We talk about restorative justice with the most sincere intentions but then veer away from the point of it before reaching the destination. For example, we rejoice over the Executive Order for 40 acres and lament its abrogation and reversal, yet gloss over where and how the government got that acreage to give and/or take away in the first place. (The mule was and still is a red herring.) That is telling, yet we pretend not to realize it, and put our own statute of limitations on the idea of restoration. Immigrants who flock here for relative freedom and safety aren’t interested in restorative justice any more than are we, in truth. The laws that permit non-Europeans to occupy American land but not own it weren’t written on the North or South American continents. That law has no geographic boundary. There can be no restorative justice of any kind as long as that law still stands. The longer we pretend like the laws in effect originated in the Americas, the deeper the grave we dig for restorative justice.