Editorial: Rebuke against judge puts ICE ‘resisters’ on notice

A rebuke for “willful judicial misconduct” by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct may not be the best news for Judge Shelley Joseph, but it’s music to the ears of anyone who’s watched with frustration as criminal illegal immigrants pull a fast one on ICE officers.

In Judge Joseph’s case, Jose Medina-Perez, of the Dominican Republic, came before her court on April 2, 2018, on criminal charges including being a fugitive from justice out of Pennsylvania and two drug violations. Two ICE agents had a detainer to nab Medina-Perez as a “deportable alien.” While they waited in the lobby, Judge Joseph allegedly allowed Medina-Perez to go downstairs where he slipped out a rear courthouse door.

Joseph was charged by former U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling of helping Medina-Perez evade federal immigration officials.

In the progressive circles which consider sanctuary cities a great thing, a protected border a bad one, and thwarting law enforcement in the name of “protecting” residents as just, jurists like Joseph were heroes. This was when the notion that “no one should live in fear” applied to those who were breaking the law, and not people who could be harmed by them.

That was then, and as the state Commission on Judicial Conduct action attests, the timer’s run out on grand progressive gestures.

The Commission accuses Joseph of “failing to comply with the law,” a simple statement, but one that hits the heart of the sanctuary movement.

We don’t get to pick which laws we follow, no matter our political agenda. It’s a concept seemingly lost on those promising to resist the mass deportations promised by incoming President Donald Trump. If someone is here illegally and deportable, the law says they can be deported. Resistance means acting outside the law.

Lelling’s charges were dropped against Joseph, and the case turned over to the Commission on Judicial Conduct, which is asking the Supreme Judicial Court to appoint a hearing officer to “preside over a public hearing” on all the facts.

Considering the charges made by the commission, including that Joseph failed “to cooperate and be candid and honest with judicial disciplinary authorities,” it should be quite a hearing.

Regardless of the outcome, the commission’s rebuke should hopefully have a chilling effect on officials who consider ICE as the enemy. The agency and its officers do yeoman’s work to keep communities safe, even if progressives fail to see it.

Last month, Boston-based ICE officers arrested a Honduran career violent criminal who reentered the United States illegally for at least the seventh time.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston field office said Julio Cesar Hernandez Funez had been removed from the country at least seven times: in 2006, 2013, 2014, twice in 2015, once in 2016, and once this year.

“Hernandez is a repeat offender who’s unlawfully entered the United States at least seven times, and he’s committed crimes against innocent people nearly every time,” said Patricia Hyde, ERO Boston’s acting field office director.

These are people who should be applauded, not thwarted.