The Valley Viewpoint

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.

Pull up the old clips — including the one you just shared — and watch them back-to-back.

What stands out isn’t soundbite politics. It’s clarity.

You see Bill Clinton on the podium, looking straight at the camera in that Facebook video you pointed to. He begins with something that sounds simple… but increasingly rare in modern political discourse:

“We are a nation of immigrants — and we are a nation of laws.” 

Right there is the core of Clinton’s 1990s position — and it’s exactly what that shared video clip captures.

Then cue the C-SPAN footage from the 1995 State of the Union: Clinton doesn’t dance around illegal immigration. In his own words:

“All Americans … are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants.” 

From the same speech and related clips, he goes on to say:

“We will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes … better identify illegal aliens in the workplace.” 

The tone isn’t fear-mongering. It’s administrative seriousness. He’s laying out policy:

Strengthen border control. Increase deportations of criminal and deportable illegal immigrants. Enforce workplace laws so American jobs go to legal workers. And undercut the “job magnet” that draws undocumented workers here in the first place. 

Then, in another clip from later remarks around his immigration strategy, we hear him say:

“This executive order will make clear that when it comes to enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, we mean business.” 

That line — posted again and again in social videos on Facebook and YouTube — was his explanation for banning federal contracts to businesses that knowingly hired unauthorized workers. It wasn’t partisan bravado: it was a policy declaration.

And crucially, many of these clips don’t just focus on enforcement. They also remind the viewer of another part of his message:

“We are a nation of immigrants. We should be proud of it.” 

Those two lines — pride in immigration and enforcement of immigration law — appear together in multiple videos from the era, including the Facebook clip you shared, the C-SPAN State of the Union moments, and other archival footage.

What that sequence of clips collectively shows is this:

No euphemisms — Clinton said “illegal aliens” and “illegal immigration.”  Law enforcement as policy — stronger borders, deportations, and employer sanctions were on the table.  Human context — he still framed immigration as fundamentally an American story, not an existential threat. 

If you watch your Facebook clip right before the C-SPAN sequences, the transitions are jarringly straightforward — not vague political positioning, but a Democratic president spelling out enforcement priorities on camera, repeatedly, in real time.

That’s why these clips circulate today: they document a time when the Democratic mainstream didn’t shy away from enforcing immigration law or from saying so on video.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17jc59PPa2/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I pay attention to Virginia politics for a reason that has nothing to do with party labels: my best friend lives there. When decisions are made in Richmond, they don’t feel theoretical to me. They feel personal. They affect a place where someone I care about raises a family, drives the same roads every day, and assumes — reasonably — that public safety means using every lawful tool available.

That’s why Governor Abigail Spanberger’s first-day executive order ending state cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deserves more scrutiny than it’s getting.

This wasn’t a minor administrative tweak. It was a deliberate choice to pull Virginia State Police out of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement — not because the law required it, not because a court ordered it, but because the governor decided that distance was preferable to involvement.

Supporters frame the move as compassionate. That’s a convenient label. In reality, it’s a policy of withdrawal.

Under former Governor Glenn Youngkin, Virginia took the position that public safety didn’t stop at jurisdictional boundaries. If someone was already in contact with law enforcement and federal authorities wanted cooperation, the Commonwealth would not stand in the way. That wasn’t extremism — it was coordination.

Spanberger rejected that outright.

Her order doesn’t block ICE from operating in Virginia. But it sends a clear message: state law enforcement will no longer assist, no longer coordinate, no longer share responsibility. Immigration enforcement is declared someone else’s problem.

And that’s where this becomes troubling.

When a governor tells state police to step back from cooperation, she isn’t just protecting community trust — she’s narrowing the definition of public safety. She’s deciding, unilaterally, that the state has no role when federal law enforcement intersects with criminal conduct already in the system.

This wasn’t debated. It wasn’t legislated. Virginians never voted on it. It happened quietly, by executive order, before the furniture in the governor’s office had time to settle.

Local and state officers will increasingly avoid contact that could implicate immigration status, even when serious crimes are involved. Federal agents will operate with less local intelligence and less logistical support. Criminals who understand this separation will exploit it — not because Virginia is a “sanctuary,” but because fragmented enforcement creates seams. Criminals always find the seams.

Youngkin’s approach said: We’ll help.

Spanberger’s says: We won’t.

Neither position is accidental. Neither is neutral. And neither should be misunderstood.

Because when the governor tells her state police to stand down, she isn’t just redefining enforcement — she’s redefining responsibility.

