The toll

By Steve Woodward

Disengaged and distracted, many Americans lament the deep division that defines the era in which we live. Yet, demonstrably, the 21st century Marxist Left that consumes the Democrat party stands for dead babies, dead Israelis and, thanks to undeterred waves of murderous illegal immigrants, dead and maimed American citizens. 

Objectively, divisions have widened since the ascension of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency in 2009. Two Obama terms and the establishment of Obama 3.0 under the guise of a Joe Biden administration have driven establishment Democrats violently further Left, and taken many young, college educated citizens with them. 

This is starkly reflected by American policy regarding and attitudes toward Israel. An April 2024 Pew Research Center survey asked respondents to prioritize the importance of America’s support for its longtime ally. The resulting data delivered a 31-point gap, with 39 percent of Republicans (and those who are Republican-leaning) replying that Israel should be a top, long-range U.S. foreign policy priority compared to eight percent of Democrats (and those who are Democrat-leaning). In fact, on no other foreign policy issue were the D/leanD respondents more tepid. They even prioritize at 29 percent “limiting the power and influence of Iran” (the catalyst behind Israel’s perilous state).

Among 19 questions on U.S. foreign policy priorities, no other topic elicited a gap above 30 points with the exception of the one question that absolutely should not have been included in the foreign policy survey in the first place — “dealing with global climate change”. That delivered a 55-point gap. As expected from supporters of a Democrat party in which climate change is religion not mere policy, 70 percent of D/lean D say its the nation’s top foreign policy priority compared to 15 percent of R/lean R. 

Democrats clamoring for a Kamala Harris policy speech on U.S.-Israel relations amid Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists (and by extension Iran, which funds Hamas) should expect to be disappointed. In reality, Democrats clamoring for any Harris clarity on policy are limited to a few think tank wonks, and obviously not the glassy eyed pro-abortion brigades that swarmed Chicago during the recent Democrat convention. 

Policy that addresses human tolls does not align with a “joy and hope” narrative (smoke screen) that the media has assigned to Harris-Walz 2024. But human tolls are precisely what are exacted when the United States betrays its allies. Rather than supporting Israel’s destruction of Hamas, the U.S., along with the U.K., have pushed for measured responses to the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 innocents.

And rather than urging the United Nations and other U.S. allies to join us in pooling our intelligence resources to free more than 100 Hamas-held hostages, they languish in tunnels beneath Gaza. As of September 1, six fewer are languishing because they are dead — four men and two women, ages 23-40, brutally murdered. Point blank gun shots ended their innocent lives. 

The Harris-Biden regime keeps pressure on Israel to call a cease fire to negotiate the release of the hostages, as if Hamas would never think of killing again during a lull in combat. As this is written, the U.S. Department of Justice is announcing charges involving a criminal complaint against Hamas related to October 7. How were these charges not filed on October 8, 2023? Why now? To absolve Democrats from pretending October 7 never happened? Just in case. Elections, and such.

“The terrorists murder six Israel hostages, including one dual-citizen American, and Israel is suddenly under pressure to make concessions — to Hamas,” observes a September 3, 2024, Wall Street Journal editorial. Over the months of war, writes the Journal, “Israel is offering unprecedented strategic concessions and risking its soldiers’ lives to free hostages.”

We are reminded weekly of the human toll exacted because the hapless Harris-Biden (or is it willfully negligent?) regime refuses to take stringent actions to close the U.S.-Mexico border. After allowing at least 10 million-plus to flood into the homeland since 2021, the Left is expecting an election year bump because it finally cut a deal with Mexico to keep immigrants from surging. (Imagine the human toll as they are herded like animals around northern Mexico or, worse, sent into the sex trafficking pipeline).

This temporary border control “solution” is not stopping the carnage across the United States. The high profile murders of children and women at the hands of young male illegals are nonetheless glaringly absent from the radar of these supposed legions of newly inspired Harris voters. They likely never will hear about — or choose to ignore — the 14-year-old girl in Indiana stabbed August 31, 2024, by Dimas Gabriel Yanez, 26, while she watched her brother play baseball. Indiana law enforcement reports that Yanez was deported to Honduras in 2018. But, along with millions, he returned to roam cities and towns, undetected and undocumented. 

When will the trauma of being attacked in small town Lowell, Indiana, with a butcher knife subside for the Honduran’s teen victim? 

When will the human tolls ever matter? When will Americans with the privilege and power of casting a vote wake up to the realization that they can stop the carnage? Or will the gutless Left, intent on breeding baby murdering pro-abortionists, and virulent anti-Semites, and deranged climate warriors, even notice the consequences of any of it?

Sadly, they almost certainly will not. At least not until they are added to the toll.

Illegals among us?

