Feinstein, Boxer, Sotomayor Establish Mainstream Cred at Immigrants' Expense

by Dave Bennion · 2009-07-15 20:38:00 UTC
Topics: show more

Today's links:

  • The Mexican Drug Cartel mania hasn't yet penetrated ICE's certainty that Mexicans can't possibly qualify for asylum.  Sam Baldwin at Mother Jones deconstructs a denial of parole for asylum-seeker Emilio Gutiérrez Soto (pictured at right), a journalist targeted by the Mexican army for publicizing military abuses.

  • Maybe you thought Senators Boxer and Feinstein were champions of progressive values?  Mmm, not so much.

  • In the frenzy to pick sides in the Sotomayor nomination, some of us forgot to look at her jurisprudence.  It's all out there in the public record, as James Ridgeway reminds us (MoJo is on a roll!):

    • It was Schumer’s office that last month released its own study of Sotomayor’s 848 decisions in federal asylum cases, including those based on alleged violations of the Convention on Torture. Sotomayor ruled in favor of plaintiffs in these cases just 17 percent o the time. “These findings should put to rest any doubts about Judge Sotomayor’s fidelity to the rule of law,” Schumer said in a statement. “Even in immigration cases, which would most test the so-called ‘empathy factor,’ Judge Sotomayor’s record is well within the judicial mainstream.” In other words, being a Latina won’t make Sotomayor any more compassionate toward immigrants who face torture and death when we ship them back home.

    This is why I posted this.  It also shows how empty the GOP's anti-Sotomayor rhetoric is.

    Bonus rule of law nugget: Read about how Sotomayor denied the appeal of an innocent man wrongly accused of rape and murder at 17 who spent 16 years locked up before being exonerated by DNA evidence.  Watch 99 of 100 Senators' heads explode when asked to opine on this fact!

[Image: Latino USA]

Dave Bennion
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