This decision will quietly turn Virginia into a case study in how selective enforcement leads to selective accountability — with public safety paying the price.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

Politics loves the word listening.

Listening tour. Listening session. Listening to the people.

It sounds humble. It sounds inclusive. It sounds safe.

But listening is not a passive act when you hold power. And who you choose to listen to—who you legitimize simply by sharing space—tells the public exactly who matters to you.

That’s why what unfolded at a recent event featuring Antonio Delgado matters far more than his campaign wants to admit.

At this so-called listening tour, among the invited and welcomed voices, was Jalil Muntaqim—a man convicted of executing two New York City police officers in 1971.

Let’s stop right there, because this is where the language always starts to soften.

Not formerly incarcerated.

Not controversial figure.

Not activist with a complicated past.

A cop killer.

Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones were ambushed and murdered in cold blood. Their families didn’t get a listening tour. They got funerals. Decades of empty chairs. A lifetime of loss that doesn’t expire because a parole board changed its mind.

Yet here we are, more than fifty years later, watching a man responsible for that violence welcomed into a political space—treated as a community stakeholder, a moral voice, a symbol of progress.

And we are told, predictably, not to overreact.

He’s not part of the campaign.

He was there with an advocacy group.

It wasn’t intentional.

It was just listening.

No.

This is exactly the point.

Leadership is not measured by who accidentally wanders into the room. It is measured by who is allowed to stay—and who is never invited at all.

Politics is symbolic whether politicians like it or not. Every photograph is a statement. Every shared stage is an endorsement of relevance. You don’t get to borrow moral authority from victims while lending legitimacy to their killers.

New York’s political class wants it both ways.

They demand reverence for institutions—unless those institutions wear a badge.

They talk endlessly about justice—except when justice has a face, a name, and a surviving family asking to be remembered.

They preach accountability—but only downward, never inward.

This isn’t about rehabilitation. This isn’t about whether Muntaqim served his sentence. This isn’t even about parole.

This is about judgment.

About the inability—or unwillingness—to draw lines anymore.

There used to be things that disqualified you from moral leadership. There used to be crimes so final, so violent, so devastating to families and communities, that no amount of rebranding could turn them into résumé bullet points.

Now, apparently, all it takes is time, the right politics, and a microphone.

If you are running for governor of New York, listening is not enough. You must know when not to listen—when to say, this is not appropriate, this is not acceptable, this is not who we elevate.

Because leadership is not about amplifying every voice.

It’s about protecting the ones that were silenced forever.

And if a listening tour can’t hear that truth, then it isn’t listening at all.

It’s been fifty years since we walked out of Xavier High School — fifty years since uniform shirts and polished shoes gave way to whatever life had waiting for us. Yet no matter how far we’ve gone — careers, families, losses, triumphs — something about Xavier has continued to live inside us.

We didn’t understand it then, but Xavier wasn’t just a school. It was a shaping place. It laid down habits, expectations, and standards that followed us into rooms and moments we didn’t think we were ready for. It wasn’t easy at the time. It was meant to be formative.

I recently watched a video that brought so much of that home. It wasn’t made for us originally, but when Class of ’76 sees “Generations of Generosity: Gaspar ‘Chip’ Cipolla ’49”, it feels like a mirror into something timeless we all felt at Xavier — family, legacy, and the idea that what you give comes back in ways you don’t expect.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uUI4UZwF9M8&fbclid=IwRlRTSAPYfCRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEecMICj951ZgF-GCyeB85HJYf3Hk3s409JeHw7X8o_8MhWP5vKNe4KEHcSQXk_aem_-hG3O5NIBdv6q3uUQcLEEg

That video reminded me how much Xavier was about people over paperwork, about connection more than credentials. It wasn’t just about learning — it was about becoming. Chip Cipolla’s story wasn’t ours exactly, but the sentiment was: men shaped by a community that asked hard questions and expected real answers. It’s the same spirit that still draws us back together.

Think about what we learned beyond the books.

We learned responsibility — showing up on time, carrying ourselves with a sense of purpose.
We learned brotherhood — unfinished conversations after class, late-night thoughts on life’s unfair turns, and the bonds that endure because they were tested.
We learned service — that your own success doesn’t mean much if you’re not looking out for others along the way.

The Jesuit idea of being “men for others” wasn’t just a slogan on a banner — it was something lived in the halls, in the JROTC formations, in the shared rigor that asked us to be more than average.

