HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Amnesty would add 100 million more illegals and cost Legals trillions!
Illegal Alien Accused of Stabbing Her Four Children, Husband to Death
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/07/07/illegal-alien-accused-of-stabbing-her-four-children-husband-to-death/
An illegal alien has been arrested after being accused of killing four of her five children and her husband in a brutal stabbing.
Isabel Martinez, an illegal alien with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer, is accused of stabbing to death four of her children, including 2-year-old Axel, 4-year-old Dillan, 7-year-old Dacota and 10-year-old Isabela Martinez, and her husband, 33-year-old Martin Romero, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.Martinez also allegedly stabbed her fifth child, 9-year-old Diana Romero, but after being airlifted to the hospital following the stabbing incident, she is expected to survive, according to authorities.
According to police, Martinez went on the stabbing spree against her own family in the middle of the night, around 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.
“What prompts a person to take the life of such innocent children and her spouse is something we may never understand,” Gwinnett County police said in a statement. “This is a horrendous crime not only for the victims but for the extended family, neighborhood and community. We are hoping and praying that the remaining victim survives his/her injuries and makes a full recovery.”
In a write-up for the New York Times on the brutal crime incident, mainstream media reporters called the accused killer a “Georgia woman,” glossing over the fact that she had been placed on an immigration hold.
In accordance with ICE policy, only illegal aliens can be hit with a detainer. But, the Times tried to bury the hold, slipping it into one statement reading “She was also being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials said.”
Martinez is being charged with five counts of malice murder, five counts of murder, and six counts of aggravated assault. Martinez remains in local custody, but should she ever be let out, she will be turned over to ICE officials for prosecution and deportation.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Kate,
We Hardly Knew Ye
By Mark Krikorian
The Corner at National Review Online, July 1, 2017
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/449169/kate-steinle-no-sanctuary-criminals
Today is Kate Steinle Day, the second anniversary of a woman’s murder by a repeatedly deported illegal-alien felon nestled in the warm embrace of San Francisco’s sanctuary policies. But she wasn’t the first American to be killed by sanctuary-city ordinances, not even in San Francisco. In 2008 a Dreamer convicted-felon gang member protected – twice – from deportation by the city’s policies murdered Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew. And in 2010, Drew Rosenberg was run over three times by an illegal alien with Temporary Protected Status who shortly before had been arrested – and then let go by San Francisco police – for driving without a license or insurance the wrong way down a one-way street.
And elsewhere victims have included Jamiel Shaw, Joshua Wilkerson, Dominic Durden, Brandon Mendoza, Michael Davis and Danny Oliver, and many more.
The House of Representatives finally stepped up this week by passing two bills designed to curb the special protections enjoyed by criminal aliens. The first is Kate’s Law, named for s. Steinle, that lengthens the sentence for re-entry after deportation, which is already a felony. The bill, aggressively promoted by Bill O’Reilly, is mainly symbolic – the problem with illegal aliens re-entering after a formal deportation is not that the sentences were too short but that U.S. Attorneys often didn’t prosecute at all. There’s nothing wrong with Kate’s Law, but the energy devoted to it over the past two years would have been better spent promoting broader legislation.
Legislation like the other bill passed by the House this week, the No Sanctuaries for Criminals Act. The bill is needed because the Justice and Homeland Security departments have limited ability to fight state and local nullification of federal immigration law, but Congress has more. The potential efficacy of this bill is suggested by the fact that only three House Democrats voted for it, as opposed to the 24 Democrats who voted for Kate’s Law in order to pretend that they care about immigration enforcement. (Only one Republican – Justin Amash – voted against both bills.)
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte shepherded these two bills, and has several other important pieces of legislation queued up, including the Davis-Oliver Act, which would tighten immigration more broadly, rather than specifically regarding sanctuary cities. But since these bills would need support from eight Senate Democrats to pass (unless the filibuster is returned to its traditional talking format rather than requiring a super majority for almost all legislation), I don’t see how they become law. When the overwhelming majority of a party’s lawmakers can vote against a symbolic measure like Kate’s Law because they object to the symbolism – opposition to illegal immigration – groups like the newly formed Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC) still have a lot of work ahead of them.
