Edwin Jackson’s senseless death was collateral damage in the quest for open borders

February 7, 2018

By Dale L. Wilcox

Because it happened on Super Bowl Sunday, Edwin Jackson’s death did not get the attention it deserved. Jackson, a promising, 26-year-old linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, was killed along with his Uber driver in a traffic accident in Indiana. According to reports, the driver of the other car, Manuel Orrego-Savala, is an illegal alien whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit. A native of Guatemala, he was deported in 2007 and 2009 after arrests in San Francisco, a city now infamous for its sanctuary policies. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said he had a prior conviction for driving under the influence.

Does any of this sound familiar? Some version of this macabre scenario seems to be playing out on a regular basis in America. While lamenting the wasteful loss of life, open borders immigration activists are quick to muddy the waters with a series of talking points meant to distract from the root of the problem. Any attempt to examine such a case for what it actually is — the product of a nonsensical immigration policy and the people who advocate for it — is condemned as race-based, opportunistic “politicizing” of a tragedy.

The real politicizing happens when legitimate questions and discourse about a tragedy like Edwin Jackson’s death are shut down to further a political agenda. These efforts are often portrayed in the media as a spontaneous, grassroots effort by concerned citizens who don’t want to see America transformed into a xenophobic island apart from the rest of the world. That portrayal is false. The driving force behind today’s open borders movement is a massive, well-financed assemblage of lawyers whose express goal is to thwart the efforts of the Trump administration to tighten border enforcement and deport those in violation of our immigration laws.

How do we know this is happening? The perpetrators openly boast about their efforts to clog the courts with lawsuits. The Democratic attorneys general has proclaimed itself “the first line of defense” against the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Similarly, the American Civil Liberties Union has dispatched its nationwide matrix of attorneys to shop for sympathetic judges in circuits known for a permissive track record on immigration cases. The lavishly-funded Southern Poverty Law Center uses its notorious list of “hate groups” to demonize and intimidate anyone who advocates for positions other than their own open borders platform.

To counter these efforts, the Immigration Reform Law Institute recently created Attorneys United for a Secure America (AUSA). The effort is currently recruiting attorneys from various backgrounds who will be mentored and assisted to pursue cases and projects aimed at enforcing the rule of law, safeguarding the border, protecting American jobs, preserving our natural resources and defending our national security. Given the forces committed to weakening our immigration laws, the need for AUSA is desperate.

Simply put, Edwin Jackson should be alive today. That his young life was snuffed out is merely collateral damage to those who seek a chaotic, dangerous immigration policy. Thanks to AUSA, those with a different, brighter vision for America now have the opportunity to make it happen.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Also published at: Dale L. Wilcox, Edwin Jackson’s senseless death was collateral damage in the quest for open borders, The Hill, February 7, 2018