July 28, 2006
We
held the second in our series of townhall meetings on illegal immigration
and this one we called ‘Demagnetize America : The Criminal Face of Illegal
Immigration.' We focused on the human cost of illegal immigration in terms
of violent crime. In one tragic case, a nine-year-old boy informed an illegal
alien that his tire was going flat. For that advice, the boy received an ax
in the face.
Then there's Jose Raul Pena, a cocaine dealer and illegal alien, who used
his daughter as a human shield in a shootout with LA police. Both were killed.
There's the case of little Esmerelda Nava, age 4, who was molested, strangled
and killed by an illegal alien. The suspect in that case had been deported
for other offenses. The sheriff in that case noted, "If you don't do
anything about the borders, it's kind of like an all-expense paid trip home
to see loved ones before they come back." And come back he did, this
time to kill.
There are also the countless stories like the case of Sean and Donna Wilson
who were hit head-on and killed by an illegal who had been arrested and convicted
over 15 times. Despite his multiple convictions on everything from numerous
DUIs to assaulting a police officer to theft, he only served a handful of
days in jail. Donna Wilson's daughter, Heather Steffek, was one of our guests
at our townhall meeting. She not only relayed her feelings of losing two loved
ones to such tragic and preventable circumstances, she stunned our audience
with tales of indifference from those in positions of power. Heather's story,
unfortunately, is not uncommon. Elected officials all across this country
turn a blind eye to the criminal face of illegal immigration all because of
money.
Ironically, as we were preparing to hold our meeting, an organization calling
itself ‘Welcoming Tennessee' was busy promoting its new billboards. This group
sees absolutely no difference between legal immigrants and illegal aliens.
To them, open borders mean a friendlier country and better world for us all.
"We have a responsibility," they say, "to treat everyone –
neighbors and visitors alike – with respect and decency.' Tell that to Heather
Steffek. Tell that to the parents of the nine-year-old boy who got an ax in
the face because he was being nice to some criminal illegal aliens.
The facts are irrefutable. Illegal aliens make up 3 to 4 percent
of the population at large but they make up 17 percent of the prison population. That's
a criminal element 4 to 5 times their rate in the general population.
Recently, Congress requested an accounting of illegal alien criminal activity
from the Government Accounting Office. They studied a sample of
55,322 illegal aliens. They found that sample group had been arrested
459,614 times! That's an average of about 8 arrests per illegal
alien. This group had a total of nearly 700,000 offenses, meaning
each average arrest was for multiple crimes. More than half of
the illegal aliens had between 2 and 10 offenses. Most of those
arrests were made after 1990 when we opened the floodgates to illegal immigration. In
LA, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide are for illegal aliens!
This is the incredible story of the criminal face of illegal immigration that
is being totally ignored by the mainstream media and those who want to keep
the gravy train of cheap labor rolling. Those who draw no distinction
between legal and illegal immigrants must also bear the responsibility for
the human toll of illegal immigration. The fact that they choose
to ignore the truth is a national disgrace.