By Mark Krikorian
The Corner at National Review Online, July 1, 2017
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/449169/kate-steinle-no-sanctuary-criminals
Today is Kate Steinle Day, the second anniversary of a woman’s murder by a repeatedly deported illegal-alien felon nestled in the warm embrace of San Francisco’s sanctuary policies. But she wasn’t the first American to be killed by sanctuary-city ordinances, not even in San Francisco. In 2008 a Dreamer convicted-felon gang member protected – twice – from deportation by the city’s policies murdered Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew. And in 2010, Drew Rosenberg was run over three times by an illegal alien with Temporary Protected Status who shortly before had been arrested – and then let go by San Francisco police – for driving without a license or insurance the wrong way down a one-way street.
And elsewhere victims have included Jamiel Shaw, Joshua Wilkerson, Dominic Durden, Brandon Mendoza, Michael Davis and Danny Oliver, and many more.
The House of Representatives finally stepped up this week by passing two bills designed to curb the special protections enjoyed by criminal aliens. The first is Kate’s Law, named for s. Steinle, that lengthens the sentence for re-entry after deportation, which is already a felony. The bill, aggressively promoted by Bill O’Reilly, is mainly symbolic – the problem with illegal aliens re-entering after a formal deportation is not that the sentences were too short but that U.S. Attorneys often didn’t prosecute at all. There’s nothing wrong with Kate’s Law, but the energy devoted to it over the past two years would have been better spent promoting broader legislation.
Legislation like the other bill passed by the House this week, the No Sanctuaries for Criminals Act. The bill is needed because the Justice and Homeland Security departments have limited ability to fight state and local nullification of federal immigration law, but Congress has more. The potential efficacy of this bill is suggested by the fact that only three House Democrats voted for it, as opposed to the 24 Democrats who voted for Kate’s Law in order to pretend that they care about immigration enforcement. (Only one Republican – Justin Amash – voted against both bills.)
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte shepherded these two bills, and has several other important pieces of legislation queued up, including the Davis-Oliver Act, which would tighten immigration more broadly, rather than specifically regarding sanctuary cities. But since these bills would need support from eight Senate Democrats to pass (unless the filibuster is returned to its traditional talking format rather than requiring a super majority for almost all legislation), I don’t see how they become law. When the overwhelming majority of a party’s lawmakers can vote against a symbolic measure like Kate’s Law because they object to the symbolism – opposition to illegal immigration – groups like the newly formed Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC) still have a lot of work ahead of them.
Mother: ‘My Son Is Dead Because Politicians…Put Illegal Aliens Ahead of American Citizens’
(CNSNews.com)
– “My son is dead because politicians and local jurisdictions have put
illegal aliens ahead of American citizens,” a grieving mother told a
gathering at the National Press Club on Tuesday.
Maureen
Maloney, whose son was killed in August 2011 by a drunken, unlicensed
undocumented immigrant, was addressing parents and relatives of
Americans who have been victimized by people who came to this country
illegally.
“Sadly,
more often than not, our legal system holds the criminal aliens less
accountable than Americans, leaving families being victimized,” Maloney
said. “Matthew paid the ultimate price. I am permanently separated from
my son.”
She
called it “outrageous” that some politicians and judges “are willing to
protect the illegal aliens at the expense of American citizens.”
Maloney was speaking at the launch of a group called Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC),
which represents people like herself who have lost loved ones because
of the actions of illegal aliens. The group will focus on legislation,
education and public policy.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the guest of honor at the AVIAC launch, is a longtime advocate of the rule of law:
“These
families are the equivalent of Gold Star Families,” King said. “They’ve
lost their loved ones because we didn’t do our job in enforcing the
law.”
