LA Times article entitled LA judge tells illegal immigrant to leave court or be deported is indented, with commentary interspersed:
Superior Court officials were reviewing a hearing in which a judge told an illegal immigrant seeking a restraining order against her husband that she should leave his courtroom or risk being deported to Mexico.
During the July 14 hearing in Pomona, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Bruce R. Fink asked Aurora Gonzalez if she was an illegal immigrant.
Gonzalez, who accused her husband of verbal abuse and threatening to report her to immigration authorities, acknowledged being in the country illegally.
“I hate the immigration laws that we have, but I think the bailiff could take you to the immigration services and send you to Mexico,” the judge responded, according to a court transcript. “Is that what you guys want?”
Obviously, what Aurora Gonzalez wanted was a restraining order against her husband. Since her husband was already threatening to report her to immigration authorities, it is entirely possible that he did want her to be arrested and deported to Mexico.
Fink later warned Gonzalez that he was going to count to 20 and expected her to disappear by the time he was finished.
“One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. When I get to 20, she gets arrested and goes to Mexico,” Fink said, according to the transcript.
After Gonzalez left the courtroom, Fink dismissed the case.
And then the judge left for an early lunch date, and rewarded himself for his cleverness and compassion with double desserts?
Court spokesman Allan Parachini said the hearing was under review and officials “will take appropriate action after a full investigation of the circumstances.”
Fink, in an interview Wednesday with the Los Angeles Times, said his intent was for Gonzalez not to get in trouble with immigration officials.
“We have a federal law that says this status is not allowed,” Fink said. “You can’t just ignore it. What I really wanted was not to give this woman any problems.”
Nor did he want to give her any solutions, apparently.
A family attorney for 35 years, Fink insisted he was seeking what he thought was an agreeable solution for Gonzalez and her husband, both of whom “obviously wanted to get back together,” he said.
“What I saw was nothing more than some yelling and screaming between a husband and a wife,” he said. If he had issued the restraining order, Fink said, the woman would have been arrested and deported.
Gonzalez moved into a domestic violence shelter last month, the newspaper reported, and said she could not be reached for comment.
Obviously Aurora Gonzalez did not want “to get back together” with her husband, especially after the judge awarded him absolute power over her. He could have beaten her savagely and she would have been legitimately petrified to call the police. I’m guessing she isn’t receiving any spousal support money, either. The signals this sends are just bloodchilling.
–Ann Bartow
Article via Elizabeth C.
