Feeling optimistic, I went to the Bar Association in New York City to observe a “case” of a noncitizen immigrant who had voted, been caught and was being processed. Whatever I’d naively expected, I was stunned at the bias of the 3 1/2 -hour presentation helmed by the Fordham Forum on Law & Culture, headed by Thane Rosenbaum, the director and founder of the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at New York University Law School.

The evening was billed as a reenactment of a case involving a noncitizen Filipina who ‘mistakenly voted’ in a congressional election. The issue was whether to exculpate the woman -- married to an American citizen, upstanding family, mother of two small children -- or to deport her.

The judge, a young Asian woman who breathed no-nonsense in the large hall, listened carefully to the two attorneys, one arguing according to the law on noncitizens being barred from voting, the other attempting to defend the attractive brunette 38-year-old mother, Elizabeth [“Beth”] Keithley. Her husband John, a shambling, burly man with a reddish brush mustache and would-be beard (could be dramatized by Seth Rogen, before his slim-down makeover) testified that he found a “Christian woman, moral and responsible,” in some tiny town in the Philippines (“Nothing more than a gas station”), and brought her to the U.S. on a K-1 “fiancée visa.”

Curly-haired Rosenbaum -- wire-rims lent a touch of Yoda -- took over once the staged ‘trial’ of the noncitizen voter had taken place. I had once respected him for his prowess with prose and poetry, and his stand on never forgetting the Holocaust. Now I see him as a slightly indulgent essence of leftist bias; before, I thought him capable of representing a voice of reason, based on his position at Fordham Law.

As Beth was interrogated, the attorneys did a creditable job. Though I found Beth’s testimony believable, there was a degree of fog, masked by recourse to accented muddling explanation. I didn’t buy the testimony of her husband, John. He didn’t know a noncitizen cannot vote? Ridiculous.

The judge took a brief recess. Moments later, I was gratified and frankly surprised when she ruled that the plaint offered to exculpate defendant for her illicit vote, “Entrapment by estoppal,” despite Beth’s acknowledgment that she wasn’t a citizen, was unacceptable and not enough to prevent deportation. Accordingly, Beth was fined $500 and told she had to leave the country at her own expense in a month.

As I am not a lawyer, I don’t know the parameters of that Entrapment by Estoppal legality.

Beth, in tears, John, and their attorney left.

Minutes later, three new judges sat at the podium. Strangely, they reviewed the verdict and reversed the first judge: Defendant was entitled to review.

Beth, John and defense counsel returned.

Five people, in addition to moderator Rosenbaum, now debated the decision and the fine points of immigration. They allowed as the case was “exceptional,” as Beth and husband had been “almost textbook cases of ideal applicants” for citizenship, drivers’ licenses and other desirable documentation. “By the book,” they agreed.

But she wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t a citizen, that she could not vote. The only explanation was that whoever processed her papers “rushed” and she “wasn’t able to follow” his lack of specificity.

The "debate" then went downhill.

I boo'ed audibly amid the staid audience of sympathizers with the exculpatory mindmeld at grinding length. I was only one person, though. The audience applauded unsupported propositions, ahistorical ‘facts,’ and euphemisms made by the panel. A pathetic performance. People glared at me as I made my disapproval evident of their fervent acceding to unfounded assertions.

One of the final panelists is being sued for deportation himself, as he is an illegal. With a strong Hispanic accent, he mocked his situation. Another was director of a past similar film. A photographer next to me snapped photos from every angle, padding about the capacious hall as the assembled sat rapt and still when not clapping.

The panel derided "alien," referring to illegals streaming over our patchy band-aid borders. They never make a distinction between illegal and legal immigrant.

No one mentioned that we inhale one million legal immigrants per year, more than any other country. A Hong Kong-born man, Judge Chin, made a heart-warming statement about his grandfather and father as they made their way to these shores years ago, when Chin was only three, as waiters, cooks and menials, then became citizens, one after another. He was strongly patriotic, but left.

No one mentioned the blizzard of data on the false buzzword of invaders' "paying taxes," as if this made up for the endless system-gaming theft of every “entitlement" undocumenteds purloin in schooling, welfare benefits, housing, unlitigated accidents, SNAP allowances, or hikes in police and protective services, to manage the surge in crime as a consequence of… invasion. No mention of remittances mailed ‘home,’ not retained domestically to enrich our GDP.

Popular was the predictable mockery of President Trump's early statements, at the start of his campaign, that unwanteds bring gangs, crime, disease, sex trafficking in the thousands, rape of most of the women traveling to the borders, drug mules, cartel traffickers for millions of extorted dollars -- leaving many of the extorted to die in the desert badlands -- or the constant ransacking of ranches that has escalated to no-go zones for property-owners for fear of rape, robbery, or brutal assault. Vandalism is now everyday, everywhere, not an occasional event, as it was 25 years ago.

The premises of these disturbing conditions weren’t evoked. Neither was the backlog of 800,000 awaiting processing; average wait time now six years.

“Catch and release,” one lawyer opined, “is for fish”-- should be true. Trouble is, C-and-R is the governing principle.  Our ICE men and women are overwhelmed, under-resourced and undersupported thanks to the media and Democrats’ barrage of lies, distortions, and simplifications spackling our airwaves and congressional confabs.

It doesn't help that some judges on these cases are themselves immigrants inclined toward illegals—reprising their own dubious routes to legality.

As I left, I asked if the ABA had always been leftist. Responses were that this wasn’t an ABA presentation, but that of the NY State Bar. The answers were delivered in arctic, acidulous grit.

And here I’d expected an enlightening talk on visa differences and how they are worked in today’s court system. 

And yes, we recognize that everyone has his own story; some -- a tiny few-- are actual asylees.  

Arranged against a wall of fake families, fake mothers using or corralling 'borrowed' kids to appear legit, and garden-variety need for a better income... it’s impossible to assert, as these judges did in the course of the evening, that "very few" illegals are anything but well-meaning.

There are so many, every month, every week, every hour… that even a fraction of abusers, felons, gangbangers, rapists, even carjackers, is too damned many. 

As Ann Coulter has said and written in Adios America!, we have our own criminals, thank you. We don't need a single addition to that heap of catastrophes-in-waiting.