King said the U.S., under President Trump, is now “on the cusp” of restoring the rule of law:
“Eisenhower
enforced immigration law well. Each succeeding president enforced it
less and less, until we got to Barack Obama, who simply said, I have
prosecutorial discretion; I’m going to decide not to enforce whole vast
areas of the law, and I’m going to reward lawbreakers because what, it
helps him politically? That seems to have been the equation.
“And
so now this contempt for the rule of law – this demand where people
come to the streets and they say, ‘I demand a path to citizenship
because I want to be an American.’ Well that’s not good enough. You have
to also abide by our laws. If you’re a confessed law-breaker, don’t be
pressing this society for us to grant you amnesty.”
King
noted that the law requires people in the country illegally to be
placed in removal proceedings. But that doesn’t happen in so-called
sanctuary cities, where local authorities are directed not to cooperate
with federal immigration officials.
Five days after taking office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on immigration,
saying that sanctuary jurisdictions “have caused immeasurable harm to
the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic.”
Among
other things, Trump said sanctuary jurisdictions that willfully flout
immigration law would not be eligible to receive federal funds. A
federal judge in California later blocked that provision,
saying: “The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not
the President, so the (Executive) Order cannot constitutionally place
new conditions on federal funds.”
But
this week, the House is going to fix that problem by taking up two
pieces of legislation: Kate's Law, named after Kate Steinle, the young
San Francisco woman gunned down by an illegal immigrant who had been
deported multiple times; and the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act.
Kate's Law raises the maximum sentence for criminal aliens who illegally re-enter the United States.
The
No Sanctuary for Criminals Act prohibits state and local government
from implementing policies that help illegal immigrants avoid
deportation by stopping the police from cooperating with federal
immigration authorities. It also makes jurisdictions that break this law
ineligible for certain Justice Department grants and Homeland Security
grants, Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) told a news conference on Tuesday.
“Cities,
counties and states that refuse to cooperate with the federal agencies
to enforce laws of this country should not be rewarded with taxpayer
dollars intended to facilitate law and order,” Roby said. “Sanctuary
cities are magnets for illegal immigrants, including some dangerous
people with criminal records.”
President
Trump on Wednesday morning retweeted a Fox News report about the House
taking up the immigration legislation. Today (June 28) at 3 p.m., Trump
is scheduled to meet with Americans who have been victimized by illegal
aliens, as he urges the House to pass Kate’s Law and the No Sanctuary
law.
GRAPHIC: 74 Killed in Weeks-Long Cartel War near Texas Border
Tamaulipas Government
REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — The raging cartel war for control of this city resulted in at least 74 officially-counted murders. Many more victims have been incinerated just south of the Texas border.
In early May, Breitbart Texas began reporting on rival factions of the Gulf Cartel fighting for
control of this border city. The continuing conflicts resulted in
convoys of cartel gunmen roaming the streets looking for their rivals.
Overnight,
cartel gunmen dumped a bloodied corpse with a posterboard where one
cartel factions threatened their rivals. Bodies with warnings had
not been seen previously in Reynosa. However, they are commonplace in
Ciudad Victoria and in the border state of Nuevo Leon where Breitbart
Texas has been reporting Los Zetas and other cartels are also carrying
out massacres.
The
violence spiked in early May, shortly after Mexican authorities killed
former Gulf Cartel boss Juan Manuel “Toro” Loiza Salinas in late April.
His death led to a power vacuum where his former allies are trying to
fight off the another faction that appears to be favored by other cartel
leaders. The ongoing
fighting has led to a spike in highway robberies, armed robberies,
kidnappings, and extortions as cartel commanders continue to look for
ways to fund their ongoing war.
The
raging violence by the Gulf Cartel immediately south of the Texas
border led to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) issuing an alert
to agents that they represent regarding the cartel war just south of
the border, Breitbart Texas reported.
The NBPC warned federal agents about the constant gun battles and the
possibility of spillover violence or stray rounds fired in Mexico
landing in Texas.
