Treason Lobby Triumphant: Speaker Pelosi Boards Gutierrez Amnesty Express

St Anthony's Catholic Church in San Francisco's Mission district rang with chants of "Si se puede" Saturday evening, as Rep. Luis Gutierrez's Magical Amnesty Tour rolled through town, featuring illegal alien sob stories in an open bid to undermine American law and sovereignty.

I was there.

And a surprise guest showed up to join in the message of "No more raids!"... none other than Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appearing in her home district.

Apparently the #3 person in Washington values a worker amnesty enough to spend her valuable time supporting foreign lawbreakers.

She hugged the appealing kiddies who told family sob stories, chanted along with "Si se puede", and condemned immigration officers doing their jobs.

The audience, which I estimated to be around 300, about 90 percent Hispanic and Spanish speaking, was thrilled.

The kids were the opening act of the evening after preliminary prayers in Spanish for the long-suffering "undocumented." Little nine-year old Ivan Torres led off, saying that he wanted to be an FBI agent when he grows up…so he could catch the "real criminals."

That argument was a main theme—that the kids' parents were not bad guys, but were hard-working and valuable members of society. The topics of job thievery, identity theft and the astronomical employment loss of citizens did not come up.

Incidentally, Ivan's father has not actually been deported. But the family worries that its breadwinner, an office janitor, might be repatriated someday.

Even an imaginary sob story counts big in today's victimology-crazed liberal talking points. Ivan "lives in fear" according to the press—but whose fault is that?

Rep. Gutierrez delivered his spiel (well practiced on his 16-city tour), promising to appeal to President Obama about the plight of mixed families, as if plopping out a couple of anchor babies should put lawbreaking parents outside the bounds of immigration justice.

That notion would surprise the many inmates of prisons throughout the country, who have been separated from their children because of criminal prosecutions.

There was little local reporting of the event. Pelosi's appearance earlier that day promoting a few dozen green jobs that might come from Washington stimulus money got more attention.

Without workplace immigration enforcement, thousands of citizens and legal immigrants would be out of work. But honesty about the illegal influx is rare among local journalists of the Left Coast. Remember that the San Francisco government makes city ID cards available to foreigners, and a supervisor (David Campos) brags on his official website about being an illegal alien.

Last year, the city advertised its official sanctuary status, so that more lawbreakers would be aware of the generous taxpayer-funded benefits available to them.

But even given the ultra-liberal environment, isn't it news when the Speaker declares her disdain for the laws and sovereignty she has sworn to protect?

With more than 4 million jobs lost since December 07, the Speaker should reasonably be expected to support citizen workers first and foremost. But she does not. Her constituents and the rest of America have a right to know why not.

The San Francisco Chronicle produced the requisite puff piece about the event, Pelosi: End raids splitting immigrant families. [By Kelly Zito, March 8, 2009]

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined hundreds of families Saturday evening at a church in San Francisco's Mission District demanding an end to the immigration raids and deportations that separate parents from children across the United States.

"Pelosi, who has said securing U.S. borders is a top priority, used the forum to call for a comprehensive immigration program that recognizes the broad contributions immigrants have made to the fabric of the country.

"'Our future is about our children,' Pelosi told a crowd of mostly Latino families at St. Anthony's Church."

A more accurate description of what Speaker Pelosi said would be far more incendiary than the Chron's milquetoast account. She enthusiastically supported an end to workplace immigration enforcement, despite the millions of Americans who desperately need jobs. She accepted illegal aliens' accounts of arrests as being thuggishly "un-American", rather than accepting enforcement officers' professionalism. She apparently sees no difference between legal immigrants and illegal aliens. She stood onstage and cheerfully joined in chants of "Si se puede"—which in illegal alien gatherings is normally understood to mean amnesty and maximum freebies for all.

Below is a snip from a transcript of Pelosi's remarks, as patiently transcribed by Rick Oltman, the spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization. He also went undercover to witness the Gutierrez road show and record the event, now viewable on YouTube, Part 1 and Part 2.

"Forgive me for not being able to speak to you in Spanish. I want to join all of you in welcoming my colleague Congressman Gutierrez to San Francisco. As he… [applause] As he said, he's on a nationwide tour that goes on and on across the country, lobbying for and advocate for comprehensive immigration policy.

"And yes, a fair policy for everyone to stop the raids. To stop the raids.

You are a special people. You're here on a Saturday night to take responsibility for our country's future. That makes you very, very patriotic. Because, our future is about our children.

"When our country came together, the very beginning of the country, they said it was a new order for the ages, a forum for the ages. And they knew that would be true because every generation would take responsibility for the next generation to make the country better. And that became true because the American Dream drew people to our shores and when they came and when your parents and families came, whether it was yesterday or four centuries ago, and when my ancestors came from Italy with their hopes and their dreams and their aspirations and determination for a better future for your family, that optimism, that hope, that courage, that determination of immigrants of your families when you arrived here, making America more American.

"You brought with you your tradition of family values, of faith, of community, of responsibility.

"How then could America say it's ok to send parents of children away? What value system is that? I think it's un-American. I think it's un-American.

"I want to join Luis Gutierrez in saluting the families for their courage, for their generosity and spirit, of spirit, to share their stories.

"Ivan, and Guadalupe and Yvette, for sharing their stories about their families …because no politician's speeches will ever be as eloquent as their personal testimony about what their family has experienced.

"Who in our country, who in our country, could not be moved by their stories? Who in our country would not want to change a policy of kicking in doors in the middle of the night and sending a parent away from their families?

"It must be stopped. It must be stopped. "

You can watch a brief snippet of Pelosi's passionate presentation at the church on this video clip. She remarked to a reporter: "We must stop the raids; they're un-American. Just the idea that the stories we heard of people kicking in doors in the middle of the night, deporting fathers, separating them from their children... it's un-American."

As Rick Oltman remarked after the church performance: "It was shocking to see the third in line for the Presidency telling illegal aliens they were patriotic for taking responsibility for our country's future."

Indeed, the whole evening was a disorienting trip through the looking glass—where the normal assumptions of American society were reversed.

In the Pelosi alternate universe, illegal aliens are US patriots and the law enforcement officers who protect our safety from Mexican cartel thugs are un-American.

Of course, if there's no immigration enforcement, then the Amnesty Express won't need "comprehensive reform."

Brenda Walker (email her) lives in Northern California and publishes two websites, LimitsToGrowth.org and ImmigrationsHumanCost.org. Being among Speaker Pelosi and her reprobate friends reminded her of the Star Trek episode ("Mirror, Mirror"), in which a transporter malfunction sends Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to a parallel opposite reality where evil is openly embraced and the crew meets their depraved counterparts. It was the episode where First Officer Spock had a goatee—nearly everyone remembers that part.