Xavier didn’t make life easy. It didn’t edify every insecurity, soften every corner, or promise that effort would always feel good. But it prepared us — for work, for family, for challenge, for leadership, for the uncomfortable moments when character mattered more than convenience.

Now, fifty years later, when we see each other again — gray hairs, stories etched in our faces, success measured not by titles but by the lives we touch — we’ll recognize each other instantly. Not because we haven’t changed, but because those core lessons didn’t fade. They just matured with us.

That’s the quiet power of Xavier — it didn’t just educate us, it indelibly shaped us.

So here’s to the Class of 1976:
We’re older now, wiser too — maybe a little softer in some ways, a little firmer in others — but still shaped by those years on 16th Street.

We carry those lessons forward not because we have to, but because they became part of who we are.

And fifty years later, that still matters.

“Due process” is one of the most revered principles in American law. It exists to restrain government power, ensure fairness, and protect against arbitrary punishment. It is essential. But somewhere along the way, due process has been narrowed—spoken of almost exclusively in terms of the accused—while the people who suffer the harm have been pushed to the margins of the conversation.

Victims have become the forgotten side of due process.

When violent crime is committed, the law immediately mobilizes around the rights of the defendant: procedural safeguards, evidentiary standards, constitutional protections. All of this is proper. What goes unspoken is that victims, too, are owed process—protection before harm, accountability after it, and truth throughout. Justice is not complete simply because procedures were followed once someone was hurt. It must also ask whether the system failed while there was still time to prevent the harm.

That failure becomes impossible to ignore when ICE agents attempt to arrest individuals who have already victimized people—and are met by protests opposing the arrest itself. Whatever one’s views on immigration policy, opposing the lawful apprehension of someone who has already harmed others sends a stark message to victims: your suffering is secondary to the politics of the moment.

This is not a debate about mass roundups or blanket suspicion. It is about known offenders. Missed enforcement opportunities, ignored detainers, and refusals to cooperate are often followed by public outrage—not at the crime, but at the attempt to hold the perpetrator accountable. When enforcement finally acts and is denounced for doing so, the system completes a cruel inversion: the offender is centered again, and the victim disappears.

Due process is not meant to be a one-sided shield; it is meant to balance rights and responsibilities. Protesting the arrest of someone who has already caused harm confuses compassion with consequence-free governance. Compassion that refuses to recognize victims is not justice—it is abdication.

Which raises an unavoidable question: how can newly elected officials—and those seeking office—stand in public holding signs that read “Due Process for Everyone” and not see this? How can “everyone” exclude the assaulted, the bereaved, the traumatized? If due process truly belongs to all, why does it so often stop at the moment victims need it most—when accountability is finally pursued?

Victims deserve more than condolences and slogans. They deserve transparent explanations, lawful enforcement, and leaders willing to say that preventing future harm matters as much as protecting procedural rights. Due process, properly understood, runs the full arc of justice: before the crime, during enforcement, and after the verdict—applied to the harmed as surely as to the accused.

Until that balance is restored, victims will remain remembered briefly, mourned publicly, and forgotten institutionally. And that may be the greatest injustice of all.

There are moments when a nation has to decide whether laws are real—or merely aspirational.

That moment has arrived in Minneapolis.

What is happening there is no longer protest in any meaningful civic sense. It is organized, sustained violence aimed at stopping the enforcement of federal law. When crowds attack federal officers, torch property, blockade neighborhoods, and dare authorities to intervene, the issue is no longer political disagreement. It is coercion by force.

And coercion by force is exactly what the Insurrection Act was designed to confront.

This isn’t about rhetoric. It isn’t about tone. And it certainly isn’t about optics. It’s about whether civil authority still governs American cities—or whether it yields when challenged hard enough.

Local leadership has not merely struggled. It has failed.

When mayors plead instead of enforce, when governors hesitate instead of restore order, and when police are overwhelmed or politically restrained into paralysis, authority doesn’t vanish. It transfers. That is not authoritarianism. That is constitutional design.

President Donald Trump is right to raise the Insurrection Act—and wrong to delay its use.

The Act is not a threat. It is not a stunt. It is a constitutional backstop for moments when local government can no longer or will no longer perform its most basic function: maintaining public order. History is clear on this point. The Insurrection Act has been invoked to enforce desegregation, to stop riots, and to reestablish lawful control when states abdicated responsibility.

It has never been about tyranny.

It has always been about preserving the Republic when it is under physical assault.

Let’s dispense with the talking points. Peaceful protest happens every day in America without federal troops in sight. What is happening now involves arson, intimidation, and direct attacks on agents of the federal government—particularly U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—whose obligation is to enforce laws passed by Congress, not negotiate them with mobs.

