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entirely disingenuous standpoint.
I was not too worried that the patnet crowd would have trouble finding voices to advocate for the J6'ers... But even still, I was NOT here advocating to take away the bill of rights protections from the J6'ers.
By the way, a Thief who broke in to your house would be out of line to complain if you kicked him out.
everyone here is so extreme right
It wasn’t easy tracking down this eye-popping story, which combined all the elements of the immigration debate— yet corporate media still ignored it. The Albuquerque Journal ran the astonishing article last week below the bland, uninformative headline, “Doña Ana County judge resigns after feds arrest man at home.” It was an all-American story about a small-town judge, a quiet, well-kept house, a nice, peaceful neighborhood— but while the judge’s wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner, a designated terrorist was out back polishing a suppressed AR-15.
On March 3rd, Las Cruces Magistrate Judge Jose Cano (D) quietly resigned from the bench after three re-elections since 2011. On the same day, prosecutors were down the street in federal district court arguing that a recent arrestee, a Venezuelan national named Christhian Lopez-Ortega, 23, was a Tren de Aragua gang member and a flight risk.
The two men’s connection defies belief.
Christhian was first caught crossing the border at Eagle Pass in December, 2023, but was freed three days later— due to overcrowding. This year, three days before Judge Cano tendered his letter of resignation, the El Paso Homeland Security Office, responding to an anonymous tip, raided the judge’s Las Cruces home and found the gang member living in the judge’s guest cottage, or what the locals call a casita.
Homeland Security officers nabbed Lopez-Ortega with a bunch of guns (a felony), and the family closed ranks, claiming the guns were owned by the Judge’s daughter, April. The government’s April 8th motion for reconsideration drily reported, “The Defendant admitted that he knew it was illegal for him to possess firearms.”
According to federal filings, Judge Cano’s liberal wife Nancy came upon the young man working construction and hired him to replace a glass door and do a couple odd jobs around the house. After Lopez-Ortega was evicted from his apartment, Nancy invited him to live with the family, and began driving him to his immigration appointments and his construction gigs.
No good reason for inviting a 23-year-old gang member into the family appears in any of the reports, leaving ample space for sordid speculation. Generously, the affluent middle-aged mom may have thought she just was helping “reform” the career gangster.
Investigators discovered some clues in Lopez-Ortega’s text messages. He called Nancy his “patrona,” which I believe is Venezuelan for “sugar momma.” One unidentified amigo asked Lopez-Ortega to get him “two grenades.” Another texted him a grisly murder scene photo showing decapitated victims with their hands cut off, a gruesome photo attached in full to Homeland’s motion, but which I will not reproduce here in close-up.
Troublingly, the local federal Magistrate judge overruled Lopez-Ortega’s bond, rebuffing federal prosecutors and saying something like, “I’m sure he’s okay if he’s living with Judge Cano.” The federal judge even tried to remit the gang member back into Nancy Cano’s custody.
That prompted the government’s attorneys to file an emergency motion for reconsideration, which has not yet been set for hearing.
This story involves two judges. The first, a sitting state judge embroiled in what appears at minimum to be a non-traditional relationship with a member of a designated terrorist organization, an illegal, gang-tattooed alien the Cano family shared everything with including their firearms, and a second local federal judge who in open court said he would release the man because he was friends with the first judge.
If this story came from Venezuela, it would surprise no one. But it’s from New Mexico.
This troubling tale has created a certain amount of buzz in local and social media, percolating just below corporate media’s veneered surface. If we had a functioning media, which we obviously do not, they would tell us how historically, the corruption of local judiciary is one of the first and most critical steps that cartel-style organizations take when consolidating soft territorial control.
Cartels are cagey, sly, and experienced. They don’t roll into a new area in hummers holding assault rifles. They quietly assimilate and get a read on the local judicial and law enforcement arena. Then they deploy a carrot and stick approach. They offer sweet bribes, called “plata” (silver), sometimes cloaked as gifts or brokered with third parties. And, for judges who don’t take bribes, they offer quiet threats, called “plomo” (lead): you don’t want to deny bail on a TdA hermano.
Plata or plomo. Silver or lead.
The cartels realize that the judicial bench is the choke point. There are only a handful of judges in each locale, so controlling even one through plato or plomo makes a measurable difference. Control the judiciary, and you effectively control law enforcement. It’s not just a cartel thing, it’s an organized crime tactic. You can find similar examples in the 1980’s mafia and the 1930’s Chicago mobsters.
The cartels are just the tactic’s most recent incarnation.
In other words, this suppressed story is narrative dynamite. It is a much more threatening example than that MS-13 moron down in CECOT. Here, we have a U.S. judge literally living under the same roof with a violent, illegal alien gang member (if requests for grenades and snuff photos of gang killings aren’t enough evidence of violent inclination, then I don’t know what to tell you). And we see a second judge in a completely different courthouse running cover for the first judge.
