On the surface, it's hard to see how anyone could have a problem with this. President Trump says he will create an office within the Department of Homeland Security to advocate on behalf of those who are victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens. There's so much to root for there, it's tempting to simply trumpet it as another fantastic idea that will leave liberal heads exploding.
Here's how the Daily Signal summarizes the proposal, which Trump highlighted on Tuesday night in his address to Congress:
“I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American victims,” Trump said in his speech. “The office is called VOICE—Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.”
The mention brought audible groans and murmurs from some, apparently Democrats, in the House chamber.
Trump mandated creation of the office as part of an executive order he signed Jan. 25.
But by using part of his prime-time address to highlight this little-known part of the executive order, Trump sent a message as his administration implements a series of tough immigration enforcement measures.
“The idea is to have an office that will assist and advocate for people who have been victims or family members victimized by criminal immigrants,” Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.
“There is a legitimate need for this kind of office, and they will be busy. I don’t see it as a symbolic or political move at all.”
According to some estimates there are as many as 300,000 illegal aliens in the country who have been convicted of crimes - aside from the crime of being here illegally, of course - so it stands to reason there are plenty of victims as well. I have no doubt such an office has the potential to be very busy.
But busy doing what? No one in the White House or DHS has really explained that yet. The idea of advocating on behalf of crime victims is obviously appealing, but just because you create a government agency ostensibly for that purpose doesn't necessarily mean that it will be able to effectively do things that meet the needs of those victims.
To start with, consider: What exactly are the needs of crime victims? Access to law enforcement resources, obviously. If the attack is violent, they may need medical attention. If the crime is one of theft, they may need help recovering possessions or replacing them.
But there are already existing resources within society that are set up to provide those things. I suppose it's possible that a federal office could help crime victims identify some of these resources if they're not sure how, where or when to do so. But can't the local police do that just as well? When an illegal alien commits a crime, the victim doesn't report the crime to ICE. The victim in all likelihood has no idea of the perp's immigration status. He just knows he's been a victim of an illegal act and he reports that incident the cops. ICE would only get involved if and when local law enforcement becomes aware of the per's immigration status and reports it to them.
That raises an interesting question: Is the purpose of this office really to make it harder for local and state agencies to ignore an illegal alien's immigration status when dealing with a locally committed crime? Maybe the idea is to let crime victims know that if an illegal alien has harmed them, and because of the policies of local politicians police and prosecutors are trying to sweep the perp's immigration status under the rug, the victim can appeal to VOICE and have that issue brought to light.
Support Canada Free Press
It seems to me that this is what VOICE is really likely to do, literallly be a voice for people who are victims of crimes by illegal aliens, but have no way to make that known because local police and prosecutors don't want to deal with it, and local media aren't interested in publicizing that angle on an otherwise mundane local crime story.
If that's the case, it's a reasonable function of the federal government, because the defenders of illegal immigration don't want it known how many illegal immigrants are committed crimes and victimizing law-abiding citizens. But it's hard to see how this office is really going to do all that much to advocate for the actual needs of crime victims, most of whom already have access to plenty of other resources in their own communities to do that.
Any time one perceives that people have a need, there can be a temptation to think that if the federal government just creates an agency dedicated to meet that need, progress will be made toward solving the problem. But it doesn't always work out that way. Offices designed to "coordinate access to resources" or things of that nature have pretty vague missions at the outset, and what they tend to do is find other things to do to justify their budget requests - many of them entirely unrelated to the original reason they were created.
I'm all for helping crime victims. I'm just not entirely sure how VOICE is going make it easier than it already is for those victims to get their needs met.