By Steve Woodward

A nondescript building along Highway 1 near Southern Pines, N.C., that is home to Sandhills Assembly Church is also the operational headquarters of a little known entity, Immigration Hope Sandhills.

While it is aligned with a recognized protestant religious organization, Immigration Hope Sandhills (IHS) is a nonprofit outreach seeking to assist people who reside in the United States illegally. According to its web site, IHS offers illegal aliens advice on paths to U.S. citizenship, English language and citizenship courses, and mental health counseling. Through a program coordinated by the U.S. Department of Justice, IHS trains volunteers who do not hold law degrees to provide low-cost legal advice and services toward navigation of the U.S. immigration process.

Under executive director Sarah J. Cortesio, IHS has operated under the radar since 2018 during a time when Americans have grown increasingly weary of illegal invaders. Undocumented and unscreened, they are overwhelming hospitals and emergency rooms, and arriving with children who generally do not speak English, vying for seats in already crowded public school classrooms. Americans are leery of the threat to public safety posed by adult illegal migrants. In a February poll by Monmouth University, 61% of those surveyed describe illegal immigration as “a very serious problem”.

IHS is one of 11 immigration service centers operated by the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) nationwide, and one of the few located in a rural location. Immigration Hope, according to its web site, has locations in Atlanta; Bloomington, Minn. (a Minneapolis suburb); Brooklyn, N.Y., where IHS launched in 2011; Gainesville, Fla.; and Santa Barbara, Calif.

The founding organization, EFCA, came into existence in 1950 after a merger of two U.S.-based EFC denominations with Swedish and Norwegian origins. As has been the case across numerous long standing religious denominations, EFCA has moved gradually down a path toward “woke” relativism and a so-called social justice gospel.

A professor on the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Jarvis Williams, attracted the attention of Baptist pastor Seth Brickley, who was raised and baptized in the Evangelical Free Church. Knowing that Williams has emerged in recent years as a social justice evangelist (some say he actually is part of a post-evangelical movement), Brickley was surprised when EFCA invited Williams to speak at a leadership conference. At the same conference, a member of the EFCA board of directors “encouraged pastors to promote political diversity, giving legitimacy to the harmful agenda of the Left,” wrote Brickley in a June 2023 article for TruthScript.com. The piece by Brickley, who left EFCA to pastor a traditional Baptist church seven years ago, was entitled, “Injustice In The Evangelical Free Church of America”.

A founder of the EFCA’s first Immigrant Hope ministry center, Roy Larsen, in a piece posted on an EFCA web site in 2011, did not attempt to veil its intent: “to give all immigrants among us — including the undocumented — the hope of the gospel, (and) help in finding a pathway to legal residency if possible (emphasis added).” In 2011, few Americans could have imagined that a sitting U.S. President and Democrat surrogates would willfully oversee an open border policy and permit the illegal crossing of tens of thousands per day, some encountered by border patrol, others not. 

Even fewer could have foreseen the emergence of organizations deliberately setting up their own migrant processing centers near prime border entry points.

“Many of the country’s best-known (taxpayer funded) nonprofits, including Catholic Charities (photo nearby), the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the Red Cross, and United Way … and scores of lesser-known charities have instead worked to increase the number of illegal border-crossers dramatically,” wrote Lewis M. Andrews for The American Conservative on April 28, 2024.

“There is no special exemption (in U.S. law) which allows an employee of an American tax-exempt organization willfully to ignore his own country’s laws, as increasing numbers have been doing since Biden’s election. This is true no matter how well-intentioned that nonprofit staffer might imagine himself to be.”

The New York Post reported as long ago as 2022 that the federal government launders money through contracts with nonprofit charities to keep the illegal immigration pipeline flowing.

“Even before crossing the border, migrants still in Mexico are being handed debit cards loaded with $800 a month to enable them to pay for necessities,” reported former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey in a July 2022 op-ed in the Post. “The gift cards are distributed by the non-profit Organization for Migration, thanks to money provided by the U.S. State Department. 

“CARECEN, a far left group funded almost entirely by government contracts, and Catholic Charities … (provides) gift cards and food packages, direct migrants to shelters or hotel rooms, or helps them buy (air) tickets to other destinations. Who pays for all this?  FEMA — the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a government agency that funnels money through the nonprofits.”

Immigration Hope Sandhills poses a threat to the security of Moore County by attracting migrants who will take all of the help they can get but typically have no inclination to assimilate or seek legal citizenship. A recent, tragic example is provided by the murder on June 17, 2024, of a Houston girl, age 12, who was strangled by two Venezuelan adult males who entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass near El Paso, Texas, earlier this year. After kidnapping Jocelyn Nungaray (photo nearby) in a convenience store, the men murdered her and hurled her body into a creek.