Joe Biden Closes Office Aiding Americans Victimized by Illegal Aliens; New Office Assists Them

AP Photo/Gregory Bull

In the latest sign that our country went from “America First” to “America Last” in just six short months, the Associated Press reports that President Joe Biden is closing down a Trump-created government office tasked with helping Americans victimized by illegal aliens and, instead, is replacing it with an office that is designed to actually help illegal aliens with free legal aid.

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President Donald J. Trump created the “Victim of Immigration Crime Engagement Office” (VOICE) during his first week in the Oval Office. As he told Congress in March 2017, the Department of Homeland Security was to oversee VOICE, “an office to serve American victims” of illegal immigration by “providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.”

Part of the office, under the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of DHS, was a hotline where Americans could call in to report crimes conducted by illegal aliens beyond entering the country without authority. Critics assailed the office as “racist,” saying that its purpose was to associate illegal aliens, and immigrants in general, with crime.

However, one mother who used the hotline after her daughter had been raped, allegedly by an illegal alien, was thankful that the service existed. In 2019 that mother anonymously told the AP, ““When you’re a victim of crime, none of us gets enough support.”

“To have an office dedicated to this peculiar intersection of immigration and criminal justice, two systems that don’t know how to talk to each other, well, it was just really helpful for me, even though I know how rare it is for an immigrant to commit crime against a citizen,” she added.

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Now, mothers like her and future victims of illegal alien crime will not have that resource. In fact, that tax money will now be used toward helping foreign citizens.

VOICE has now been replaced by “The Victims Engagement and Services Line” (VESL). It appears that VESL will now serve to help illegal aliens report alleged abuse within detention facilities and jail cells across America, while providing services for those who were harmed by human trafficking efforts.

Former Trump advisor Stephen Miller described the decision to closed VOICE as a “moral stain on the conscience of our nation,” while saying that VESL would be akin to the “Drug Enforcement Agency opening ‘a call center to help drug dealers get lawyers and amnesty for their crimes,'” according to the AP.

In a series of tweets, Miller also stated that “Americans have become second-class citizens in their own country” and that “Law enforcement is now forced to aid law-breakers.”

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But, current DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorka stated in a press release that, “[p]roviding assistance to society’s most vulnerable is a core American value. All people, regardless of their immigration status, should be able to access victim services without fear.”

“This administration is committed to providing a reliable source of information and guidance for all victims irrespective of their status,” he added.

A keen observer would note the confusion this may cause for immigrants. On one hand, the vice president of the United States told the people of Guatemala and other Latin America countries that, “[i]f you come to our border, you will be turned back.” But, based on Mayorka’s comment that “all people, regardless of their immigration status” should have access to “victim services,” couldn’t an illegal alien simply claim they were abused or mistreated by U.S. authorities or human traffickers in hopes of being allowed to stay in the United States?

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Of course, these confusing messages are nothing new. It’s why Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei  blamed President Biden and his colleagues for the recent border surge. As he said, “a lukewarm message…only creates the opportunity to misinterpret” and lead to coyotes twisting the words to convince migrants to pay for the journey.

It doesn’t take a border security expert to see that stating, “Providing assistance to society’s most vulnerable is a core American value,” is clearly lukewarm message that will only invite the world’s poorest to take advantage of that “core American value” through the newly created office of VESL.

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