Published at American Thinker on July 2, 201
Actress Cynthia “Sex in the City” Nixon, who is running for governor in the state of New York and New York senator Kirsten ‘Hottest Member’ of the Senate Gillibrand have joined forces to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, also known as ICE. Nixon even went so far as to call ICE a terrorist organization.
That means that in the twisted mind of a lefty a “terrorist” is someone who safeguards Americans from terrorists.
At present, the pick-and-choose/morally relativistic Democrats that maintain Roe v. Wade is “settled law” have decided it’s acceptable to discount “settled” immigration law. The same holds true for how the left approaches the Second Amendment. When Barack Obama and Eric Holder ran guns to deadly Mexican cartels, anti-gun activists were shockingly silent. Moreover, there was nary an objection when Fast and Furious guns were thought to be used in an ambush that resulted in the death of federal ICE agent Jaime Zapata, whose agency is being targeted by the left.
Jaime died on February 15th, 2011 on Federal Highway 57, a busy four-lane Mexican road 200 miles north of Mexico City, while sitting in a State Department-issued SUV. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents, Victor Avila and his partner Jaime J. Zapata had just finished eating when henchmen from the violent Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas attacked them. The agents were shot with AK-47, and AR-15 semiautomatic rifles probably provided compliments of Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s failed gun runningscheme.
As Jaime lay bleeding and dying in the driver’s seat of the armored car, Avila called the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, screaming for help, “This is Victor Avila from ICE! We are shot! We are shot. We are at a highway in Mexico; we’ve been shot and attacked on the highway!” Maybe Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Nixon are unaware that while trying to find a pressure point to stop his partner’s bleeding, Agent Avila, a man Democrats like Maxine Waters (D-CA) now portray as “terrorists,” pleaded with his dying friend, “Jaime! Look at me, stay awake. Please don’t die.”
Avila’s request was futile, Jaime Zapata died, and at the time of his death, the 33-year-old ICE Agent was the first law enforcement officer to be killed in Mexico in the line of duty since 1985.
In 2013, 37-year-old cell leader Julian Zapata Espinoza, called “El Piolin,” or “Tweety Bird,” confessed to leading the four-man hit squads that ambushed Zapata and Avila claiming the hit was a bungled carjacking, not an assassination.
During the 2017 trial, through an interpreter provided compliments of the U.S. taxpayer, Espinoza explained that at the time of Zapata’s death there was a Zeta cartel order to steal and replace the vehicles lost in a violent, bloody war with a rival cartel. Espinoza said that’s why the shooter’s team blocked the $160,000 armored Chevy Suburban occupied by two ICE agents.
In other words, drug cartel members wanted ICE’s armored SUV, didn’t see the diplomatic license plates, and things went awry. Question: If cell leader Espinoza had never been captured and had managed to show up on the U.S. border with a gaggle of abducted children, would Gillibrand and Nixon-types have marched in defense of Señor “Tweety Bird?”
Unfortunately for Avila and Zapata, who hail from the ranks of those who are current targets of leftists looking to abolish ICE, when the SUV was put in park, because of a glitch never addressed, its doors automatically unlocked. Espinoza testified that when he pulled on the door, much to his amazement, it opened.
As Zapata struggled to shut and relock the heavy door, in the commotion the automatic window on his side accidentally lowered a few inches. During the trial, speaking for the first time since the shooting Avila demonstrated what happened by holding one hand in the front of his head and the other a few inches from his right temple. Avila told the jury, “They stuck in two barrels, two guns, an AR-15 rifle and a handgun, right here.” Avila, then said Los Zeta kept telling Zapata and Avila to open the door, “At that moment, they opened fire” with guns likely supplied by an American president and his Attorney General.
According to Avila’s testimony, bullets immediately struck Zapata. Avila attested, “I could see it leave a mark in his chest. Jaime said, ‘I’m hit. I’m shot’.” In all, Zapata suffered six bullet wounds, including one that sliced through the femoral artery of his left leg. Avila received four gunshot wounds, two in his thigh and ankle. When the hail of bullets stopped, there were 80 to 90 bullet casings strewn around the SUV.
While those endowed with a “spark of divinity” were sticking guns through car windows, and as an object of leftist contempt was bleeding out behind the steering wheel, Avila told the jury, “I got my left hand on the barrel of the handgun, trying to push it out [the window.]”
Avila miraculously found a way to raise the window and call the embassy. According to testimony, an official on duty told Avila, “I need you to drive. I need you to move him.” Avila answered, “I can’t. He’s too slippery. I can’t move him.” Avila then said, “I can’t find the place to put pressure…He’s dying.”
In an attempt to escape, Avila pushed the dead man’s leg down on the accelerator pedal, the SUV lurched forward, crashed through a truck, screeched across a few lanes and eventually stalled. The cartel trailed the SUV and before driving away sprayed the bulletproof windshield with a shower of bullets.
Nonetheless, hoping to avoid life without parole, in 2015 and 2016, with the help of Zeta against Zeta squad mates, Zapata’s killers were eventually roundedup and extradited to the U.S. In 2017, Jose Emanuel Garcia Sota, aka Juan Manuel Moldonado Amezcua, aka “Zafado,” and Jesus Ivan Quezada Piña, aka “Loco,” were both convicted and found guilty on four charges including the murder of a federal law enforcement agent.
Seven years after Zapata’s death, while illegals march in our nation’s Capitol for benefits they have no right to claim, ICE Agents still risk their lives to deter members of violent drug cartels like Los Zetas from crossing our southern border.
In response, rather than celebrate the dedication and bravery of all law enforcement personnel, Democrats choose instead to march to abolish ICE. Meanwhile, for the crime of permanently separating Special Agent Jaime Zapata from his family, Sota and Piña are currently serving two consecutive life sentences in federal prison.
