The loss of a son fueled a father's fight against illegal immigration. And there's little room for debate
Don Rosenberg and I have talked about illegal immigration on the phone and exchanged emails over the years, but we had never met, until Monday.
The federal government shutdown last weekend, and temporary reopening, are about a lot of things, but differing views on immigration are at the core of the impasse. Rosenberg and I come at the topic from different directions, too, and I was curious about whether we could find the common ground that eludes Washington.
So I drove to Rosenberg's home in Westlake Village and we spent three hours talking it over. I'd like to tell you we brokered a deal, sent it to Washington for approval by both sides, and the republic can now move forward.
But as goes the nation, so went the immigration summit in Westlake Village.
Let me begin with some key background information about Rosenberg, who is retired from sales and marketing jobs in the entertainment industry.
Rosenberg and his wife, an attorney, raised three children. In November of 2010, the family was shattered by the news that their eldest, Drew, a second-year law student, had been killed in a traffic accident in San Francisco.
Drew, 25, was riding his motorcycle at an intersection. A Honduran-born man named Roberto Galo hit Rosenberg at low speed and then, either in panic, confusion or an attempt to get away, hit him again.
"He backed up, drove over him a second time, and then went forward again," said Don Rosenberg. "The rear tire was on my son's abdomen. He was probably already dead at that point, I don't know."
Rosenberg began investigating the accident and the background of the driver. Among other things, he discovered that Galo was in the United States on temporary protected status, which means he could have qualified for a driver's license.
But Galo didn't have one. And Rosenberg found that five months before his son's death, Galo had been stopped by police and cited for going the wrong way on a one-way street and driving without a license or insurance.
After the accident that took young Rosenberg's life, Galo was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, sentenced to six months in jail, and was released after 43 days.
Rosenberg, a longtime liberal and registered Democrat, became an activist. His first focus was unlicensed drivers, and he found that about 7,500 deaths annually were caused by drivers with no license or a suspended license. He estimates half of those drivers were here illegally.
When I first wrote about Rosenberg five years ago this week, he railed against policies in San Francisco and Los Angeles in which unlicensed drivers, when cited, can quickly retrieve their cars and drive again. L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck said it was "a fairness issue for people who don't have the opportunity to get licenses."
"I'm just looking for sane policy," Rosenberg told me at the time.
He has since evolved into an ardent foe of illegal immigration, of California's "sanctuary state" status, of the cost of services for those here illegally, and of congressional failure to enact tougher legislation. Republican politicians cater to those who covet cheap labor, as Rosenberg sees it, while Democrats care more about immigrants here unlawfully than about citizens.
And he says the media are radically biased,
producing scads of "cry me a river" stories
about the plight of those here illegally while
refusing to focus on the crimes they cause,
including murder, or on the cost of
education, incarceration and medical care.
Rosenberg makes some fair arguments, and he says they are based on research rather than driven by anguish over the loss of his son. When I pushed back on certain points or "statistics" that struck me as distortions, he pushed ahead.
To those who might think he's a racist, he says, they're wrong, for starters, and in his opinion, nobody pays a bigger price for illegal immigration and its impact on the economy than people of color.
Rosenberg is no fan of Donald Trump but met with him briefly when Trump was the tough-talking candidate who launched his political career on a promise to boot border violatorsback where they came from.
But even at that, Rosenberg was disappointed because he didn't think Trump, or congressional Republicans, were willing to go far enough. The wall is fine, said Rosenberg, who told me he visited the border last week to look at 30-foot-tall prototypes.
"You can't build a 31-foot ladder," he said with a smile.
But in his opinion Trump and Congress shouldn't even be discussing a deal for DACA recipients — those who have temporary protected status because they were brought here as children — until they tackle the bigger stuff, like birthright citizenship.
"You've got Chinese women coming over
here and giving birth to thousands of kids
and going back to China, and one day when
the kids come back we've got to support
them," he said.
This is how the conversation went, and I figured the last card I could play was DACA.
Surely we'd find agreement there, right?
Not entirely.
Rosenberg said he supports protected status for those who came to the U.S. unwittingly, so long as they're crime-free, but he insists many of the 800,000 or so people in question were "rubber-stamped" rather than "screened," and "they're not all Rhodes scholars."
Nobody said they were, but I've met a lot of pretty impressive ones.
If it wasn't their fault they came here, Rosenberg said, "what are you going to do about the people whose fault it was?"
Clearly, we were following in the footsteps of Congress. I admit the immigration system is a manufactured mess, filled with contradiction and honest difference of opinion, but I disagree with Rosenberg's contention that it's all cost and no gain for the U.S.
Also, immigrant birth rates are down, illegal immigration appears to be as well, and crime is primarily a home-grown problem. If it were up to me, I'd spend more to develop the economies of countries to the south of us, and less on multibillion-dollar border walls or trillion-dollar wars abroad.
I told Rosenberg that if I lived in a country where jobs were few while corruption and narco-violence were plentiful — in part because of U.S. demand for illegal drugs — and I feared for the safety of my family, I wouldn't hesitate to cross the border to safety and opportunity.
And what would he do?
Rosenberg said of course he'd do the same, but the U.S. has to remove the magnets that draw people north.
Back to you, Washington.
THE MURDEROUS MEXICANS….
Everyday there are 12 Americans murdered and 8
children molested by Mexicans!
Steinle’s murderer, Jose Zarate and been
deported 5xs!
"While walking with her father on a pier
in San Francisco in 2015, Steinle was shot by the illegal alien. Steinle
pleaded with her father to not let her die, but she soon passed in her father’s
arms."
Adios, Sanctuary La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs. Liberals claim they more than make that up with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true. It’s not even close. FAIR estimates illegal aliens in California contribute only $1.21 billion in tax revenue, which means they cost California $20.6 billion, or at least $1,800 per household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs. Liberals claim they more than make that up with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true. It’s not even close. FAIR estimates illegal aliens in California contribute only $1.21 billion in tax revenue, which means they cost California $20.6 billion, or at least $1,800 per household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the racist "Sensenbrenner
Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil
disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with
the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant
Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political
party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next
and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the
states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
THE INVADING
CRIMINALS:
A county by county
chart:
According to the nonpartisan Center for
Immigration Studies, the deportations occurred between October 2008 and
February 2015. The three counties with the most deportations during this period were Los
Angeles County, Calif.; Maricopa County, Ariz.; and Harris County, Texas.
Heather Mac Donald of the
Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in
2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for
illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were
illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the
18th Street gang, were illegal aliens.
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