At that point, this is no longer a local matter.

It becomes a national one.

The real danger is not invoking the Insurrection Act.

The real danger is signaling that it will never be used—no matter how severe the breakdown becomes.

That lesson would be catastrophic.

Because once violence is seen to work—once it becomes clear that sustained disorder can override law—every grievance learns the same tactic. Minneapolis doesn’t remain isolated. It becomes precedent.

A government that cannot protect its officers cannot protect its citizens.

A government that refuses to enforce its laws forfeits legitimacy.

And a republic that yields to mobs does not remain a republic for long.

Invoking the Insurrection Act is not about punishment.

It is about containment.

It is about restoration.

It is about reaffirming that the rule of law is not optional, negotiable, or subject to veto by fire.

Order is not oppression.

Law is not fascism.

And when local government fails, the Constitution does not.

There was a time—not long ago—when sex was understood in law and daily life as binary: male and female. That clarity no longer exists, at least not in New York City.

In 2019, under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the New York City Commission on Human Rights released official guidance recognizing 31 distinct gender identities, all protected under the city’s anti-discrimination laws. Businesses were put on notice: failure to recognize or properly address someone by their self-identified gender or preferred pronouns could result in fines of up to $250,000.

The Commission framed the policy as a matter of dignity and respect. In its own words, New York City law prohibits discrimination based on “gender identity and gender expression” in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Gender identity, the Commission explained, is an individual’s “internal, deeply-held sense” of being male, female, or “something else entirely.”

To guide compliance, the city published an official list of 31 gender identity terms, including:

Bi-Gendered Cross-Dresser Drag-King Drag-Queen Femme Queen Female-to-Male FTM Gender Bender Genderqueer Male-to-Female MTF Non-Op Hijra Pangender Transsexual / Transexual Trans Person Woman Man Butch Two-Spirit Trans Agender Third Sex Gender Fluid Non-Binary Transgender Androgyne Gender-Gifted Femme Person of Transgender Experience Androgynous Gender Bender

Unlike traditional sex-based classifications, these identities require no documentation, medical transition, or legal verification. Individuals may access bathrooms or locker rooms based solely on self-identification. When uncertainty arises, the Commission advises: ask politely, apologize if you make a mistake, and move on.

This is not merely a cultural shift—it is a legal mandate, enforced with significant penalties. What was once a private matter of self-understanding has become a regulated public obligation, with compliance expected from employers, landlords, educators, and ordinary citizens alike.

I understand the stated goal: preventing harassment and discrimination. But I also recognize the unease this creates for many people who feel the ground beneath shared language, norms, and legal clarity has shifted faster than public consensus.

I’m not claiming malice.

I’m not denying anyone’s humanity.

But I am acknowledging something simpler—and harder to dismiss:

I am officially living in a world I no longer recognize.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There was a time when the State of the State was meant to do exactly that—describe the condition of New York. Not the polling. Not the campaign strategy. Not the governor’s re-election roadmap.
This year’s address from Kathy Hochul felt less like an accounting of where New York stands and more like a carefully stage-managed plea: please re-elect me.

The speech was long on applause lines and short on honesty.
We heard the familiar election-year greatest hits: affordability, child care, housing, “working families.” All worthy topics. All real problems. But problems don’t get solved by naming them—they get solved by grappling with tradeoffs, costs, and consequences. That part was conspicuously absent.

There was no serious reckoning with a state budget that continues to balloon. No meaningful discussion of Medicaid growth that threatens to crowd out everything else. No ownership of public safety policies that New Yorkers—especially those outside the Albany bubble—experience not as theory, but as daily reality. When leadership avoids the hard conversations, it isn’t prudence. It’s evasion.
The tone mattered, too. This was a speech designed to offend no one, challenge no one, and reassure everyone just enough to hold a fragile coalition together for one more election cycle. It was poll-tested, consultant-approved, and emotionally safe.
Which is precisely the problem.

New York doesn’t need safety right now. It needs seriousness.
The State of the State should be the moment when a governor levels with the public—about what’s working, what’s failing, and what difficult choices lie ahead. Instead, New Yorkers were offered a glossy brochure of intentions without a blueprint for execution.
That may work as a campaign strategy. It may even work politically.
But it doesn’t work as leadership.
And for a state facing affordability pressures, out-migration, workforce shortages, strained local governments, and declining trust in institutions, the absence of candor is itself a policy choice—one that says maintaining power matters more than confronting reality.

