I’ve Seen Both Sides—and Mercy Still Requires Justice

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

I want to be very clear here, because this conversation cannot stay in the realm of abstractions and moral generalities.

I’ve seen both sides of this debate—and mercy still requires justice.

For me, this issue is not theoretical. It is not political theater. It is not a collection of statistics meant to reassure people who have never had to bury a child.

My 17-year-old niece was murdered by someone who was in this country illegally.
She was a child. She had a future. That future was taken from her—permanently. My family lives with that loss every single day. There is no rehabilitation for that. No policy debate that softens it. No statistic that explains it away.

So when I hear arguments framed around “the vast, vast majority,” I need to stop the conversation right there.

For victims, there is no majority. There is no comfort in percentages. There is only the one crime that destroyed a life and shattered a family. One violent offender is not a rounding error. One murder is not an acceptable cost of systemic failure.

And I say all of this knowing full well that this issue is not simple—because I have also lived the other side.

I worked at Lincoln Hall, where I interacted directly with unaccompanied minors. As part of my job, I personally brought Jesuit priests onto campus to provide religious services. I looked those kids in the eye. Many were frightened, displaced, traumatized. They were not “thugs.” They were children caught in chaos that began long before they ever reached our border.

That is why I reject dehumanization in all forms.

But that is also why I reject moral sleight-of-hand that erases victims in the name of compassion.

Over the years, through my radio and media work, I have also come to know many “angel families”—parents, siblings, spouses who lost children or loved ones to crimes committed by people who were in this country illegally. In many of those cases, the perpetrators had been deported multiple times, only to return and ultimately commit the crime that destroyed a family forever.

These are not talking points. These are not headlines. These are families living with what I can only describe as amputated souls—a loss so total that there is no prosthetic for it. No replacement. No “moving on.” Only learning how to live around an absence that never heals.

This is the truth that too often gets edited out of the conversation.

Mercy without accountability is not justice. Compassion that ignores harm is not moral—it is selective. And a broken system is not an excuse to suspend enforcement while innocent people pay the price.

I’ve seen both sides—and that is precisely why I refuse the false choice this debate keeps demanding.

Justice does not require cruelty.
Mercy does not require blindness.
And truth does not require us to pretend that the dead are abstractions.

If we are serious about dignity, then victims must be part of the moral calculus—not an inconvenient footnote. And if we are serious about reform, then accountability must apply not only to individuals, but to the systems and policies that failed these families again and again.

I’ve seen both sides.
And mercy still requires justice.