Editor’s
Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas,
Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk
their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The
writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels
that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a
pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
MANHUNT: Previously Deported MS-13 Gang Member Allegedly Murdered Girlfriend
Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office
HOUSTON, Texas — Law enforcement officials in the Houston area are searching for a previously deported MS-13 gang member wanted in connection with the murder of his female companion. The murder victim is also the mother of the suspect’s child.
The suspect, 26-year-old Carlos Gonzalez, bragged about killing people and being a member of the hyper-violent MS-13 gang.
Just two weeks earlier, the girlfriend’s sister saw the man “playing”
with or “handling” an assault rifle that she said she thought was an
AR-15, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Breitbart Texas.
The preliminary autopsy report indicates she died from a wound to the
head consistent with a rifle round.
Law
enforcement officials stated that Gonzalez had been deported in the
past. The victim’s mother said he was from El Salvador. El Salvador is
the home of the MS-13 transnational criminal gang.
Maritza Blanca Lopez sustained a shot to her left front forehead near the hairline.
“The
amount of extensive damage it caused to the skull, and the trail of
fragments and jacketing in the skull was consistent with a rifle round,”
reported the doctor who performed the autopsy at the Harris County
Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston.
Law
enforcement officials discovered Lopez’ partially nude body after
dispatchers received a 911 call from an unknown male “who stated that
his girlfriend was either playing with a gun or checking the gun and
accidentally shot herself.” The man immediately hung up the phone.
Harris
County Dispatch called the phone number back, and the unknown caller
said he did not know the exact address but gave them an intersection in
northwest Harris County. He also said he left to take his baby to the
hospital but then decided to take the child to his aunt’s house. He hung
up the phone and did not subsequently answer the phone or call
authorities back.
Patrol
deputies went to the scene and found a residence with the door
unlocked. A deputy found an adult Hispanic female in the closet of the
bedroom. She was wearing only panties and a bra. Blood and brain matter
was splattered on hanging clothes, and the walls and the fuse box in the
closet. No weapon, spent-casing, or projectile was found in the closet
according to court documents.
After
an investigation, officials determined that Lopez and Gonzalez were the
listed residents on the apartment. A neighbor told officers that she
heard yelling and screaming from two voices in the apartment and then a
“loud boom.”
The
murdered woman’s mother, Blanca Garcia said Maritza Lopez was involved
in a domestic disturbance with her daughter the previous night and has
been violent towards Lopez in the past. She said Gonzalez is the father
of her granddaughter and an MS-13 gang member.
Investigators
found bloody footprints on the floors and a balled-up men’s collared
shirt on the floor with a lot of blood stains on it.
Lopez
first started dating Gonzalez when she was 14-years-old said her
sister, Jessica Lopez. She also told officials that the family had
encouraged her sister to leave Gonzalez.
The
dead woman’s sister said her sister told her that the couple had a
fight and she had kicked out Gonzalez and was planning to leave the
apartment. She decided to stay.
Anyone with information about the 5’10” 170 lb. Gonzalez should call Crime Stoppers Houston at 713-222-TIPS. Officials issued a warrant, but Gonzalez has not been arrested. There is a $200,000 bond.
Court
records obtained from the Harris County District Clerk’s Officer
revealed Gonzalez has a 2010 felony conviction in Harris County for
burglary of a habitation. He also has two pending felony charges for
endangering a child from June 3.
Sheriff’s
Office offials and officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement
confirmed Gonzalez has not been in custody since his release from prison
on the burglary charge.
In March, two MS-13 gang members appeared in
a Harris County courtroom laughing and waving at news cameras after
being charged with the kidnapping and rape of one 14-year-old girl, and
the kidnapping, rape, and murder of another young girl in Jersey Village
– a city within the Houston metropolitan area. The murdered girl was
allegedly killed as part of a satanic ritual.
