As the mother to a son killed by an illegal immigrant felon, I am so glad that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to find time in her busy schedule to hang out with celebrity chef Jose Andres and distribute free gourmet meals to furloughed federal workers in Washington, D.C.
Pelosi was too busy to meet with me or any of the other angel mothers who came to Capitol Hill a week earlier to share our stolen loved one’s stories. Apparently, pressing duties kept her from hearing about our experience with the border crisis that let our children’s killers into our country and then protected them from deportation.
But I understand. It was far more important for the speaker of the House to meet with the real victims of the crisis on the southern border: the federal employees who have missed one or, in some cases, two paychecks. After all, what is the loss of a son or a daughter or a husband compared to a delay in paying government workers?
As I look at the jar of my son’s ashes that I carried with me to Washington in the hopes of meeting with Pelosi, I am at least thankful that the speaker was able to use the power of her office to bring attention to the plight of government workers, who need that publicity more than any of us Angel families.
It means even more to me that she was able to get them a photo-op with Jose Andres at a time when she refused to even meet with President Trump to discuss reopening the government and funding the border security that could prevent more tragedies like the ones we angel mothers had to endure.
Angel families can just move on, forget about our loss, and stop worrying about the chance of the same fate befalling more innocent Americans. Now that government funding has been restored for three weeks, furloughed government workers can receive their back pay and move on quite well.
I applaud Speaker Pelosi’s bravery in recasting this fight over border security to focus on the situation’s true victims: federal workers who earned an average of $115,594 in 2017.
When such injustices have been inflicted on federal workers, I can understand why she simply would not have the time to meet with someone like me: a legal immigrant to this country whose son was run down by an unlicensed, uninsured illegal alien who was deported and then was able to slip right back into my community through our wide-open border.
My only wish is that Nancy Pelosi gets more credit for having refused to reopen the government purely because she believes border security is “immoral.”
If Pelosi proved anything in her handling of the extended government shutdown, it’s that she is the perfect judge of morality.
Sabine Durden’s (@Sabine_Durden) son, Dominic Durden, was killed by an illegal immigrant in 20120. She has testified before the House Judiciary Committee and appeared on many television and radio shows to share her son’s story.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
