Gov. Deval Patrick ignores real victims - By Michael Graham
And still Gov. Deval Patrick says “no.”
Even after the horror from Milford, Patrick says “no.”
After hearing how a 23-year-old young man named Matthew Denice screamed in anguish as his body was ripped apart beneath a truck; how the victim was still alive when an illegal immigrant driver allegedly backed over him as he fled the police; how the accused killer, Nicolas Guaman, merely shrugged at the police after being arrested.
Even after all this, Patrick rejects Secure Communities. He still believes that when Guaman was arrested in 2008 for assault, breaking and entering, and resisting arrest, Massachusetts did the right thing by not handing him over to immigration authorities. By releasing him back onto the streets of Milford, where he could continue to be a threat to his neighbors.
Why? What can Massachusetts possibly gain that is worth the future of this recent Framingham State grad killed — “murdered,” according to his stepfather, Mike — allegedly by an illegal immigrant? What possible benefit can come from giving special protection to law-breaking immigrants that is as valuable as this lost American life?
Patrick has no answer. So while he vacations in the Berkshires, he sends out his flaks to read a cold, sterile statement denying there’s any problem at all.
“The governor’s policy is that serious criminals who are here illegally should be deported,” the statement said.
What the statement doesn’t say is that Patrick would refuse to allow Massachusetts to send Guaman’s fingerprints to Immigration and Customs Enforcement the first time they arrested him, or the many times Milford cops arrested, detained or answered calls to his apartment afterwards.
As Matt’s stepfather said on my radio show Monday, “If Guaman was deported some time ago, this would never have happened.”
“Some time ago.” Perhaps last month. That’s when Patrick was in Milford for a town-hall-style forum. Angry locals confronted him with signs, like “When will you secure OUR community?” They begged him then to end this ridiculous policy, told him of residents killed by illegal immigrants in the recent past.
What did Patrick tell them?
“We don’t need Secure Communities.” All it does is “give the impression that we are doing something.”
I wonder if Patrick would be willing to go back today and tell Matt’s parents that, even after the loss of their son, we still don’t need it.
The most disturbing part of this story is that it is so common. A year ago I wrote a column about a 4-year-old Springfield girl raped by an illegal immigrant enjoying sanctuary. The very same weekend Matt Denice died in Milford, a 4-year-old California boy was crushed to death during a hit-and-run by an illegal immigrant with two previous arrests.
Matthew Denice died because of politics. Shameless, blatant, special-interest politics. Take away the politics of Beacon Hill Democrats sucking up to a key constituency, and this becomes a non-issue.
What could be less political than “enforce the law equally for everyone?”
But choosing to ignore the law and block its enforcement? Now that’s all about politics.
It also gets people killed.
And Patrick reminds us yet again which Massachusetts Democrats find more important.
Michael Graham hosts an afternoon drivetime talk show on 96.9 WTKK.
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