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Watch: Asian Woman Slugged in the Face in Seemingly Random Daylight Attack in NYC


Reported by Jack Davis | June 1, 2021

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-asian-woman-slugged-face-seemingly-random-daylight-attack-nyc/

Violence sprung from the streets of New York City’s Chinatown on Monday, leaving an Asian woman sprawled on the ground after a black man punched her in the face for no apparent reason. Surveillance video posted by Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, whose district includes Chinatown, showed the 55-year-old woman walking past the Kong Sihk Tong café at around 6:15 p.m. A black man in an orange hoodie and denim jacket then punched her square in the face with a hard left. The woman collapsed on the pavement. The attacker then raved at the victim.

“What’d you hit me for?” the attacker said, according to the New York Daily News. “Why’d you hit me?”

Several people went to check on the victim, who remained motionless on the ground. She was later taken to a hospital, reportedly in stable condition.

Police were called and arrested the man at the scene.

The Daily News quoted a source who said the attacker was “homeless, and he has a long criminal record.” The attacker was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Charges are pending.

“Can’t believe I actually witnessed an attack on an Asian lady right in front of me at the heart of NYC Chinatown,” Jin Zhen wrote on Instagram, according to the New York Post.

“When I saw the lady rolled over to the ground and went unconscious I quickly hung up on my food order and start recording the situation for evidence.”

Donald Ng, who works in the area, said that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “needs to do something about this mental health issue.”

“Some customers were calling for help. They said a guy punched a woman. She was sitting there on the sidewalk like she was tired, like she was out,” Chiu Cheng, the restaurant manager, said, according to the Daily News.

“He was crazy. I know it’s serious. I feel sad about it. With all that’s happening, I feel scared. I work at the restaurant late. I’m afraid about walking to the subway at night,” Cheng said.

The issue of bail reform entered the incident after former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik noted that a consequence of bail reform has been putting people such as the attacker on the street.

The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is looking into the assault, according to WCBS-TV.

Hate crimes against Asians in New York City are up 353 percent over last year.

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Former NYC Top Cop Kerik Blasts Officials Using COVID as Excuse To Take Americans’ Freedoms


Authored By C. Douglas Golden | Published April 13, 2020 at 9:07am

URL of the originating web site: https://www.westernjournal.com/former-nyc-top-cop-kerik-blasts-officials-using-covid-excuse-take-americans-freedoms/

A teen being given a citation for merely driving in her car. Hiking trails closed. Church congregants for Easter services having their license plate numbers taken down by the police so that they can be told to be in quarantine for 14 days no matter what kind of social distancing was being practiced. That’s where we are now, and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik isn’t particularly happy about it.

In a tweet Thursday, Kerik blasted officials who are using the coronavirus outbreak as a pretext to clamp down on freedoms that wouldn’t necessarily affect the spread of the virus.

“Yesterday, governors/mayors shut down walking trails,” Kerik tweeted.

”Some police have been ordered to arrest people for walking outside their homes. The government is considering a #coronavirus surveillance system.

“WTF! Americans better start paying attention and getting vocal! #Constitution.”

He went on to criticize New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, for his decision to stop construction projects.

“Today @GovMurphy stopped all non-essential construction,” he tweeted.

“Construction is a profession in which many will not be able to receive government assistance.

“Instead of mandating by order that they wear protective equipment and follow CDC directives, this will destroy them/families.”

Murphy had announced the halt to construction the day before Kerik’s tweet.

“We must continue to work together to flatten the curve of new COVID-19 cases in New Jersey,” Murphy said in a statement.

“By ceasing all non-essential construction projects and imposing additional mitigation requirements on essential businesses, we are furthering our aggressive efforts to enforce social distancing and limiting our public interactions to only the most essential in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

In the executive order, Murphy also limited the number of customers who could be in an essential retail outlet at any given point in time and required those outlets to mark 6-foot increments on the floor in order to indicate how to socially distance, among many, many other things.

Park systems, meanwhile, have been shutting down across the country.

Here’s part of Oregon’s explication for closing its state park system late last month: “A single person walking on a trail is fine. There are a few million people in the west who are thinking the same thing, and then next thing you know, people are parking alongside roads to get into a park. That’s bad for you, it harms other people, and it puts stress on local groceries and health care systems.

