Let her in, Dammit!

Sgt. Michael Ferschke met Hota Ferschke when he was stationed in Okinawa. He was a reconnaissance officer and she was an administrative specialist.

When it was time for Ferschke to be deployed to Iraq, he proposed to Hota. They planned to marry and move to the U.S. when he was finished with his tour.

But when Hota found out she was pregnant a month after Michael left, he insisted that they get married right away. The couple was married over the phone in 2008.

Michael Ferschke was killed in combat a month later from that day, and his family began making arrangements for their son's widow to come to the U.S. and raise their son, Michael or "Mikey." However the family has run up against a stumbling block in the form of an obstinate US Government which refuses to grant her residency and allow her to come here and apply for citizenship because the marriage was never actually consummated, according to one branch of the government. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to recognize the marriage even though the Defense Department not only recognizes it as valid, but paid Hota Ferschke and little Mikey death benefits for the loss of her husband and his father. And DHS refuses to budge, so Hota is stuck back in Okinawa while Micheal's parents are raising their grandson and fighting to get their daughter-in-law over here legally.

Now this is a slap in the face to Michael Ferschke--who gave his life for this country--and also to every other veteran past, present and future. It's also patently ridiculous in light of the fact that this same government has refused to deport actual criminal illegal aliens who have been convicted of serious crimes here like rape, child molestation and drug dealing. It refuses to detain illegals, or grants them bail so that they can abscond and continue offending. Hell, even Barack Obama's illegal alien aunt was given free rein to run around our country and defraud the taxpayers out of public housing and benefits meant for needy Americans even after she'd been ordered out. Her punishment for ignoring court orders, fraud, and general leeching? An invitation to Obama's inauguration and a pathway to citizenship.

But Hota Ferschke, a woman who worked for our government overseas and who lost her husband and the father of her child in Iraq? Well according to Barack Obama's administration, she's got nothing coming.

Andrew Sullivan, the dope-smoking, Conservative-hating, AIDS-infected British citizen and talking head for the "Progressive" left gets a special dispensation following his conviction for breaking our drug laws, but this woman who has only given good service and a husband to America gets a backhand?

This is wrong, plain and simple. Once again, only the bad people who are politically-connected or representative of special interest groups are getting the benefits here while the good ones who have jobs and obey the laws but have the unfortunate luck to not be Mexican or related to Barack Obama get nothing at all.

Congress needs to let Hota Ferschke come live with her son and grandparents and give her a chance to obtain the American citizenship that her marriage to her fallen Marine husband would have entitled her to. And if Congress won't do that, well then they'd best ensure that Obama's Aunt Zeituni and Andrew Sullivan leave within a week on the same huge ship that every other known illegal alien in our country has been packed onto.

Let her in!

A tale of two potheads

I suppose I should say "two foreign-born, resident alien potheads, one of whom has political clout..."

The story begins for all intents and purposes, when Charlie Castillo, a Canadian-born man of Maltese descent who had lived here virtually his whole life--long enough to raise a family, work for and retire from General Motors--got arrested ten years ago for possession of marijuana.

(Full and rather long story here.)

Charlie Castillo was ordered deported, arrested by ICE this past December (just before Christmas), and tossed out of the country--probably forever--despite having a wife, kids, home and pension here.

Wow. Tough break. But if that's the way it's supposed to work, one would expect it to work that way in every similar case, right? Apparently not, though, at least not if you are a foreign-born British citizen who is also an HIV-positive homosexual and a staunch public critic of the American Conservative movement, particularly Governor Sarah Palin. Andrew Sullivan, political commentator and blogger who has faithfully carried the Democrats' water for years despite not even being eligible to vote in our country's elections, has managed to get a marijuana case against himself dismissed on the grounds that the conviction would harm his efforts to become a US citizen.

(That story here.)

As you can see, even the judge was irked by the blatant special treatment that Sullivan got, apparently due to some back-room deal between the US Attorney's office and Sullivan’s attorney, Robert Delahunt Jr. Notably, this Delahunt is the cousin of U. S. Rep. William D. Delahunt, who as a District Attorney in Massachussetts dismissed Amy Bishop's murder case without explanation after she shot her brother to death in 1986. Clearly the special favors don't fall far from the tree where Delahunts are concerned.

Welcome to America, post-Obama, where the politically-connected are protected and allowed to break our laws with impunity while mere proletarians are subject to the full weight of those same laws. As it stands today, two potheads were arrested. One who has been here since he was a small child has now been separated from his family and booted out of America forever. The other, a man who came here as an adult and has no wife or kids to provide for, gets to stay and continue his petition for permanent residency and eventual citizenship despite having a contagious terminal disease that should have been grounds for barring him from our shores or forcing him out once it was discovered. But this guy has friends in the form of grateful Democrats, so he gets a pass from the Justice Department which is currently run by Obama Appointee Eric Holder, a man with a long history of questionable political pardons and dismissals.

I wonder what Charlie Castillo and his family think about that? I know what US Magnistrate Judge Robert Collings thinks, because he wrote it in his 12-page opinion.

In the Court’s view, in seeking leave to dismiss the charge against Mr. Sullivan, the United States Attorney is not being faithful to a cardinal principle of our legal system, i.e., that all persons stand equal before the law and are to be treated equally in a court of justice once judicial processes are invoked. It is
quite apparent that Mr. Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances.

If there were a legitimate reason for the disparate treatment, the Court would view the matter differently. But the United States Attorney refused to allow the Court to inquire into why, in the circumstances of this case where Mr. Sullivan had already been charged with the crime, either a forfeiture of collateral or an adjudication would make a difference in the immigration
application.

But there is more. If, in fact, a determination that Mr. Sullivan had possessed marijuana is a factor which, under immigration law, the immigration authorities are legally charged with taking into account when deciding Mr. Sullivan’s application, why should the United States Attorney make a judgment that, despite the immigration law, the charge should be dismissed because it would “adversely affect” his application?9 If other applicants for a certain
immigration status have had their applications “adversely affected” by a conviction or a forfeiture of collateral for possession of marijuana, then why should Mr. Sullivan, who is in the same position, not have to deal with the same consequences?

In short, the Court sees no legitimate reason why Mr. Sullivan should be treated differently, or why the Violation Notice issued to him should be dismissed. The only reasons given for the dismissal flout the bedrock principle of our legal system that all persons stand equal before the law.

Welcome to Obama's America, where all are equal, but some are more equal than others.