Last
Tuesday, William F. Sweeney, Jr., the assistant director in charge of
the FBI in New York told the House Homeland Security Committee
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, “MS-13 is not the
largest street gang in the United States; it is increasingly the most
violent and well-organized,” reported Breitbart Texas.
The
FBI assistant director added that MS-13 members are “typically much
younger than those connected to other street gangs.” They take “cues
from the gang instead of relying on a productive family structure. Also,
those emigrating from El Salvador to the United States are known to be
exposed and desensitized to extreme violence at an early age.” MS-13
members frequently recruit children who are illegal immigrants.
Breitbart Texas reported that
the State of Texas considers the MS-13 gang to be a Tier 1 level or the
“most significant” threat level. The rise of horrific violence from the
gang based in El Salvador and Honduras has also
decidedly affected crime levels in the fourth-largest city in the
United States. Houston is one of the five cities that the FBI has
identified to have a large MS-13 presence. Despite the threat of MS-13 in Houston and Dallas, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings have joined other Democrat mayors in Texas in trying to get the law blocked.
Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump told the crowd gathered in Iowa that MS-13 was like al-Qaida and stressed again his commitment to building a border wall, reported The Daily Caller.
In late April Breitbart News reported that
President Trump tweeted, “The Democrats don’t want money from budget
going to border wall despite the fact that it will stop drugs and very
bad MS 13 gang members.”
Bob Price serves
as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart
Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him
on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
OPEN BORDERS:
HOW THE BANKSTER-FUNDED DEMOCRAT PARTY NEARLY DESTROYED THE GOP, THE AMERICAN WORKER and then AMERICA!
MEXICANS JUMP AMERICA’S OPEN & UNDEFENDED BORDERS AMNESTY
"Even though it has gone virtually unreported by corporate media, Breitbart News has extensively documented the Clintons’ longstanding support for “open borders.” Interestingly, as the Los Angeles Times observed in 2007, the Clinton’s praise for globalization and open borders frequently comes when they are speaking before a wealthy foreign audiences and donors."
OUR BORDERS ARE NOT OPEN TO NARCOMEX BY ACCIDENT!
SOARING POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT UNDER OBAMA’S OPEN
BORDERS POLICIES.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/10/millions-of-americans-legals-unemployed.html
TIME TO CLOSE OUR BORDERS TO NARCOMEX?
"In recent years, the synthetic opioid fentanyl been flooding Dayton and other American cities, trafficked by Mexican cartels who have turned the extremely potent drug into a money-maker."
"In recent years, the synthetic opioid fentanyl been flooding Dayton and other American cities, trafficked by Mexican cartels who have turned the extremely potent drug into a money-maker."
‘Mass-Casualty Event’: Ohio County Now Tops U.S. in Overdose Deaths
THE LA RAZA MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS
BEFORE AND AFTER BARACK OBAMA’S 8 YEARS OF SABOTAGE OF AMERICAN’S HOMELAND SECURITY
MEXICO WILL DOUBLE AMERICA’S POPULATION
THE
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES ALONE HANDS MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS MORE
THAN ONE $$$$ BILLION U.S. DOLLARS PER YEAR…. MORE THAN THE ENTIRE
COUNTRY OF MEXICO HANDS THEIR OWN!
How many illegals looting or committing crimes in your county U.S.A.?
IMMIGRANT SHARE OF ADULTS QUADRUPLED IN 232 COUNTIES
"More than 728,000 illegal immigrants have been shielded from being deported and
granted work permits through President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty
program, according to the Migration Policy Institute."
MEXICO ANNOUNCES CONTROL OF CALIFORNIA ACCOMPLISHED.
De Léon, who introduced the bill, made his remarks at a hearing in Sacramento on SB54, the bill to make California a “Sanctuary State.”
California State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Léon (D-Los Angeles) said last Tuesday that “half his family” was in the country illegally, using false documents, and eligible for deportation under President Trump’s new executive order against “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." --- EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of Mexico
BELOW LINK IS TO THE LA RAZA “THE RACE” MEXICAN FASCIST SEPARATIST MOVEMENT (WARNING! GRAPHIC!)
