me as a slap in the face.
Is an illegal immigrant who engages in horrific crimes any different from citizens who do so? YES! Yes, because they have no business being here, and their crimes were made possible by the sentimental hogwash that mixed with cynical Democratic vote-seeking and cynical business community labor exploitation to render our laws and borders as porous as the Albert Hall.
Well, I’m glad you acknowledged it’s a cheap shot, Jack.
Although I’m coming around to the idea that the more sentimental stories we hear about the families being separated from one another are *also* cheap shots.
A cheap shot isn’t necessarily wrong; both types of stories are emotional appeals. Both are also anecdotal. Neither are really logical arguments about what we should do about our immigration policy.
Is an illegal immigrant who engages in horrific crimes any different from citizens who do so? YES! Yes, because they have no business being here, and their crimes were made possible by the sentimental hogwash that mixed with cynical Democratic vote-seeking and cynical business community labor exploitation to render our laws and borders as porous as the Albert Hall.
I’ll have to think about this more, but I’m not sure this is supportable. In order for that to be what “made their crimes possible,” we’d have to believe that if it weren’t for sentimental liberals and exploitative businessmen, we wouldn’t have an illegal immigration problem. I’m not sure that’s true. From what we’ve seen over the past few decades, at least as I understand it, illegal immigration seems to rise when our economy is strong and fall when our economy is weak. This seems to have more to do with the picture than actual immigration policy.
Conservatives seem to assume that if we just get tougher on illegal immigration, we can reduce it. Interestingly, conservatives don’t apply the same logic to gun control laws. There, the argument is that passing more gun laws, or strengthening the ATF, won’t do anything to prevent gun-related crime, since criminals will get guns and use them anyway. Why don’t they realize the same is true of immigration?
Liberals, on the other hand, seem largely content to ignore when people immigrate illegally. I will admit that we have completely failed to offer any actual plan for how to deal with illegal immigration other than “ignore it.” This is often argued for humanitarian reasons, but sometimes liberals do point out the economic benefits illegal immigrants bring us. But even then, what’s the conclusion? That we should keep the law as it is, and then just proceed to ignore it? That is untenable.
The only solution I can see that actually addresses the problem is a loosening of our current immigration restrictions to let people immigrate here more easily, but I don’t see conservatives–who have generally taken the stance that we need less immigration, period–being amenable to this. It definitely won’t happen under a Trump administration. So it seems we’re stuck in the limbo of prohibition on one side, and complete disregard for prohibition laws on the other, with almost no one advocating to actually repeal prohibition.
If it sounds like I’m calling for “open borders,” then let me just clarify that I think our border needs to be much more open, legally speaking, but not completely open. We still need to keep track of who’s coming here. But an overly restrictive immigration policy–which is, I believe, what we have now–actually makes that harder, by incentivizing illegal immigration.
The only solution I can see that actually addresses the problem is a loosening of our current immigration restrictions to let people immigrate here more easily, but I don’t see conservatives–who have generally taken the stance that we need less immigration, period–being amenable to this.
I agree with your idea of immigration reform, but I would really like to see any non-nativist fringe conservative who wants to reduce immigration generally, other than to take illegals out of the equation. The most frequent complaint I’ve encountered about legal immigration is that it should be more selective, which is to say, better educated, skilled immigrants to the extent possible. I’d be grateful if you’d point me to more than outlier advocates of less legal immigration
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a mainstream Republican in Congress who has explicitly called for lower levels of immigration.
That said, when Republican members of Congress present their cases regarding illegal immigration, they often rely on the work of organizations that do call for reduced levels of immigration: Center for Immigration Studies, FAIR, those guys. Those groups are explicitly nativist, and that Republicans as a group take them seriously makes me wonder about their real goals. (Of course, it doesn’t prove anything.)
And of course, the Steves–Bannon and Miller–have both called for lower levels of immigration. Miller even let it slip that this was one of the goals of the travel ban, which was ostensibly about keeping Americans safe. These men not only have the ear of the most powerful man in the world, they also seem to be the chief architects of aspects of Trump’s immigration policy, such as the travel ban.
Even if your characterization of what Bannon and Miller say is correct—I don’t think it is—that doesn’t provide any support for the contention that “most convervatives” want less legal immigration. And since the travel ban only involves largely unvettable refugees from terror hot spots, there’s no way it could be aimed at a general immigration reduction. Fewer Muslim immigrants? Sure. And that’s a completely defensible position.
Well, the two things aren’t synonymous, or even similar, Chris.
In the first place, guns are an enumerated constitutional right, and there is a limit to the controls we can put on them. Further, Americans like guns, they want to own them, and though a majority favors some gun control, it’s generally not the kind liberals want. So there’s that.
