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For many people, her murder will underscore the importance of
putting Americans first.

Iowa police announced this week what we long suspected: Mollie
Tibbetts, the Iowa college student who was missing for over a
month, is dead. The preliminary autopsy report, released
Thursday, reveals that she was killed by “multiple sharp force
injuries.” Prosecutors have filed first-degree murder charges
against Cristhian Rivera, a 24-year-old Mexican who had been
working at Yarrabee Farms in Brooklyn, Iowa, since 2014. The
police say that Rivera is in the country illegally — though this
has been disputed by his lawyer — and that he presented
fraudulent identification to his employer when he was hired.
Anyone really interested in understanding why Trump was elected
president should pay careful attention to this episode.

We don’t yet know for sure if Rivera is guilty, but the tragedy
of the scenario painted by the charges is explosive. The way
many people see it, if a foreign national, apparently in the
country illegally, kills an American citizen, it underscores the
urgency of Trump’s message of putting Americans first. In other
words, the murder of Mollie Tibbetts was not only ugly and evil,
it was unnecessary and utterly preventable by government action.

Some supporters of amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the
country, as well as increased legal immigration, don’t seem to
be able to acknowledge the reality of Tibbetts’ murder. Senator
Elizabeth Warren is a case in point. Rather than admit during a
CNN interview that our failure to enforce our immigration laws
and control the border contributed to Tibbetts’ death, she
changed the subject. After saying that she was “so sorry for the
family here,” Warren argued that “we need an immigration system
that is effective, that focuses on where real problems are,” in
effect casting those crossing the border illegally as the “real”
victims.

Make no mistake, it’s not only Democrats who have a problem
here. Pro-immigration Republicans like Paul Ryan and Jeff Flake
aren’t much better. Callous disregard for families like the
Tibbettses is one of the reasons that President Trump’s common-
sense talk about immigration reform resonates with many
Americans. Trump remains one of the only national leaders of
either party to address major social, political and economic
issues of the utmost importance. This is why the Tibbetts case
matters not only because of the murder, but because of its
social and economic context.

Much of American agriculture relies on foreign laborers, often
in the country illegally, because attracting American citizens
to those jobs would mean paying them more — and employers don’t
want to do that. Trump has spoken about raising the real wages
of working-class Americans and establishing the conditions for
employment security and higher pay, for which border security is
a predicate. Establishment Republicans of the Ryan-Flake genus
don’t prioritize protecting our borders or the interests of
American workers because they misunderstand and misapply
libertarian ideas — and they are cowed by corporate interests
dependent upon cheap labor. Unfortunately, this has become the
norm. In Charles Kesler’s excellent essay Thursday, he talked
about norms that should be broken and how Trump is actually
doing this. Here is one of them. I studied under Professor
Kesler years ago and continue to learn from him. I think you
will, too.

Elsewhere. James Piereson, a political scientist who is a senior
fellow at The Manhattan Institute, describes “Socialism As a
Hate Crime” in The New Criterion. Given socialism’s bloody track
record, the misery it has imposed upon the citizens of countries
like Venezuela in recent years and its curious popularity among
know-nothing millennials and aging boomers, Piereson’s piece is
both necessary and timely.

This is my last day substituting for David. I enjoyed writing
the newsletter and the interactions I’ve had with many of you.
I’ve tried to address some of the challenges you’ve made and the
pushback you’ve delivered. Whether or not you agree with what
I’ve written, I hope I have at least been clear enough to
provide the basis for future dialogue.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/mollie-tibbetts- immigration-trump.html



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