They claim all of North America for Mexico!
OPEN BORDERS and HEROIN: AMERICAN POLITICIANS PARTNER WITH THE LA RAZA MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS!
CAUTION!
HERE IS THE MEXICO POURING OVER OUR OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS AND HAULING BACK BILLIONS FROM HEROIN SALES!
GRAPHIC IMAGES of America coming under Mex Occupation
The NARCOMEX drug cartels now operate in all major American cities and haul back to NARCOMEX between $40 top $60 BILLION from sales of HEROIN!
\
US hospital visits due to opioid issues top one million a year
By Genevieve Leigh
21 June 2017
21 June 2017
A report issued
Tuesday by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) shows
that there were 1.27 million emergency room visits or inpatient stays
for opioid-related issues in 2014, the latest year for which there is
sufficient data. This represents a 64 percent increase for inpatient
care and a 99 percent hike in emergency room treatment compared to
figures from 2005.
Aside
from the overall skyrocketing of hospital visits, the report found that
the previous discrepancy between males and females in the rate of
opioid-related inpatient stays in 2005 has disappeared. The rate of
female hospital visits has now caught up to that of males.
Another
significant finding is that from 2005 to 2014, the age groups with the
highest rate of opioid-related inpatient stays nationally were 25–44 and
45–64 years—in other words, adults in their prime working years, not
adolescents. The highest rate of opioid-related Emergency Department
(ED) visits was among those aged 25–44 years.
This
mirrors another recent report, which found that death rates have risen
among the same age group, 25–44, in every racial and ethnic group and
almost all states since 2010, likely driven in part by the opioid
epidemic.
Using
a patient’s area code to estimate the income range of people affected,
the researchers were also able to report on differences between the rich
and the poor. The results showed that rates of hospital admission or
emergency room visits were higher in poorer neighborhoods, but that the
increases were uniform, between 75 percent and 85 percent over the
10-year period, across all income ranges.
At
the top of the national list for inpatient opioid care is Maryland,
which recorded nearly 404 admissions per 100,000 residents. The state,
which has been rocked by the epidemic in recent years largely due to the
spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has seen a quadrupling of
opioid-related deaths since 2010. Baltimore City alone saw 694 deaths
from drug and alcohol-related overdoses in 2016—nearly two a day.
Following
Maryland, the top 10 states with the highest rate of opioid-related
hospital admissions in 2014 were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York,
West Virginia, Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, Illinois and Maine.
There
was substantial state-to-state variation in the findings. States such
as Texas, Nebraska and Iowa, for example, are reporting substantially
lower rates of hospital admissions than others, which coincides with the
unevenness between states in the number of overdose deaths in 2016.
This
unevenness may reflect, in part, the ways in which the more potent
opioid, fentanyl, has spread throughout the country. The historical
divide in the nation’s heroin market between powdered heroin in the East
and black tar heroin from Mexico in the West means that fentanyl has
been somewhat restricted to certain areas, particularly in the
Appalachian and Northeast region.
This
does not mean that the opioid epidemic is less severe in the areas with
lower hospital visits and deaths rates, only perhaps less deadly. If
drug production and distribution makes a shift in the West from black
tar to powdered heroin, there will likely be a rise in the use of
fentanyl along with it, and consequently the death toll would rise to
East Coast levels.
Additionally,
the lower rate of hospital visits in rural areas is often due to a lack
of access to medical care. Rural areas have even fewer resources to
deal with the drug epidemic than their urban neighbors.
Katherine,
who works for a nonprofit effort in rural Michigan relating to
substance abuse, spoke to WSWS reporters about the unique challenges
that face rural areas: “I work in a small rural community with quite a
significant opiate crisis just as it is in urban areas. In our county,
we don’t have any treatment options. We have one clinic that is limited
in what they can do, and it is always at capacity. They [addicts] have
to go out of county for treatment, which is about 90 miles away, and
there is typically a wait list in these places that are all in major
cities. Every place is pretty much running at max capacity all the
time.”
