DEADBEAT DAD A VICTIM OF IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT

Almost every day, the Washington Post publishes a sob story about illegal immigrants. This one is a doozie:

The way Jaime R. Villagran tells it, to avoid going to jail, he would have had to break one law to obey another.

The Guatemalan native acknowledged that he owed more than $11,000 in child support when he appeared last month in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. But to pay it, Villagran told the judge, he would have to work illegally because he was awaiting permanent residency and work authorization from the U.S. government. He refused to do that.

The WaPo article goes on to paint Villagran as an honorable man, a victim of "the system," including this portion of the article:

With the immigration debate at a roar nationally, Villagran's case illustrates a moral and legal quandary. Locally, groups that oppose illegal immigration want the government to crack down on those in the country illegally and to punish employers who hire them. But many immigrants live in a complicated state of limbo. Physically but not legally in the United States, they are bound by federal and local laws, even when the two collide.

"You try to do the right thing, and it ends up being the wrong thing," Villagran said.

In almost every story about any criminal, one can find something worthy of sympathy, I suppose. But do "a quandary" and "a paradox" excuse evasion of the law? In the many human-interest stories in the mainstream media, yes.

The victimology mindset, but one aspect of political correctness, pervades all of Western society. Unfortunately, this agenda on the part of the media meets with a lot of success. All kinds of excuses are now viewed as logical and acceptable, in a sort of extended application of extenuating circumstances. Such thinking amounts to perpetual adolescence--not a viable way to build a society.