Progressive Pitfalls: Judge Jailed After Housing Illegal Alien

Sometimes when reality hits, it hits hard. 

By James Fite | Apr 25, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

What do you call it when a judge harbors an illegal alien and then tampers with the evidence in the ensuing investigation? If this were a joke, the punchline would be “a lack of judgement!” But for former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy, it’s called the end of a career and the beginning of a criminal case.

The former New Mexico judge and his wife were taken into custody on Thursday, April 24, and charged with evidence tampering amid allegations they harbored Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, a migrant who entered the US illegally and supposedly has ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. Catching a federal case over political activism? Chalk another one up to the pitfalls of progressivism.

From Judge to Judged

Back in January, the Department of Homeland Security reportedly began investigating Venezuelan native Ortega-Lopez. On February 28, two search warrants were executed at a home belonging to Judge Cano’s wife, Nancy. Ortega-Lopez and his roommates were arrested, and federal agents seized four firearms from the residence of April Cano, the judge’s daughter.

Judge Cano then resigned. In a letter dated March 3 – though the Supreme Court and 3rd Judicial District Court reported not getting the notice until March 31 – Cano wrote:

“This letter is to inform all of you of my intended resignation from the Dona Ana Magistrate Court as Magistrate Judge in Division 6.

My very last day at work will be on Friday, March 21, 2025 at which time I will have resigned my office.

Working with each of you has been a very rewarding experience for which I will remain eternally grateful.

All the best to everyone of you. I wish all of you a happy retirement once you are ready yourself.”

The New Mexico Supreme Court has since banned Cano from ever being a judge again, and on Thursday, Joel and Nancy Cano were both arrested after a raid on their home by federal agents.

Alien Encounter

As for Ortega-Lopez, investigators reportedly turned up gang-related clothing, tattoos, voicemails, and text messages as evidence of his involvement with Tren de Aragua, the violent Venezuelan gang. Ortega-Lopez was caught crossing the border illegally near Eagle Pass, Texas, on December 15, 2023. He was released on December 18 pending removal proceedings because the Border Patrol facility was overcrowded. He was issued a Notice to Appear, which kicked off the formal removal process.

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Cristhian Ortega-Lopez met the Canos when Nancy hired him for repair work. He was eventually invited to move into the guest house. After his February 28 arrest, Ortega-Lopez was deemed not a flight risk or danger to the community by US Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez in a March 3 court appearance, and he was released on April 8 pending trial for his new charge. What charge, you ask? Possession of a firearm by an illegal alien – for which he could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Progressive Pitfalls

The now-former judge won his spot in the 2022 election. While it’s technically a “non-partisan” race, Ballotpedia does show Cano registered as a Democrat – not terribly surprising, given he’s accused of harboring an illegal alien and trying to cover it up afterward. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat herself, plans to appoint a replacement – presumably also a Democrat, never mind the “non-partisan” tag – to ride out the rest of Cano’s four-year term, which runs through 2026.

Give Cable TV the Boot – Check This Out!

And this may still only be the beginning for the progressive judge. In comments to WPMI, an NBC affiliate, former ICE Field Office Director John Fabbricatore uttered words that likely inspire dread in the disgraced magistrate: “Doña Ana County has been a hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking, human smuggling for many, many years. To see that a judge would allow this to happen. It’s very concerning. It’s concerning. What else has the judge been doing?”

What else, indeed? And how much deeper will federal investigators dig?

Speaking of the feds, how did they know to look into the Canos to find their missing migrant? Photos of Ortega-Lopez holding and shooting firearms illegally – some of which were tagged in the post as belonging to April Cano – were found on social media sites online, along with images of him hanging out with the Canos. Did no one ever tell them the internet is forever and that, when committing crimes, it’s generally best not to publish photographic evidence of it? Or did they simply not care who knew because they thought, as a judge, Joel Cano could ensure no consequences would follow?

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Read More From James Fite Editor-at-Large

Can We Let the Voters Decide -- Not the FBI, CIA, DOJ, Lawyers, Prosecutors, and Judges?

Victor Davis Hanson  Jul 19, 2024 @ Townhall.com

When Donald Trump seemed to have a lock on the 2016 Republican primary, the Democratic Party concluded that the people could not be counted on to do the "right thing" of electing the Democratic candidate in waiting for Hillary Clinton.

Eight long years of extralegal efforts followed to neuter the candidate, then President, then ex-President, and then-candidate again, Donald Trump.

The nonstop efforts were all justified as "saving democracy" -- albeit by nearly destroying it.

In 2015-2016, the Hillary Clinton campaign fueled the lie that discredited ex-British spy Christopher Steele had discovered Trump to be a veritable Russian agent.

Hillary did not disclose that she had paid Steele with checks hidden behind three paywalls. The FBI, under Director James Comey, also hired the fraudster.

Yet almost nothing in his "Steele dossier" was true.

The FBI doctored evidence submitted to a FISA court. Comey leaked confidential documents about his private conversations with President Trump to the press.

Comey's successor, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, lied to federal investigators on numerous occasions.

Both former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper repeatedly lied to the nation, saying that Trump was de facto working with the Russians.