If
users decide they need help in a rural town it is very likely they will
have to wait 72 hours or more before they can get a bed in a rehab, or
in a detox facility. Katherine commented on the further challenges that
this poses to addicts seeking recovery help: “Around here, if they [a
user] are at a point when they are ready—which is a big step and where
they often feel very vulnerable—they are basically told to continue
using at their regular dosage until something opens up. ... To be told
something like that I think makes them lose hope that there is a way out
of addiction.”
The
obstacles facing workers in the cities are different, but no less
severe. Laura, who works in an adult intensive care unit (ICU) in
Boston, told the WSWS: “Honestly, one of the hardest things is, even
when patients bring themselves in, they have a tendency while detoxing
to become verbally or psychologically abusive out of desperation. A
detox that ends up in the ICU, which is usually alcoholics because the
DTs are life-threatening, is a lot of work. With understaffing in
hospitals being what it is, it’s kind of a nightmare.”
Drug
users who voluntarily enter the emergency room are almost always
looking for a safe place to detox, an extraordinarily painful and
traumatic process. Patients going through withdrawal from opioids
experience vomiting, uncontrollable shaking, sweating, cramping,
diarrhea, insomnia, anxiety, intense cravings, etc.
Most
hospitals do not have options for patients who wish to detox. Some
doctors are actually authorized to prescribe patients an additional drug
called suboxone to help with the symptoms. However, without support and
supervision this treatment option often proves to be a futile and even
dangerous one. Reports of suboxone abuse, and even overdoses, have
spiked significantly since the onset of the crisis.
Laura
explained the limitations that exist even for hospitals that provide
resources for detox: “We have a detox unit. But it can’t do much for
patients who are acutely withdrawing. If they score over a certain
number on the scales that we use, they get transferred to the regular
hospital units. And we don’t have addiction training. … Addicts are a
underserved and vulnerable population.”
Health
care workers in both rural and urban areas express frustration over the
seemingly endless crisis. The sheer breadth of the opioid epidemic is
astounding. It has bled into nearly every major social challenge of the
day, putting a strain not only on hospital and emergency workers, but
also on social welfare programs, the education system, mental health
facilities, child care workers and more. This creates a situation where
the drug epidemic, itself the product of a diseased social order,
becomes a major contributor to its further decay.
The
capitalist system as a whole is the source of the drug abuse epidemic,
as any combination of the various strands of social ills affecting an
individual could lead to substance abuse and addiction. The scope of the
crisis represents a very complex manifestation of the problems created
by a society in which every aspect of life is subjugated to private
profit and where only an infinitesimal fraction of the resources
available are directed to meet social need.
Katherine
in Michigan touched on this reality in her comments to the WSWS: “I
think that there are so many people who are suffering, experiencing
poverty and extreme hardship, or who are encountering prejudice and
oppression, and these factors are all compounding to create the basis
for the drug epidemic to flourish. It is such a multifaceted issue.
People are feeling extremely helpless watching the events in society and
the political situation, and it is almost like a building up of unrestFinally, Common Sense on Immigration: Kate's Law Passed by House of Representatives
By Jon Harris
Washington Examiner, June 30, 2017
. . .
The House also passed a bill to pull federal funding for certain programs away from "Sanctuary Cities." Named as the "No Sanctuary for Criminals Act," the bill would cut federal grants to states and "Sanctuary Cities" that refuse to cooperate with law enforcement carrying out immigration enforcement activities.
This win is only half the battle. Both bills will face substantial opposition in the Senate from the Democratic side of the aisle who successfully blocked Kate's Law last year. The Senate Republicans will need all their members and at least eight Democrats to vote with them to assure Kate's Law as well as the No Sanctuary Law will pass. It will be a steep hill to climb.
. . .
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/finally-common-sense-on-immigration-kates-law-passed-by-house-of-representatives/article/2627575
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