What a Real State of the State Should Have Said

A real State of the State wouldn’t begin with applause lines. It would begin with truth.

It would acknowledge that New York is at an inflection point—not because of partisan talking points, but because the math no longer works the way it used to. A serious address would have told New Yorkers plainly that state spending has grown faster than population, faster than inflation, and faster than the private economy that ultimately funds it. It would have admitted that this trajectory is unsustainable without either reform or consequences.

A real speech would have confronted Medicaid head-on—not as a slogan, but as the single largest pressure point in the state budget. It would have explained how costs grew, why oversight matters, and what reforms are on the table to preserve care without bankrupting the system. Leadership isn’t promising everything to everyone—it’s explaining what must change to keep promises viable.
On public safety, a real State of the State would have dropped the abstractions. It would have acknowledged that laws passed with good intentions produced real-world effects—on police staffing, court backlogs, victim confidence, and quality of life. It would have said clearly: when policies don’t work as intended, we fix them. No defensiveness. No denial.

On housing and affordability, a serious address would have admitted that state mandates alone don’t build homes—and that local resistance, regulatory drag, and infrastructure constraints are part of the problem. It would have spoken honestly about tradeoffs: density versus character, speed versus process, urgency versus ideology.
And perhaps most importantly, a real State of the State would have respected New Yorkers enough to tell them what cannot be done.
It would have said: we cannot lower taxes, expand services, grow spending, avoid reform, and still expect different results. Choices must be made. Priorities must be set. Some programs will need to change so others can survive.

That kind of speech wouldn’t poll well. It wouldn’t generate viral clips or easy applause.

But it would do something far more valuable: rebuild trust by treating citizens like adults instead of an audience.
Because the true state of the state isn’t found in campaign-tested optimism. It’s found in whether leaders are willing to say what’s hard—not just what’s safe.

And until that happens, New Yorkers will keep hearing speeches about where we wish we were—while living every day in the widening gap between rhetoric and reality.

Before Little v. Hecox becomes shorthand for something larger, it’s worth grounding it in what the case actually asks the Supreme Court to decide.

At its core, Little v. Hecox challenges Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” a law that restricts participation in women’s and girls’ school sports to athletes designated female at birth. The state argues the law is necessary to preserve competitive fairness and the original purpose of women’s athletics under Title IX. The challengers—led by Lindsay Hecox, a transgender woman—argue the law violates the Equal Protection Clause by imposing a categorical exclusion based on transgender status, without individualized assessment or evidence of harm.

Lower courts blocked the law, concluding it discriminated on the basis of sex and transgender identity. Idaho appealed, asking the Supreme Court a narrower—but heavier—question: does the Constitution prohibit states from drawing sex-based eligibility rules in athletics, even when those rules are designed to protect competitive opportunity?

That’s the legal frame. Everything else is interpretation.

And what came through most clearly during oral argument—especially in the questioning of Samuel Alito—was not a desire to resolve the cultural debate, but a reluctance to absorb it.

Alito’s questions weren’t about identity. They were about aftermath. If Idaho’s law falls, what replaces it? Who decides eligibility going forward—judges, school boards, doctors? Must every classification give way to individualized determinations? And does the Constitution really require courts to supervise the mechanics of competitive sports?

Those questions reveal the Court’s deeper concern: not whether the issue is difficult, but whether it belongs there at all.

The justices appear poised to say this: when society has not reached consensus, the Constitution does not automatically transfer decision-making authority from legislatures to courts. Lawmakers draw imperfect lines. Courts review them—but do not rewrite them simply because the terrain is contested or emotionally charged.

That doesn’t mean the challengers’ concerns are insignificant. They aren’t. Exclusion has real consequences. Dignity matters. So does fairness. But so do institutional limits. And this Court is signaling—plainly—that it does not want to become the standing referee for every unresolved cultural conflict.

If Idaho prevails, it won’t be because the Court declared transgender people undeserving of protection. It will be because a majority concluded that the Constitution does not require judges to manage athletic eligibility, calibrate hormone thresholds, or replace legislatures as policy-makers in areas where law, biology, and social values collide.

That distinction matters.

Because today it’s sports. Tomorrow it’s something else.

The real takeaway from Little v. Hecox isn’t who wins or loses. It’s where the fight goes next: back to statehouses, back to voters, back to public debate—where compromise is messy, progress is uneven, and accountability is democratic rather than judicial.

Courts can strike laws down. They can uphold them.

But they can’t settle culture.

And this Court may be saying exactly that.