RUTHFULLY YOURS

It depends on whose ox is being gored, the saying goes, or maybe it depends on whose border is being crossed for those now outraged over U.S. border policy were silent when Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, a decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), languished in a Mexican prison in 2014 for the crime of making a wrong turn and wandering into Mexico with legal U.S. firearms in his vehicle.

Tahmooressi, a 25-year-old combat veteran, was jailed in late March 2014, after he missed a freeway exit near San Ysidro, Calif. and drove into Tijuana.  The active U.S. Marine reservist, who served two combat tours in Afghanistan, was moving to San Diego to be close to his treatment center for his PTSD at the time of his arrest.

In his trunk, Mexican authorities found three guns legally owned in the United States.  Tahmooressi was incarcerated in La Mesa Prison in Tijuana.  After Mexican authorities said he allegedly attempted to escape and suffered a self-inflicted stab wound, he was at one point placed in a jail infirmary with his arms and legs restrained.  That April, Tahmooressi even attempted to take his own life.

If you want to consider the alleged harshness of U.S. immigration policy, consider Mexico’s treatment of Tahmoressi and the callous indifference of President Obama to his plight, as Obama was really putting illegal alien children in cages after separating them from their families:

We tolerate armed incursions by Mexican authorities and a flood of unaccompanied minors and other illegal aliens but are quite content to let a Marine with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who made a wrong turn on his way to San Diego twist in the breeze of the Mexican judicial system.

Tahmooressi has been held in a Mexican jail since March 31, when he was arrested after poor signage caused him to accidentally cross into Mexico.  In his truck were three legally purchased guns[.] …

Cue the chirping crickets, for it appears the Obama administration, which has as ample an opportunity to free Tahmooressi as it did deserter Bowe Bergdahl, is quite content to let Tahmooressi sit in jail, his case already botched by two assigned attorneys who failed to submit any evidence for the Mexican courts to review[.]

President Obama had quite a different approach in the matter of Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.  Bergdahl did not miss a highway sign when he deliberately left his post in Afghanistan to find himself and commune with the Taliban enemy.  President Obama didn’t care, and neither did the liberal legacy media:

From the famous “latte salute” to the Marine holding the presidential umbrella, President Obama’s respect for our men in uniform has been open to question.  Unless, of course, they desert their post in Afghanistan to try to join the Taliban, like Bowe Bergdahl.  Then you have the parents to the White House and trade the Taliban general staff to obtain their release.  After all, we leave no one behind.  Except, maybe, for Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi.

Jill Tahmooressi, Andrew’s mother, has never been invited to stand by the president on the White House lawn.  Nor has she ever received a phone call from President Obama, as she testified Wednesday before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee.  Presidential calls of support are reserved for basketball players like Jason Collins, whom Obama called to say “he was impressed by his courage,” according to a White House spokesperson, for announcing that he was gay.

For our part, we are impressed by the courage of Sgt. Tahmooressi, who served two tours of duty fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and his mother.  Her son fought the enemy instead of trying to join them.  And for making a wrong turn into Mexico while carrying legal American firearms in his trunk as he journeyed to San Diego for treatment of his PTSD, he now sits in a Mexican jail ignored by the country he risked his life for.

Tahmooressi spent 214 days in a Mexican prison  under appalling conditions until a strong diplomatic push helped convince a Mexican judge to release the former Marine on humanitarian grounds:

Tahmooressi’s release came only after a strong diplomatic push from former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Reps. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Matt Salmon (R-AZ).  Speaking by phone on his way to board a plane with Tahmooressi, Richardson said the trio, along with talk show host Montel Williams, met with Mexico’s Attorney General and Ambassador to the US, advocating for his liberation.

Tahmooressi fought for his country, but his president did not fight for him.  There were no protesters at any Mexican consulate or embassy and no panels on MSNBC or CNN lamenting his plight and presidential culpability.  As Fox News contributor and Afghan veteran Pete Hegseth wrote at the time in The Hill:

President Obama is perfectly content to apply the weight of his office to advance the causes he cares about.  So his failure to wield his power on behalf of Sgt. Tahmooressi raises a pointed question: Does he even care? …

In May, the president stood in the Rose Garden to proudly announce that his administration had negotiated the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from captivity in Afghanistan, trading five terrorist killers to the Taliban in exchange for a soldier who reportedly deserted his front-line unit less than two months into his first tour of duty.

Tahmooressi crossed the border into Mexico by accident.  Illegal aliens are deliberately flooding our borders in violation of U.S. law with their parents in many cases recklessly sending their children up north, unaccompanied by anybody except a “coyote,” an MS-13 recruiter, or a drug cartel member.  That does not garner liberal angst.  But the plight of Andrew Tahmooressi garnered their moral indifference.  Maybe if he had been ten years younger and headed the other way…

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.