Undocumented Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas Arrested At The Border

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas was arrested Tuesday after attempting to board a plane out of McAllen, Texas, according to United We Dream, an immigration advocacy group.

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Comments

[Hawk Spitui]

Best news I've heard all morning.

[Cdr Lytton]

But what Vargas didn't know is that in order to leave the border town, he would need to pass through an interior U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint set up within 45 miles of McAllen.

An immigration advocate and journalist who was unaware of internal checkpoints? And decided to try and wing it with a Filipino passport and no visa? Pure genius.

[WTF]

Shit, even I know that everything within 100 miles of a border is a constitution-free zone.

[Jerryskids]

It was my understanding that millions of illegal aliens are flooding into the US because we have an essentially undefended border with Mexico and they can just walk right in. So how is it that they can catch this guy and the tens of thousands of minors coming into the country lately? Have we finally built a fence and started trying to keep immigrants out and I haven't heard the news?

[WTF]

Undocumented Journalist, wut? Does that mean he practices journalism without a press pass? I didn't know journalists needed documentation.

[MegaloMonocle]

So we're still using the tedious euphemism "undocumented".

I left the house without my driver's license the other day. I had no ID on my at all. I guess I was "undocumented", no different whatsoever than an MS-13 enforcer who wades across the Rio Grande.

[DJF]

"""Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist""''

Was he there to report there is no famine in Ukraine?

[John Thacker]

He's on the wrong side of the law, unfortunately, as much as Cliven Bundy.

[Lady Bertrum]

Oh goody, another passion play. The script writes itself: Scruffy journalist travels to region to bravely shed light on inhuman system and is caught up in that system and victimized by it!!!

I see the tears welling up in the eyes of the outraged already!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

+Liek dis if u cri evertim

[John]

I thought there was a great tradition among liberty minded people of breaking unjust laws. If the open borders people feel immigration laws are unjust, why don't they proudly call themselves and others "illegal immigrants".

[entropy_factor]

exactly. Obama doesn't have to get his hands dirty with photo-ops on the border, yet the story can stay in the 10 day media cycle. It's all bullshit that hasn't been addressed until this year because, well, midterms.

[Cdr Lytton]

Just noticed the HuffPo byline. Explains it all.

[John]

Why is Reason just reposting Hufpost stories?

[Cdr Lytton]

http://reason.com/people/the-huffington-post/all

Quite a few in the last couple of months and almost all are pot stories.

[Stormy Dragon]

Oh look, all the phony libertarians are celebrating the State cracking down on a non-violent person because YAY TEAM RED.

[John]

Yeah, because national sovereignty is totally antithetical to Libertarianism. Libertarianism is just the same thing as ANCAP.

Maybe you should try being a bit less of a TEAM BLUE cheerleader. Then you might understand that Libertarian doesn't mean anarchist, despite what your fellow Team Blue travelers tell you.

And last I look a ton of Democratic voters and groups supported closing the borders. So are the unions and the black voters really TEAM RED?

Come on Stormy, you are not exactly a good troll, but you can do better than this. This is pathetic son.

[entropy_factor]

I hate the belief that the border should be either 100% open or 100% closed.

I think libertarians, including The Jacket et al, get immigration confused. Freedom of association, freedom of movement, self ownership, they say. Hard to argue against that. However, immigrants are already free to move here. There's just a gatekeeper. That's not "oppressing" anyone, there is just some sense of order about things.

Personally, I think the quotas should be MUCH higher (prob 10x), but I think open borders is a fantasy land that some libertarians get swept into by following the logical conclusion train. Theory and reality don't always mesh.

[John]

I hate that idea too. And yes the Jacket gets immigration and a lot of other things confused. To demand open borders or nothing is to deny the US has sovereignty and that is bullshit.

The worse thing is that people like Nick really hurt their own cause by associating support for immigration with the all or nothing proposition of completely open borders, something that even they, if they ever thought about it, wouldn't support.

[entropy_factor]

it's an emotional topic, I get it. The GOP opposes immigration because, well, brown folks and also for electoral purposes. Democrats want immigration but they are also the biggest NIMBY motherfuckers ever when it concerns that topic.

I think open borders is more or less an easy pathway to larger regional govt (ie, EU) and/or global government. Not going conspiritard InfoWars here, but I think if all sovereignty is removed and the welfare state still exists, rich countries will be drained of money and poor countries will be drained of talent, leading to overall disturbances.

[MWG]

"However, immigrants are already free to move here."

You've never actually been through the immigration process, have you?

There's nothing "free" about it.

[entropy_factor]

free as in, no one will shoot you if you go file paperwork for a Visa. As in, nothing stops people from beginning the correct process and waiting in line.

Not a perfect system, no. But neither is accepting juveniles with no parents and placing them in the welfare system, or just throwing them on the streets.

[Warren's Strapon]

There are those who say we don't have a perfect system. And there are some who say we shouldn't place them in the welfare system.

[Lady Bertrum]

^This is a good start but now you need to identify a specific "phony libertarian" so you can isolate and use him/her as an object of vitriolic hate so the True Libertarians can enjoy a 3 minute hate. The script demands it!!!

[entropy_factor]

ILLEGAL ALIEN.

Our immigration laws classify immigrants as "aliens", and legal ones are those who have completed the process. This isn't to say "humans are illegal", but the method of migration to the US was.

On top of Mr. Vargas' personal legal quandaries, I want his employers investigated and fined. I get it, he is a good guy and does good things, but if we are really going to sit here and scream "RULE OF LAW" for everything else the Obama administration does, we need to be consistent here. Faking docs and employing illegals is still a crime.

[MasterDarque]

I would start a hungry strike over this but we are having tacos for lunch so...

[Lady Bertrum]

Yummy, tacos.

[Don Mynack]

Dumbass.

[John]

If being an undocumented alien journalists is so great, why aren't the reason staff heading down to Mexico without a VISA to cover the drug war? If our laws are unjust so are every other nation's.

[MWG]

What are you babbling about? Don't complain about the US because it's worse somewhere else?

[Rich]

Doesn't possessing a Philippine passport count as being "documented"?