But here, the media could care less about Christhian Lopez-Garcia’s deportation battle.
Here’s a link to the government’s motion for reconsideration, but note that some of the final attachments are graphic.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/u82ynv2ddhvvhpmcmroqw/Doc.-32-Lopez-Ortega-Dist.N.M._2-25-mj-00330-1.pdf
But even still, I was NOT here advocating to take away the bill of rights protections from the J6'ers.
Really?
I for one voted a straight D ticket my whole life until very recently.
he's a typical MSNBC Leftist,
I highly doubt most Dems or leftist travel to central America. I was in Belize less than a month ago. Massive nothing burger and users here threw some BS at me like it was some dangerous place right before covid. 100% false.
I'd guess maybe 1% of Americans even travel to Central America. Been to Costa and Belize now. It's safer than Chicago, DC, Louisville, LA, etc. Jamaica, Dominican, PR, St. Thomas, etc.
Well, I dont agree. I dont want to abandon checks and balances. I dont want the courts ignored. I dont want the constitution abandoned. I dont want the country you are describing. Im not going to encourage it, and Im going to advocate against it.
Patrick says
I highly doubt most Dems or leftist travel to central America. I was in Belize less than a month ago. Massive nothing burger and users here threw some BS at me like it was some dangerous place right before covid. 100% false.
I'd guess maybe 1% of Americans even travel to Central America. Been to Costa and Belize now. It's safer than Chicago, DC, Louisville, LA, etc. Jamaica, Dominican, PR, St. Thomas, etc.
AmericanKulak. You’re kill’n it.
The only time they are granted the dignity of 'due process' is when they are so dangerous they must be imprisoned for life and they aren't just dropped off in their point of origin.
a matter of immigration laws.
Speaking of removed judges, remember New Mexico Judge Juan “Joel” Cano, who let a 23-year-old Tren de Aragua gang member live for free in his guest house? The FBI arrested him yesterday, too, along with his wife, ‘Nancy.’ You won’t believe what they charged the now-former judge with.
In March, HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) arrested Venezuelan illegal alien and guesthouse resident Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, who is suspected of being in Tren de Aragua — a notorious, ultra-violent criminal gang that’s basically the Venezuelan version of MS-13. They nabbed him at Judge Cano’s home, where the family had both put him up and given him assault weapons to play with.
When FBI arrested him, they found Ortega had multiple cellphones. Afterwards, agents realized that one phone was missing. They realized this after Ortega told them. (They’d offered to let him make a phone call and gave him the phones they’d seized; Ortega said the one he wanted to use wasn’t there.) So this week, they returned to the Cano household with a new search warrant.
I promise I am not making this next part up.
During his FBI interview, former judge Cano —after being Mirandized— straight-up confessed that he’d found Ortega’s missing cellphone, smashed it with a hammer, and threw it in a city dumpster. Cano explained he did it because he knew it had pictures and videos of Ortega with guns— which were direct evidence of federal gun crimes and gang activity.
Cano’s confession is such an unlikely and improbable fact that you should see the allegation for yourself:
7. Specifically, Jose Cano stated that he destroyed the cellphone and further admitted that he
believed the cellphone contained photos or videos that would reflect negatively on
Ortega. Through further questioning, agents ascertained that Jose Cano destroyed the
cellphone believing that it contained photographs of Ortega holding firearms that Ortega
had uploaded onto social media platforms which would be additional incriminating
evidence against him.
It’s hard to reckon how a long-time judge would agree to talk to FBI agents at all, much less after getting his Miranda warnings and without a lawyer. Regular readers will recall that, when I first reported this story, I suggested Judge Cano should have already retained a good criminal defense lawyer. All I can say now is, he should’ve read C&C.
Cano didn’t just smash a phone; he smashed his oath, his robes, and his integrity. Yesterday, in the harsh morning light of the bright Las Cruces sun, FBI agents arrested Cano and charged him with destroying evidence to protect a defendant (18 USC §1512). The charge allows up to 20 years in prison. As a first-time offender, he’d probably only get 12-24 months, but the sentencing guidelines require enhancement for cartel involvement.
Cano is in deep doo-doo. Regardless of whatever happens in the criminal case, he admitted destroying evidence of crimes— a violation of ethics that virtually requires disbarment. New Mexico’s Supremes already barred him from ever again serving as a judge, so his law license is almost certainly a goner.
Here’s a link to the federal complaint against former Judge Cano.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9gj8n9ie7jwgo4q7gfwqm/Doc.-01-USA-v.-Cano-Complaint.pdf?rlkey=ufcqz8pnlh607vh4i79z8rchv&e=1&dl=0
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El Salvador won’t return wrongly deported Maryland man
https://x.com/politico/status/1911819797651747093
Natch, he's an illegal alien with no residency, citizenship, or visa.
Bukele is keeping him in El Salvador, I heard he's actually in jail on El Salvadorian charges.