Illegal immigration is a straightforward matter of breaking existing federal law, and enforcing it. There’s really no middle ground. The more strictly we enforce the federal law against illegal immigration — either by making it harder or by ramping up the removal of illegal immigrants already here, the fewer illegal immigrants will make it in. We are already seeing this happen.
I wouldn’t be opposed to allowing more legal immigration, but not just for anyone who applies. There is no reason for us to take in the indigent from foreign countries and provide them with social services our country paid for. I’d be amenable to allowing significantly more people with demonstrated ability to earn a living immigrate, though.
In the first place, guns are an enumerated constitutional right, and there is a limit to the controls we can put on them. Further, Americans like guns, they want to own them, and though a majority favors some gun control, it’s generally not the kind liberals want. So there’s that.
This is true, Glenn, but irrelevant to my analogy. If we were discussing whether immigration laws were constitutional, or whether our country can pass restrictive immigration laws, this would be relevant.
But I’m not talking about what we can do, I’m talking about what we should do.
My point is that restrictive immigration laws incentivize illegal immigration while not doing much to actually reduce the total number of (illegal and legal) immigrants, much as conservatives argue (and which I am starting to agree) restrictive gun laws incentivize illegal gun transactions, without meeting their goal of keeping Americans safe.
Illegal immigration is a straightforward matter of breaking existing federal law, and enforcing it. There’s really no middle ground. The more strictly we enforce the federal law against illegal immigration — either by making it harder or by ramping up the removal of illegal immigrants already here, the fewer illegal immigrants will make it in. We are already seeing this happen.
As that article points out, actual experts who don’t work for anti-immigrant think tanks like FAIR are hesitant to attribute this drop-off to Trump. But even if his rhetoric and the few enforcement policies he has already enacted are responsible for this, it is far too soon to conclude that this type of policy is sustainable. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that potential illegal immigrants are more reluctant to attempt to sneak into the country at this point in time, but I’d wait until a few months into Trump’s tenure–perhaps even a year–before concluding that this drop-off is anything but temporary.
Gun Control Law only impacts (by design, it would seem) those who are law abiding gun owners, and thus do little on those committing the crimes the laws are supposedly (dishonestly) intended to impact. That makes them restrictions on the law abiding, pretty much. We ALREADY have laws about misuse of a gun that we enforce on those who are, well, criminals. False analogy
Illegal immigration laws will impact THOSE WHO ARE IN VIOLATION, and thus need to be enforced and enhanced. Note that those who employ illegals are (or should be) criminals as well, regardless of citizenship.
See? Not so hard to understand.
Gun Control Law only impacts (by design, it would seem) those who are law abiding gun owners, and thus do little on those committing the crimes the laws are supposedly (dishonestly) intended to impact. That makes them restrictions on the law abiding, pretty much. We ALREADY have laws about misuse of a gun that we enforce on those who are, well, criminals. False analogy
Illegal immigration laws will impact THOSE WHO ARE IN VIOLATION, and thus need to be enforced and enhanced. Note that those who employ illegals are (or should be) criminals as well, regardless of citizenship.
See? Not so hard to understand.
This doesn’t make any sense.
There is no such thing as an “illegal immigration law.” There are immigration laws, which regulate who can and cannot come to our country, what the process is of coming over, and what to do with those who have come over illegally.
There are also gun laws, which regulate who can and cannot buy a gun, what the process is of buying a gun, and what to do with those who buy a gun illegally.
We don’t talk about “illegal gun laws,” we talk about gun laws.
Our immigration laws affect law abiding immigrants as well as those who abide by the laws. If this weren’t the case, no one would ever violate immigration laws–everyone would just come over legally. Most illegal immigrants violate immigration laws because they cannot come here legally, at least not in the amount of time they wish to do so. Most people buy illegal guns for the same reason, though some buy them with the specific intent to commit a crime with them–just as some immigrants violate immigration laws with the specific intent to commit a crime.
If you can recognize that gun laws impact law-abiding citizens by keeping them from getting a gun, but can’t recognize that immigration laws impact law-abiding people by keeping them from immigrating, you have a blind spot.
Chris has proven himself a smug hypocritical party hack, not interested in actual discussion, debate, or fair treatment. He is unethical, as as such I will not dignify his responses any further. Do not feed the trolls.
I don’t believe that Oliver being an illegal immigrant made his crime possible but it definitely made it possible for him to commit it in the United States. I doubt that illegal immigrants are significantly more likely to be criminals than anyone else, except for the fact that they are all by definition criminals in respect to immigration law. But when they do commit a crime, they do it in a place they should not have been in the first place and a victim of such a crime has a right to point that out.