It’s not just the hiking trails that have been shut down. The status of churches varies from state to state, with some listing them as an essential service and others shutting them entirely. Kentucky is one of the states in the latter category — and it managed to make a show of it this weekend when police took down the license plate numbers of the 50 people worshipping in the Maryville Baptist Church and put quarantine notices on their car, according to USA Today.

Newly elected Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has engaged in a high-profile battle with a handful of churches that are still holding in-person services. In a move that absolutely won’t escalate the situation, state police threatened “further enforcement measures” for individuals receiving the quarantine notices if they decide not to quarantine.

At least there was some good news in this department last Wednesday, though: A 19-year-old Pennsylvania woman who was cited for “going for a drive”will have the ticket dropped, according to the York Dispatch. Anita Shaffer became one of the most prominent victims of over-officiousness in the time of coronavirus when Pennsylvania State Police hit her with a $200 ticket because she needed to get out of the house. She was the first person ticketed under Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order. A few days later, officialdom decided it was probably best not to pursue the case.

Beside the fact that the troopers cited her under the wrong statute, York County District Attorney Dave Sunday felt that ticketing Shaffer didn’t serve “the interests of justice.”

“Ironically, if Ms. Shaffer had lied to the [trooper] and stated that she was driving to obtain food, medicine, or to a path to engage in outside exercise, Ms. Shaffer could not have received a citation for violating the stay at home order because no facts would exist to support its issuance,” Sunday wrote in his request to have the charges dropped. A district court judge granted the request.

I suppose kudos are in order to Mr. Sunday, a man who can probably figure out how to be six feet away from someone on a hiking trail. Alas, we live in a time when the government can’t trust us to hike or shop or drive correctly.

Mind you, this isn’t to say that all of this is smart.

No matter how much social distancing you practice and how much closer you feel to God when you go to church, you’re significantly better off if you decide to just go online. That said, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of religion are both enshrined under the First Amendment, so I wish Kentucky good luck defending that quarantine in court.

Kerik, by the way, isn’t exactly a wild-eyed libertarian. This was the top cop in New York City under Rudy Giuliani and during 9/11. That’s not the kind of resume that leads one to flights of anarchist fancy. He’s bringing up a very real concern that our rights have taken a backseat to trying to beat this disease. In some respects, that’s understandable. However, we’re about to be met with very sticky constitutional issues, including contact tracing and coronavirus “passports” to prove someone has antibodies and can re-enter society.

If the Constitution takes a backseat here, there’s the inevitable slippery slope: It can take a backseat anywhere. The fear is understandable, but fear cannot be allowed to set our rights afire.

Following are some images that, hopefully, will get you active in the fight for freedom. – Jerry Broussard

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

C. Douglas Golden
Contributor, Commentary
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal for four years.

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Experts Have Chilling Prediction for Where De Blasio Is Taking NYC, Hasn’t Happened in 40 Years


Reported By Ben Marquis | Published March 12, 2019 at 2:53pm | Modified March 12, 2019 at 2:57pm

New York City has long been viewed by many as a dumpster fire of fiscal irresponsibility with ridiculously high taxes and insanely excessive spending, and under the past few years of leadership by the socialist, er, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, the situation has only gotten worse.

Recent reports citing economic experts have warned that the famed city could soon face the financial disaster of bankruptcy for the first time in more than 40 years, but it doesn’t appear that the city is doing much of anything to address that dire consequence, and instead is arguably making things even worse.

The New York Post reported last week that as businesses and residents flee the high taxes imposed on them by the city and state, resulting in entirely predictable tax revenue shortfalls, public spending has actually been increased instead of reduced as well, creating a sort of fiscal death spiral that could ruin the city.

Milton Ezrati, chief economist of financial communications agency Vested, told the Post, “The city is running a deficit and could be in a real difficult spot if we had a recession, or a further flight of individuals because of tax reform.”

“New York is already in a difficult financial spot, but it would be in an impossible situation if we had any kind of setback,” he added.

Such setbacks would include a financial recession, which could prove fiscally devastating, or even just a continuation of the exodus of taxpayers while spending continues to increase.

Indeed, Mayor de Blasio recently announced an additional $3 billion in new spending on top of a budget that already included $89.2 billion in spending.

Meanwhile, the mayor only found “savings” of about $750 million in his proposed budget for 2020 — obviously not enough to save the city in a disaster — and the state’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo cut roughly $600 million in city-related spending from his proposed state budget for the coming year.

