Truth Is Worse Than Fiction

 So I watch Netflix while doing other things (like typing out these posts. Get your mind outta the gutter!), and I’m binging “The Lincoln Lawyer” because it might as well be an action movie. That is, you don’t have to pay attention, they’ll make sure you don’t miss anything.

In the fourth season our hero is framed for murder, which turns into a convoluted conspiracy involving the LA County government and the Feds. The Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, to be specific. People who want to hurt our hero for…reasons I haven’t gotten to, yet.

No matter, never mind. Time was, in the ‘60’s, that anti-war activists claimed the government was plotting against them. It was dismissed as paranoid bullshit, until the Church Commission legitimized it. When Efram Zimbalist, Jr. was the FBI (on TeeVee), the FBI were the good guys like John Wayne and Jesus. Conspiracy theories about government, especially law enforcement, was for nutters. Until we found out what J. Edgar was actually up to.

In the Netflix series, the guards monitor our hero’s priveleged calls from jail. When that’s exposed, and he’s released on bail, the sheriff’s department confiscates his car on the grounds it was purchased with drug proceeds. His car is impounded and, as quickly as possible, sold at auction. Later in his investigation he finds the FBI is involved, and they don’t like it. Maybe they have good reasons, maybe they have corrupt ones. But government retaliation is a running theme of this season. Which is where fiction is more careful than reality:

The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family. The 5-year-old returned home this week after he was detained with his father on Jan. 20 and sent to a detention center in Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security filed a motion Wednesday to expedite deportation proceedings in the family’s case, said immigration attorney Danielle Molliver with Nwokocha & Operana Law Offices.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday, although Molliver is requesting more time to respond. She said she thought the motion was "retaliatory."

"It's really frustrating as an attorney, because they keep throwing new obstacles in our way. There's absolutely no reason that this should be expedited. It's not very common," Molliver said.

Molliver said the federal government may not deport them to Ecuador, their home country. Instead, the family could apply for asylum in a third country.

Liam’s father, Adrian Conejo Arias, said they don’t know what will happen to them.

"The government is moving many pieces, it's doing everything possible to do us harm, so that they’ll probably deport us. We live with that fear too,” Conejo Arias said. The interview was conducted in Spanish and translated by MPR News.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If you put this into a thriller it would make “Three Days of the Condor” or even “Firestarter” look like a documentary. This level of petty vindictiveness could only be explained in fiction as the actions of rogue actors or a thoroughly corrupt third world power. Not the U.S. government or any European country outside the former Russian satellites (and then not all of them).

For the time being, this is who we are.