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I'm really tired of some of you people.
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I mean, I've been hearing for years.
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You know, I'm for immigration so long as they get in line.
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They've got to follow a legal process,
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but you don't really mean it.
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I'm Jim Babka, this is instant grace,
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a mini version of Grace Arkey with Jim Babka.
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Have you heard the phrase, let the punishment fit the crime?
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This is one of the oldest legal concepts we have.
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You can find it in the book of Exodus,
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you can find it in the works of Cicero,
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or you can understand it in an observable way.
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We call it the natural principle of human respect
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and it says that any time violence
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is initiated against someone,
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their happiness, their harmony,
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and their prosperity will decline, always.
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Violence initiated against them
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diminishes happiness, harmony and prosperity.
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That is a natural cause and effect principle
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like holding up this pen and letting it go.
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We all know where it's going to go.
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It's going to go down.
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That's the principle of gravity.
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This is the principle, the natural principle of human respect.
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So I want you to keep that natural principle in mind
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as I tell you the story of Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez.
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Maria is 42 years old.
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She lives in Sacramento and works as a regional manager
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She oversees locations across California and Oregon.
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This is someone with a lot of responsibility.
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She came to the United States from Mexico
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She's been here for 27 years.
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Maria has a 22 year old daughter named Amaris
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who was born here and is herself a U.S. citizen.
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Maria for her part is a DACA recipient.
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DACA means that the government knows she is here
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and DACA is not some loophole.
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It means discretion.
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It means that person is here with permission
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and the government has promised not to pursue removal.
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In fact, Maria's had her DACA status updated five times.
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Now, our immigration law allows people to become U.S. citizens
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if they have a sponsor who is a citizen
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who is 21 years of age or older and an immediate family member.
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So when Damaris turned 21 last year,
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she and Maria started the process
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and had a green card appointment last week.
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Maria, get her hair and her makeup
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and she brought a white binder with her.
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The binder included tax returns,
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her high school diploma, vaccination records.
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Every document she thought of
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that the government could possibly need 27 years of her life.
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Documentation showing every major milestone
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of her time in the United States.
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She was doing everything right.
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During the application interview,
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a federal agent walked up to her,
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told her to stand up and put coughs on her.
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This is the moment I want to focus in on.
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Maria described it as humiliating.
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By the next morning, she was in Mexico.
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Did the punishment fit the crime?
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Maria voluntarily walked into that building.
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When agent's approach or she didn't run, she didn't resist.
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But she said, I never felt so humiliated in my life.
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I felt like the most wanted criminal in the United States.
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I want you to think about the last time
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a parking meter ran out while your car was sitting at the curb.
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You weren't doing anything dangerous.
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You weren't a threat to anyone.
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You were simply somewhere.
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You weren't supposed to be anymore.
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The officer didn't wait for you to come back.
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He didn't restrain you.
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He left a piece of paper on your windshield and he moved on
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because that was the response that the situation called for.
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So what happened to Maria wasn't proportionate
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and proportionality matters.
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Not just as a matter of decency,
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but as a matter of principle.
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If we go back to that natural principle of human respect,
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we can say with confidence that force
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and exceeds what a situation requires is an enforcement.
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It's a violent message that destroys happiness.
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Now, the government has an answer for their behavior.
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The people that work for the government
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always conjure such things.
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DHS says that Maria had a removal order from 1998
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issued when she was a 15 year old crossing the border.
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They say she received full due process
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and they also claim she illegally re-entered the country
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For Maria's part, she says she was never before a judge.
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She never heard about any removal order.
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Not when she applied for DACA, not when she renewed it,
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not through any of the years she spent building her American life.
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And here's the detail that makes the government's argument
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so particularly difficult to sustain.
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In 2014, the federal government granted Maria advance parole
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to visit her sick mother in Mexico.
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Advanced parole, this is an official permission slip
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to leave the country and lawfully re-enter.
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So you cannot simultaneously claim
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that someone is subject to a decades old removal order
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and grant their permission to re-enter the country.
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These two things can't simultaneously be true.
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Now, a lot of people are going to think
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that Maria got what she had coming to her.
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If she had just come the right way, whatever that is,
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none of this would have happened
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that were a nation of laws.
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Maria did use the legal process.
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She applied for DACA.
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She obtained advanced parole before coming back.
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And her daughter, DeMaris, had turned 21.
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She was applying for permanent residency
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through proper channels.
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She showed up to the appointment they scheduled for her
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and they building they told her to go to
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with every document they asked her to bring
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and more in a white binder.
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If that's not coming here legally, then what is?
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Maria got in line and when she finally got to the front
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it turns out she was being led into a trap.
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But we can go one step further here
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since we know this natural principle of human respect.
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And we could say that she shouldn't have even been subject
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She shouldn't have been subject to it.
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I mean, if you're pursuing your happiness in life
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how many of you would put an appointment
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at a federal government building
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where you had to file a bunch of forms,
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bring a bunch of documents?
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How many of you would consider that a good time?
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Something that is enhancing and making you
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more prosperous, more happy.
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Such a process wouldn't exist.
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Motel Six has employed this woman
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to oversee locations in California and Oregon.
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I don't know if she's got a loan or for a mortgage
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on her home or she's renting, but she's living somewhere
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and they agreed to let her have that.
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We don't have any evidence here that she's any kind of threat
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at all to society, but handcuffs were put on her
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and worse, she shouldn't even have to go through this process.
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It's an indignity against a real human being
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and we should want to do better.
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We should want to do a whole lot better.
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We should want to practice human, human respect.