The Post noted that the city’s spending has increased by 32 percent since de Blasio assumed office, about three times the rate of inflation, and has hired some additional 33,000 public sector workers who are paid with city funds and are granted long-term pensions and other city-funded benefits.

Peter C. Earle, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, stated, “New York City could go bankrupt, absolutely.”

“In that case, the city would get temporary protection from its creditors, but it would be very difficult for the city to take on new debt,” he added.

City pensions, along with other long-term liabilities like bonded debt and other post-employment benefits for public workers, are estimated at more than a quarter trillion dollars, according to a 2018 report from the city’s Citizen’s Budget Commission, which placed the total liabilities held by New York City at roughly $257.3 billion for that year. That is nearly $5 billion more than the 2017 total of $252.5 billion, and works out to an astonishing liability per New York City household of $82,577.

The budget commission also noted that the city’s pension fund is only about 76 percent funded.

All of that news comes as residents are increasingly leaving the excessively taxed city and state for low-tax states like Florida and Texas, an exodus that has been partially blamed for the state’s announced $2.3 billion budget deficit caused by a shortfall in expected tax revenues, according to Fox News.

All the while, Cuomo is blaming the problem on the Trump administration and Republicans for the tax cut bill Trump signed in 2017, which reduced the amount of state and local taxes residents could deduct from their federal taxes and left some residents and businesses with a higher tax bill.

In response to the incredible shortfall, the state has decided not to reduce spending or do anything responsible like that, but to instead levy aggressive audits on the businesses and individuals leaving the state to try and soak them with a tax bill one last time for whatever they may be worth.

Unfortunately for New York, that aggressive effort will likely only encourage more top-earners and wealthy individuals to get out while they still can, and considering the fact that the top 1 percent in the state account for roughly half of all tax revenues, that could actually serve to hasten the potential financial disaster facing the city and state. New York City, and the state as well, were already fiscal dumpster fires.

But the financially irresponsible actions of their progressive leadership have only served to throw gasoline on the blaze, and the growing monetary inferno of high taxes, high spending and unfunded liabilities in the face of reduced tax revenues now threatens to engulf the city in bankruptcy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Ben Marquis
Contributor, Commentary
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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments. He has covered current events and politics for Conservative Tribune since 2014.

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Ocasio-Cortez Supporters Love Socialism So Much That They Have Absolutely No Idea How It Works


Reported By Ben Marquis | July 30, 2018 at 2:41pm

Democratic socialism, a sort of mythical utopian form of government halfway between a capitalist democratic society and a socialistic communist one, is all the rage on the left these days following the surprising primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14th Congressional District.

Ocasio-Cortez makes no secret of her passion for a more socialist society in America, one where every individual’s basic needs are provided by the government. And that passion is apparently shared by a growing number of American citizens, as was recently revealed by Campus Reform.

Campus Reform’s media director Cabot Phillips took to the streets of Ocasio-Cortez’s district and asked random people about the potential congresswoman and her desire for the government to provide things like “free health care,” “free college tuition,” “a minimum living wage” and “housing as a human right,” none of which should be denied to anybody in her view.

Incredibly, most of those Phillips spoke with were in favor of such policies and government “freebies,” even as they had no idea how it would all be paid for. Watch right here:

Asked where the money would come from, one couple paused and replied, “Oh God … us, I guess.”

Another woman said some of the “free things” should be paid for with taxes and the rest picked up by government, apparently not making the connection that government is funded entirely by taxes on people like her.

“I don’t know where the money would come from, but they can figure it out,” said one man with a laugh.

Phillips suggested more taxes on rich people and the man replied, “For sure man, like, they can afford it.”

Another man suggested we “tax corporations, tax the one percent and find a way to support a living wage,” while yet another maintained that “people with a good idea, and a good reason to spend their tax money, people wouldn’t actually mind paying more taxes.”

Many of the people pointed to “other countries” that have implemented socialist ideas and appeared to be doing well, but were more or less rendered speechless when Phillips asked if they thought Venezuela’s utter failure of a socialist government was one such example.

In the end, all of the people featured in Campus Reform’s video were absolutely clueless about what “democratic socialism” even is, much less how all of the “free” goodies promised by socialists like Ocasio-Cortez would be paid for. Phillips was only too happy to discuss his findings in an appearance on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”

Phillips noted that even though the responses he received were “laughable” to hear, the rise of a favorable view of socialism among millennials was “not a joking matter” as the consistent failure of socialism was a rather serious issue that young people don’t seem to understand.