Clearly when people expect a law to be enforced they are more likely to obey it. When the President, for political reasons, tells citizens of other countries that we are not going to enforce the law and encourages those charged with enforcing the law to assist in violating it, it can’t help but incentivize illegal activity. I don’t think we should stop enforcing laws against drunk driving just because some people are still going to drive drunk. Getting tougher on drunk driving did reduce, but not eliminate, that behavior and has saved some lives. I believe that people who want to immigrate will be more likely to attempt legal means if they are not encouraged to pursue illegal and have an increased expectation that if they enter illegally they will be pursued and deported.
I don’t think prohibition laws provide the appropriate example here. Immigration is not prohibited. It is controlled just as the use of alcohol is controlled. I don’t know of any significant group that is realistically arguing for the total ban of alcohol or total removal of regulations. Likewise I don’t see any significant portion of the population calling for total restriction of immigration but there are a fair number who seem to desire open borders or total repeal of the law. Gun control laws also don’t seem to me to be pertinent. I think laws punishing crimes in which guns are used illegally is more of a parallel. Anyway, I certainly don’t want to open up the gun control debate here.
Arguing that making the immigration laws more restrictive will incentivize illegal immigration is correct. Making it more difficult to buy booze incentivizes making moonshine. Should we make the likelihood of increasing moonshine production the measure of the law or should we make the goals we desire in terms of control of alcohol use the measure of the law? If the goal is to de-incentivize moonshine, the answer is simple, make no laws restricting alcohol at all. Finding the best answer is much more difficult.
I don’t know whether immigration should be easier or harder. I think decent people have differing opinions on that which is why we have a representative government to make the law. Once the law is made, it needs to be enforced. If there is belief that the current law is not just, then there is a procedure to change it. As you said, ignoring it is not tenable.
John:
I don’t believe that Oliver being an illegal immigrant made his crime possible but it definitely made it possible for him to commit it in the United States.
Yes, my quibble was with the idea that stricter border enforcement would necessarily stop people like Oliver from getting here.
When the President, for political reasons, tells citizens of other countries that we are not going to enforce the law and encourages those charged with enforcing the law to assist in violating it, it can’t help but incentivize illegal activity.
Again, my problem with this otherwise sensible-sounding rule is that we saw illegal immigration go down at many points during the Obama administration. This indicates to me that while the president’s stance on illegal immigrants may be one factor, it is hardly the largest one.
It seems to me that fierce opponents of illegal immigration would better achieve their goals by working to address the root causes of illegal immigration. But conservatives aren’t any better than liberals at addressing root causes. In some cases, they’re much worse at it.
Arguing that making the immigration laws more restrictive will incentivize illegal immigration is correct. Making it more difficult to buy booze incentivizes making moonshine. Should we make the likelihood of increasing moonshine production the measure of the law or should we make the goals we desire in terms of control of alcohol use the measure of the law?
Both. The main point of my original comment was that neither conservatives nor liberals have been very good at explaining the goals they desite when it comes to control of immigration.
If the goal is to de-incentivize moonshine, the answer is simple, make no laws restricting alcohol at all. Finding the best answer is much more difficult.
True, which is why I agree that we still need immigration laws. But we need to take a serious look at them. “Enforcement of the existing laws” seems to be the current conservative position, with little to no inquiry into whether those laws make sense, while the current liberal position is “Ignore the existing laws.” Of course, I generalize; there are people working on “comprehensive immigration reform,” but that phrase has been bandied about so often, and with so few actual results, that it may as well describe a unicorn.
I agree that there are many factors influencing the rate of illegal immigration among them economic conditions in the country of origin and here and the president’s stance. I think the stance that the president takes toward immigration does play a significant role, albeit not the only one. While I characterized Mr. Obama as being lax on enforcement that characterization really applies more toward the end of his last term. After all, at one point he was known in some circles as the “Deporter-in-Chief.”
There were far more formal removals under Mr. Obama than under either Bush or Clinton although returns were much less. When formal removals were pursued, those individual were about half as likely to be recidivist in re-entering the US illegally than individuals who were simply returned. I imagine legal action is much more costly than chartered planes or simply having them turn around and walk back across the border but it does appear to be effective in deterring illegal immigration.
The law as it stands needs to be enforced otherwise we are no longer a nation of laws but if it is not achieving the objectives the nation wants it needs to be changed. Determining what we want is definitely going to be the hard part.
I’m wondering how in the hell can we keep track of 17 million illegals and the visa overstays? It’s an impossible job and why are we responsible for the countless numbers of ill educated people that Mexico and Central America churns out due to their corrupt governments.
The closest analogy would be the issue of crimes committed by deserters still at large.
Perhaps he was so frightened of being deported, he decided to find a way to stay here permanently at taxpayer expense. Surely there’s some way to blame this on Trump, right?
I understand North Carolina has the death penalty. Why not try him as an adult?
Well apparently the court had ordered him released from a mental health institution only a week earlier. Police found 4 medications in his room. I imagine more than one shrinks head will roll because of this.