The result? Trump lost the 2016 popular vote but still won the Electoral College.

Next, celebrities and well-funded liberals waged a media campaign to convince the electors to become "faithless." Left-wing elites begged them to renounce their constitutional duties and instead throw the election to Hillary Clinton.

Once Trump was elected, "Russian collusion" was fired up again in hysterical fashion.

A special counsel, Robert Mueller, consumed 22 months of the Trump presidency. His investigation team constantly leaked falsehoods about the "walls closing in on" Trump.

After nearly two years, Mueller announced there was no evidence of a Trump effort to collude with Russia.

Next was Trump's first impeachment, nearly the moment he lost the House in 2018.

Supposedly, Trump had leveraged Ukraine to investigate a corrupt Hunter Biden by delaying foreign aid.

Trump was impeached on a strictly partisan vote.

But later, no one denied that the drug-addled Hunter Biden had indeed gotten rich from Ukraine, or that Joe Biden had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his son's misadventures while still vice president, or that Trump released all the military assistance designated by Congress, or that he included offensive weapons formerly denied Ukraine by the Obama-Biden administration.

Next, in 2020, when Hunter's laptop turned up abandoned at a repair shop and full of incriminating evidence of more Biden family skullduggery, the left struck again.

It rounded up "51 former intelligence authorities" to mislead the American people on the eve of the vote that the laptop was likely a fake -- once again cooked up by Russian disinformation experts to aid Trump.

And once more, that was another complete falsehood. However, the lie proved useful to Joe Biden in the debates and campaign. And he won the election.

Next, the learn-nothing, forget-nothing left turned to the 2023-2024 campaign.

This time, their next extra-legal efforts were twofold.

One, they unsuccessfully sought to remove Trump from some 15 state ballots.

Two, local, state, and federal courts began to wage lawfare to convict and jail candidate Trump, or at least bankrupt him and keep him off the campaign trail.

Three county and state prosecutors campaigned on getting Trump on charges never filed before against a presidential candidate -- and rarely against anyone else as well.

The Fani Willis, Georgia lead prosecutor, met secretly with the Biden White House counsel.

Alvin Bragg's Manhattan team hired the third-ranking federal prosecutor in the Biden Justice Department.

A court found special counsel Jack Smith to have been illegally appointed, and much of his case was dismissed.

On July 14, a shooter nearly killed candidate Trump, nicking his ear after somehow firing a rifle from a rooftop a mere 140 yards away -- while undetected by law enforcement inside the very same building below.

Prior to the shooting, Joe Biden had boasted to donors that "it's time to put Trump in a bullseye."

Biden had railed nearly nonstop that a Trump victory would spell the end of democracy -- a theme the left had fueled by comparing ad nauseam Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Yet here we are in mid-July 2024, and Trump, the Republican candidate, is alive and leads incumbent Biden -- either because of or despite the crude efforts to destroy him.

After nearly a decade of utter madness, can we finally order the FBI, DOJ, and CIA to butt out of our elections?

Can a bankrupt media cease whipping up hysteria about a supposed Nazi-like takeover?

Can the left stop relying on washed-up British spies, corrupt ex-spooks, and teams of clownish partisan prosecutors?

Instead, why not, at last, just let the people choose their own president?

FBI's Gestapo tactics now spreading, starting with a police raid at a small newpaper in Marion County, Kansas

August 14, 2023 By Monica Showalter

Last month, I had the privilege of spending several days in Topeka, Kansas.  I visited the statehouse to see its famed art collections. I had a delightful chance encounter with state Sen. Mary Ware of Wichita in the elevator on my way back home, who though I was bedraggled and tired, was pure warm-hearted welcome even after her own long day at work. She was a Democrat but she didn't care what my party was. She wanted to know what I thought of Kansas, as it was my first trip. I told her loved her beautiful state. She beamed and observed: "There's a lot more here than people think."  She can say that again.  Here's the news of what's going on just an hour and a half northeast of her own 25th state Senate district, according to the Associated Press:

MARION, Kan. (AP) — A small central Kansas police department is facing a torrent of criticism for raiding a local newspaper's office and the home of its owner and publisher, seizing computers and cellphones, and, in the publisher's view, stressing his 98-year-old mother enough to cause her weekend death.

Several press freedom watchdogs condemned the Marion Police Department's actions as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution's protection for a free press. The Marion County Record's editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, worked with his staff Sunday to reconstruct stories, ads and other materials for its next edition Wednesday, even as he took time in the afternoon to provide a local funeral home with information about his mother, Joan, the paper's co-owner.

A search warrant tied Friday morning raids, led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell. She is accusing the newspaper of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record and suggested that the newspaper targeted her after she threw Meyer and a reporter out of restaurant during a political event.

 The details of what seemed to be going on, based on the reports out there, suggest that the restaurant owner seemed to be in cahoots with the local police and was going through a divorce with an angry ex-husband who was accused of leaking her driving record to the Marion County Record.  Those records revealed that she was driving on a suspended license after a drunk driving conviction, and the cops were doing nothing about it.............To Read More...