“It seems like all these students don’t have a grip on history… They’re not being taught history and economics courses … so many students — it’s hard to blame them — they don’t have a context of history, they don’t know that socialism has failed every time its been implemented,” Phillips said.

“I think a lot of this also stems from how we have demonized success in America,” he continued. “Many people are taught that if you are wealthy, you only got that way because you stole it from someone less fortunate or less privileged.

“And I think after eight years of class warfare under President Obama, young people are now coming of age thinking ‘If someone else is rich it must be because they did something wrong,’and so instead of teaching people to emulate success, we’ve taught them now to try and drag successful people down, and that’s the wrong way of doing things,” Phillips added.

Sadly, Phillips is absolutely correct in that our nation’s liberal education system hasn’t taught the latest generations about the complete failures and abject horrors of true socialism. That’s why so many folks today seem absolutely clueless about the utter impossibility of a government providing “free” everything while remaining a prosperous nation where citizens enjoy liberty and freedom.

It’s why there are so many Democrats.

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New Yorker Mag Attacks ‘Creepy’ Muslim Restaurant… Oh Wait, It’s Christian


Reported By Ben Marquis | April 15, 2018 at 12:19pm

URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/new-yorker-mag-attacks-restaurant/

Democrats — the self-proclaimed party of tolerance and inclusivity — have hypocritically displayed an increasing amount of intolerance and exclusivity toward one particular subgroup of the American population: conservative Christians. That intolerance and desire to exclude Christians from modern American society is no more evident than in the left’s relentless attacks against Chick-fil-A, a prominent and growing Christian-owned restaurant chain.Image result for chick-fil-a

The New Yorker recently provided the worst yet example of the left’s anti-Christian bigotry with an article lamenting the success the franchise has seen in the liberal bastion of New York City.

The success of the chain — the piece admitted that a Chick-fil-A fried chicken sandwich is sold in the city every six seconds, and the chain is set to open a dozen more storefronts in the city — is largely dismissed and invalidated as “creepy” and an “infiltration” due to the religious ideology of the restaurant’s founding family.

“And yet the brand’s arrival here feels like an infiltration, in no small part because of its pervasive Christian traditionalism,” wrote Dan Piepenbring for The New Yorker. “Its headquarters, in Atlanta, are adorned with Bible verses and a statue of Jesus washing a disciple’s feet. Its stores close on Sundays.” 

The piece proceeded to attack CEO Dan Cathy for his charitable donations to causes in support of traditional marriage, which were characterized as “anti-gay” and “anti-LGBT.” 

It also attacked the manner in which the new Fulton Street restaurant — the grand opening of which served as the basis for the attack piece — used the word “community,” as if non-Christian liberals are the only ones who can lay claim to fostering a positive “community.”

“This emphasis on community … suggests an ulterior motive,” wrote Piepenbring. “The restaurant’s corporate purpose still begins with the words ‘to glorify God,’ and that proselytism thrums below the surface of the Fulton Street restaurant, which has the ersatz homespun ambiance of a megachurch.”

The piece also took on the instantly recognizable Chick-fil-a Cows, a highly successful marketing gimmick by the restaurant whose role in the franchise’s success was characterized as being the “ultimate evangelists” in the “church” that is Chick-fil-A. Piepenbring seemed disgusted at the popularity of the cows and their misspelled catch phrase “Eat Mor Chikin,” which he viewed as a “morbid” advertising campaign in that “one farm animal begs us to kill another in its place.” 

On a less bigoted note, the piece also took issue with the fact Chick-fil-A has grown to become a large and powerful corporation which was now “crowding out” local diners and restaurants in the city and criticized its “deadening uniformity” while lamenting the “palliative” effect of their “homogeneous” comfort food.

“Today, the Cows’ ‘guerrilla insurgency’ is more of a carpet bombing. New Yorkers are under no obligation to repeat what they say. Enough, we can tell them. NO MOR,” concluded Piepenbring.See the source image

This piece — ostensibly about the grand opening of a new Chick-fil-A location in New York City — was little more than a blatantly bigoted attack against Christianity disguised as a restaurant review.

