10/01/2010
Primetime liberal comedians have it made. All they need to do is spend a few hours with a politically correct minority and -- voila! -- they're transformed into instant congressional experts. Democrats invited Stephen Colbert to drape himself in the more-compassionate-than-thou mantle last week on behalf of illegal alien migrant workers. But not all "people of color" are equal.
Minority Americans who have suffered the bloody consequences of open borders are out of luck. No Hollywood celeb wants to walk in their shoes.
After picking veggies for a day at an upstate New York farm, Colbert descended on Washington to lament the suffering of illegal agricultural workers. While "in character" as a conservative talk show host, he backhandedly mocked those who oppose a blanket AgJobs amnesty program by sneering, "U.S.A. Number One!" Many law-abiding citizens took offense -- and not just those who fit the entertainment world's stereotype of white, right-wing tea partiers.
Althea Rae Shaw of Los Angeles wrote an outraged open letter to Colbert after last week's Capitol Hill circus. She is the aunt of 17-year-old Jamiel Andre' Shaw II, a young black high-school student who was gunned down by an illegal alien gang member in 2008 amid brown-on-black violence in southern California. The Shaw family has spearheaded efforts to repeal dangerous sanctuary policies in Los Angeles that protect criminal illegal aliens and handcuff local law enforcement. "It truly breaks my heart that so many people in positions of power and authority continue to make light of illegal immigration," Shaw wrote to Colbert.
"Are you aware of, and/or concerned with, the fact that American citizens and legal immigrants are murdered every day by illegal aliens? Have you ever spent one second thinking about that?" the grieving aunt asked the smirky comic. "What if your mother was shot in the head by an illegal alien? Do you think you could make that funny? What about your children? Would it be comical if your daughter or your son or your niece or nephew was lying in the street dead, shot in the head by someone living in this country illegally?"
In her letter, Shaw recounted the horrific case of Cheryl Green for Colbert. She was a 14-year-old Los Angeles girl murdered by illegal alien gang members in 2006, along with another young resident who had witnessed the gang's violence. Cheryl's crime? Being black. Her killers were Latino gangbangers Jonathan Fajardo and Daniel Aguilar. Earlier this month, they were convicted of first-degree murder in a hate-crime trial where one of the Hispanic gang members testified bluntly: "Basically, we're against all black people."
No, not all illegal aliens are murderers. But neither are all illegal alien migrants harmless workers. And as too many families who will never get Colbert's attention or sympathy have come to understand, lax immigration enforcement might mean cheaper arugula in Manhattan -- but it also can cost untold lives across the heartland.
In Houston, Texas, 14-year-old Shatavia Anderson was gunned down last month by a twice-deported illegal alien from El Salvador who simply waltzed back into the country. Shatavia's grieving uncle, Joe Lambert, lambasted open-borders policies that send a signal that illegal aliens "can do whatever they want. What you're doing is giving them a green light telling them, 'Hey, you can do whatever you want.'" Lambert is lobbying for tougher immigration enforcement. "I would like to see what they're doing in Arizona done here."
I'd like to see the likes of Stephen Colbert (or the Obama administration) suggest that Lambert is an ignorant racist.
Putting American sovereignty and security first may invite scorn from elite character actors and their snickering Democratic enablers. But outside D.C.'s Open Borders Theater, there are no laugh tracks. Just tears. Shaw issued Colbert a challenge: "Why not invite about 40 families who lost loved ones due to illegal immigration to come to your studio? Then you can tell us all about your experience working on this farm. You can even tell us how bad your back was hurting when you were working with illegal aliens. I wonder how many families would laugh and think that's funny."
The Colbert Congress served one useful purpose: It showed America that Tinseltown's heart only bleeds out of its left chambers.
Mrs. Malkin is author of Unhinged (Regnery) and "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2009).
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