The Washington Post chooses to describe today’s story as an example of the city of Denver “fighting back” against President Trump’s “deportation crackdown” while ignoring the truly horrible aspects of a new policy they are putting in place. It all has to do with maximum sentencing laws and immigration rules applying to green card holders. You may recall a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the allegedly legal immigrant in Boston who murdered two doctors in their apartment. He was in the United States with a green card but had already been arrested twice for armed robbery. How was he still in the country and available to kill the couple? At his last sentencing hearing his lawyers successfully argued in a plea bargain that he should get 364 days in jail so he wouldn’t be deported. (Any sentence of one year or more puts you on ICE’s radar and can lead to deportation.)

Here’s how that story relates to what’s going on in Denver. As the Washington Post gleefully reports, the city is now changing their maximum sentencing guidelines so that anyone convicted of any of a large number of crimes can’t be sentenced to a full year in jail. And that means anyone, not just immigrants. In this way, the green card holders who commit any of those crimes don’t have to be reported to ICE and face probable deportation.

As the Trump administration’s war on “sanctuary cities” heats up, cities have come up with increasingly creative ways to fight back. The latest example comes from Denver, which just passed a law aimed at protecting legal immigrants from being deported for committing relatively petty crimes, those carrying sentences of 365 days or more — the federal government’s tripwire for kicking people out. The city’s solution? Simply take a bunch of those relatively petty offenses and reduce the maximum penalty to less than 365 days. Just like that, the move takes the crimes (and their perpetrators) off the radar of immigration authorities. It’s not a novel approach to protecting immigrants, but coming as a direct response to President Trump’s crackdown, it’s particularly timely.

Before getting to the details of the proposed sentencing guideline changes it’s worth noting the tone of the linked article and its place in the slow drip, drip, drip of the slow motion coup taking place in the MSM. It’s not coming from the editorial board as an opinion piece. The author is Samantha Schmidt and she’s a reporter, not an editorialist. So this is coming out of the newsroom. Look at the language. Fight back. The law is aimed at protecting legal immigrants. And given Trump’s crackdown, the change is particularly timely. I don’t know why they didn’t just publish it under the byline of the DNC.

But in any event, let’s see what this “timely” effort to “fight back” involves. Which criminals will be getting off with lighter sentences? The author refers to “petty offenses” but the full list includes assault and “first or second instance of domestic violence.” What happened to the Washington Post that was bemoaning violence against women and a society which protects male predators? Aren’t all women supposed to be able to feel safe in their own homes? But now, in Denver, you’ll need to have your husband or boyfriend beat you down and be dragged off by the police three times before it will be treated as something more than a “petty offense.” And why? Just so the City Council can stick their collective thumb in the eye of immigration law enforcement and make sure that the green card holder who is knocking your teeth out can’t be deported.

So Denver has certainly taught Donald Trump a lesson, haven’t they? What you seem to be forgetting is that people in the country with green cards – particularly those on the path to citizenship – are supposed to be on their best behavior. If they are going around breaking the law, committing robberies or assaulting people before they even get to take the oath, we don’t particularly want them here. Having a green card doesn’t mean you’re the same as a citizen and shouldn’t be tossed out if you turn out to be a criminal. That’s why we have these processes in place.

Congratulations, Denver. You keep electing these same insane liberals over and over again and now they are throwing you to the wolves in the name of scoring a few cheap political points. I’d like to have more sympathy, but you brought this on yourselves.