Imagine for a moment the owner of Chick-fil-A was Muslim and sold chicken sandwiches from a chain of halal carts around the city. Would The New Yorker still characterize its growing success as an “infiltration” of religious values that was “creepy” and needed to be opposed? Of course not, and the fact The New Yorker felt safe denigrating the Christian faith of Chick-fil-A’s owners when they wouldn’t dare do the same for another religion is simply the latest example of the left’s bigoted hatred against all things Christian, which apparently now includes tasty fried chicken sandwiches.

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New York Dem Arrested for Stealing from Hurricane Sandy Victims


 

Reported By Joe Setyon | January 11, 2018 at 10:46am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/new-york-democrat-arrested-for-stealing-from-victims-of-hurricane-sandy/

New York State Democrat Assemblywoman Pamela Harris was arrested Tuesday for allegedly defrauding the federal and state governments out of $60,000, including $25,000 in FEMA funds that were allocated for residents left homeless in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

But officials say Harris — who represents parts of Brooklyn in the state assembly — was not among the homeless. Instead, her Coney Island residence was still intact following the devastating 2012 storm, according to the New York Daily News.

The 57-year-old remained in her home after the storm but allegedly filed fake paperwork to prove she was paying rent for a residence in Staten Island. FEMA then compensated her with money that was set aside for “temporary housing assistance,” officials said.

In an effort to cover up what she had done, Harris is accused of telling witnesses they should lie to the FBI.

“Harris was busy brewing a storm of her own — one that resulted in her receiving significant payouts by the very federal agency charged with helping those truly in need,” said William Sweeney Jr., the head of the bureau field office in New York.

Prior to her 2015 election to the state assembly, Harris ran a non-profit training and mentoring organization. But she allegedly pocketed $34,000 that the city council had given to her group to pay for rent. Officials believe Harris used $10,000 to pay for vacations — including one on a cruise ship. She also allegedly used stolen money to shop for lingerie from Victoria’s Secret, as well as pay off bills she had accumulated from Kohls and the mortgage on her Coney Island home.

For her alleged crimes — which authorities say took place between 2012 and 2016 — Harris was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, making false statements, bankruptcy fraud, witness tampering and conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to the Daily News. Harris pleaded not guilty and was released on $150,000 bond.

“Ms. Harris has been an invaluable community organizer and a well-regarded legislator,” her attorneys said in a statement. “Especially given her background, we are disappointed that Ms. Harris was indicted.”

“She has pleaded not guilty, and we look forward to her day in court and an opportunity there to present the full facts.”

The Democrat assemblywoman’s arrest came the same week New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a lawsuit against the five largest oil companies in the nation, claiming Sandy’s destruction was amplified due to the climate change those companies contributed to. The storm struck the city in October 2012, leaving more than 40 New Yorkers dead and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage.

“After Sandy, it became clear that climate change was an active threat to our lives. It may have happened five years ago, but we are still dealing every day with the destruction it caused,” de Blasio tweeted Wednesday.

“It’s time for Big Oil to pay for that damage.” 

De Blasio also noted that New York is “the first major American city to take this action against fossil fuel companies.”

New York’s road to recovery has been a long one, with multiple resiliency projects being carried out in order to prevent future natural disasters from affecting the city in a similar manner, according to Politico.

“The city seeks to shift the costs of protecting the city from climate change impacts back onto the companies that have done nearly all they could to create this existential threat,” the lawsuit reads, as reported by the New York Post.

Moreover, de Blasio wants the city’s pensions to divest from oil companies. But according to the National Association of Manufacturers — an industry trade group — this move will come with a high price tag, as it could cost city employees $2.8 billion over 20 years.

“Divestment won’t do anything to cut greenhouse gas emissions. All it does is pass stocks from one shareholder to another,” NAM Vice President Chris Netram said Wednesday.

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ISIS “Lone Wolf” Taunts New Yorkers With Chilling Selfies Taken in Their Midst


Reported By John Falkenberg | January 3, 2018 at 5:54pm

URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/isis-lone-wolf-taunts-new-yorkers/

Authorities in New York are reportedly investigating what appears to be an Islamic State group-supporting young man taking “selfies” around New York City, specifically outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the One World Trade Center.

The images began circulating through social media over the previous weekend, according to Fox News, and their appearance has concerned countless thousands, if not millions.

According to the New York Daily News, “one of the images had the caption ‘We are in your own Backyard,’” said Eric Feinberg, the co-founder of GIPEC, a cyber-intelligence firm that monitors potential terrorist activity on social media. That’s certainly cause for some concern.

The above image from Twitter shows a young man wearing cold weather clothing with Islamic State branding on it. The purpose of such a photo is obvious: to instill fear in the hearts of the American people.

The Islamic State group wants to inspire lone wolves to believe that they are not alone, and that if they attack, they’ll be participating in the take-down of the United States, rather than the final gasps of the shell of a terrorist organization. Should they be foolish enough to believe that, they’ll pay for it dearly. Thanks to President Donald Trump, his administration, and the men and women of our armed forces, the Islamic State group is very quickly approaching “history textbook footnote” status.

Their antics may be slightly intimidating, but it’s important to keep in mind that the image above may well have been doctored.

“Maybe it’s Photoshopped, maybe it’s not. It should be taken seriously,” Feinberg said.

And this potential lone wolf is being taken very seriously. While a NYPD spokesman didn’t call the threat “credible,” he did say the matter was being looked into.

“The NYPD is aware of the photograph. As with all terror related threats, the NYPD is looking into the incident. At this time there are no credible threats related to New York City,” an NYPD spokesman said Tuesday night according to the New York Daily News.

It’s a dumb terrorist who deliberately provokes the boys in blue.

While leftist may crow that the United States has a mandate to keep its proverbial doors wide open to whoever would like to enter, incidents like these tell us a very different — and far more factual — story.

H/T The Sun

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Liberals Launch Program to Increase No. of Illegals Allowed to Stay by 1,100%


Reported By Ben Marquis | November 13, 2017 at 2:17pm

URL of the original posting Site: https://conservativetribune.com/liberals-program-illegals-allowed/?

Since President Donald Trump took office, there has been a marked difference in the manner in which the federal government deals with illegal immigration, both on the border and within the country.

Deportations are reportedly rising, but liberals are intent on reversing that trend and allowing as many illegals to remain lawfully in the country as long as possible, and they appear to now be using taxpayer funds to do so.

The liberal New York City-based Vera Institute of Justice just announced via a press release the formation of a new program known as the Safety and Fairness for Everyone Cities Network.

The SAFE Cities Network provides publicly-funded legal representation to both legal immigrants and illegals involved in deportation and detainment hearings at no cost to the immigrants themselves. Some localities have begun similar programs on their own already.

The program is based on a study by the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project that was conducted in one particular New York City immigration court, the results of which the Vera Institute now intends to attempt to duplicate nationwide.

That study found that immigrants facing deportation hearings had only a 4 percent success rate of avoiding deportation when representing themselves, but that their success rate was about 48 percent when they were provided with legal representation — an estimated increase of 1,100 percent.

The organization touted, “Network members come from 11 politically, economically, and ethnically diverse jurisdictions that are united in their commitment to the belief that … a crucial way to keep our communities safe is to ensure legal representation for those whose future depends on it.”

Except that the 11 Network members aren’t exactly as “politically” diverse as the Vera Institute would have the public believe. Just check out the list of participating jurisdictions and see if you can spot the one thing they all have in common.

The 11 Network members are: Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Baltimore, MD; Chicago, IL; Columbus, OH; Dane County, WI; Oakland/Alameda County, CA; Prince George’s County, MD; Sacramento, CA; San Antonio, TX; and Santa Ana, CA.

If you noticed that all of those cities and/or counties are liberal-dominated and Democrat-controlled, even if they are in a “red” state, then you would be correct.

The Vera Institute proudly proclaimed that under their initiative, “[Eleven] jurisdictions are providing funding for trained legal service providers to represent immigrants facing deportation proceedings supplemented by a catalyst grant administered by Vera.”

What that means is that Vera provided some private funding up front to start the program, but that participant jurisdictions will continue the program with taxpayer dollars.

Were this initiative to be completely funded by private dollars, we would have no qualms with it whatsoever, as it would be nothing more than liberals putting their money where their mouths are and funding a venture to protect illegals by themselves. But this program will utilize taxpayer money, funds that will inevitably come from individuals vehemently opposed to the program who will nevertheless be paying for it. That is not right.

Furthermore, can we expect liberal organizations like the Vera Institute to formulate similar programs using taxpayer funding to provide for the “free” legal defense of American citizens facing hearings for violations of gun or tax laws or other government regulations? After all, wouldn’t that be “fair” to everyone?

We highly doubt it.

H/T LawNewz

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