Tag Archives: Border Security

News

Are illegal immigrants more likely to commit crimes than the general public?

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Kathryn Steinle was murdered by an illegal immigrant.
Kathryn Steinle was murdered by an illegal immigrant.

So we had a case in the news where an illegal immigrant who had been arrested and deported numerous times was allowed to stay in the U.S. thanks to San Francisco’s very Democrat “sanctuary city” policy. All the people running for the Democrat presidential nomination support sanctuary cities, and amnesty for illegal immigrants as well. But how do these policies affect American taxpayers?

Breitbart News has the numbers from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Excerpt:

While illegal immigrants account for about 3.5 percent of the U.S population, they represented 36.7 percent of federal sentences in FY 2014 following criminal convictions, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data obtained by Breitbart News.

According to FY 2014 USSC data, of 74,911 sentencing cases, citizens accounted for 43,479 (or 58.0 percent), illegal immigrants accounted for 27,505 (or 36.7 percent), legal immigrants made up 3,017 (or 4.0 percent), and the remainder (about 1 percent) were cases in which the offender was either extradited or had an unknown status.

Broken down by some of the primary offenses, illegal immigrants represented 16.8 percent of drug trafficking cases, 20.0 percent of kidnapping/hostage taking, 74.1 percent of drug possession, 12.3 percent of money laundering, and 12.0 percent of murder convictions.

Now a lot of those convictions will be related to immigration… what happens when we take those out?

The sentencing rate is still higher than normal:

Eliminating all immigration violations, illegal immigrants would account for 13.6 percent of all the offenders sentenced in FY14 following federal criminal convictions — still greater than the 3.5 percent of the population illegal immigrants are said to make up.

All that crime is not only dangerous and expensive, but we have to pay for the fails and law enforcement to catch them, too. Now, let’s review Hillary Clinton’s views on illegal immigration.

The Washington Times reports that she favors amnesty:

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Tuesday that if elected, she would try to expand President Obama’s deportation amnesty to more illegal immigrants, saying this administration has left out a number of aliens who deserve to be granted legal status.

Speaking in Las Vegas at a Cinco de Mayo meeting focused on immigration, Mrs. Clinton also called for granting attorneys to illegal immigrants facing the complex immigration system, and said she would like to re-examine detention to ensure more illegal immigrants are released as they await deportation.

Mrs. Clinton delivered on just about every question from immigrant rights activists, who had been pressing her to reject Mr. Obama’s detention policies and go beyond his amnesty.

The Daily Caller reminds us that she also supports sanctuary cities:

Clinton last weighed in publicly on sanctuary cities during the 2008 presidential campaign.

“You would allow the sanctuary cities to disobey the federal law?” Clinton was asked by Tim Russert during a Sept. 6, 2007, debate at Dartmouth College.

“Well, I don’t think there is any choice,” she responded.

Clinton said she backed the sanctuary city concept because without it, illegal immigrants refuse to cooperate with police because they are afraid of being deported.

“Local law enforcement has a different job than federal immigration enforcement,” Clinton said. “The problem is the federal government has totally abdicated its responsibility.”

Clinton again expressed her support for sanctuary cities in a 2008 interview with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly.

“Are you going to crack down on the sanctuary cities?” O’Reilly asked.

“No, I’m not,” Clinton said, eliciting a shocked response from the host.

I’m all for more skilled immigration, but that’s not what is happening on our southern border. If Hillary becomes president, that situation will only get worse.

News

Scott Walker’s immigration plan is more conservative than Bush or Rubio

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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

According to Breitbart News, which took a good look at it.

Excerpt:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate, pledged to protect American workers from the economic effects, not only of illegal immigration but also of a massive increase in legal immigration.

During an interview with Glenn Beck, Walker became the first declared or potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate to stake out a position on immigration fully in line with that of Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). He also noted that he has been working with Chairman Sessions on the issue to learn more about it.

His view is now secure the border and implement E-Verify for foreign workers:

Walker says he discussed immigration policy in depth with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott when he visited the border a few weeks ago. He said that he doesn’t think he was “directly wrong” before but didn’t have a “full appreciation for what is the risk along our border.”

He continued:

I knew there were people traveling, coming across the border, but really what you have is much greater than that. What you have is international criminal organizations, the drug cartels aren’t just smuggling drugs—they’re smuggling firearms and smuggling not only humans but trafficking and horrific situations. It’s an issue that’s not just about safety or about national security, it’s about sovereignty. If we had this kind of assault along our water based ports, the federal government would be sending in the navy. And yet there is a very minimal force along our land-based borders, be it New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, or California, and so to me it was clearly far bigger than immigration.

We need to have a much bigger investment from the federal government to secure the border, through not only infrastructure but personnel and certainly technology to do that and to make a major shift. If you don’t do that, there’s much greater issues than just immigration. Folks coming in from potentially ISIS-related elements and others around the world, there’s safety issues from the drugs and drug trafficking and gun trafficking and gun things with regard—but to get to immigration you have got to secure the border, because nothing you do on immigration fundamentally works if you don’t secure that border.

Walker also discussed the need for interior enforcement:

Then I think you need to enforce the law and the way you effectively do that is to require every employer in America to use an effective E-Verify system and by effective I mean you need to require particularly small businesses and farmers and ranchers. We got to have a system that works, but then the onus is on the employers and the penalties have to be steep that they’re only hiring people who are here, who are legal to be here. No amnesty, if someone wants to be a citizen, they have to go back to their country of origin and get in line behind everybody else who’s waiting.

This development, perhaps one of if not the biggest of the 2016 presidential campaign so far, comes as Walker has taken a commanding lead in polls in all three of the first GOP primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Walker also said in the interview that he would “absolutely” repeal Common Core in Wisconsin. Jeb Bush is, of course, a huge proponent of Common Core.

So, whatever our worries were about Walker on immigration, I think now we can relax. The only trouble now is getting the electorate to care more about accomplishments than charisma. But if the fight is between Walker and Clinton, I have no doubt that Clinton’s “entitled” attitude is going to lose her the election. No matter how much money she has. And remember that Walker is able to speak to any issue in a way that is persuasive to independents – he proved that in Wisconsin. While Hillary is taking about “equal pay” and smashing the glass ceiling, Walker’s going to be cleaning up on the issues middle-class Americans care about.

Chins up, buttercups! Things are looking good for our side.

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News

Do Democrats want to deport illegal aliens who commit serious crimes?

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Jeb Bush and Barack Obama support amnesty
Jeb Bush and Barack Obama support amnesty

Let’s start with the raw numbers from CNS News.

They write:

According to weekly detention and departure reports from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there were 167,527 non-detained convicted criminal aliens in the United States as of Jan. 26 of this year, a congressional hearing revealed Thursday.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah.) read the statistic aloud Thursday durin a hearing examining ICE’s priorities and procedures for removing criminal aliens currently living in the United States.

“In that report, it said that there are 167,527 non-detained, final-order convicted criminals on the loose in the United States,” Chaffetz pointed out while questioning ICE Director Sarah Saldana.“These are people that are here illegally, get caught, convicted, and you release back out into the public,” he said, adding that some of the crimes committed by those who have been released include homicide, sex crimes, child pornography, drunk driving, robbery and kidnapping.

The federal government announced Wednesday that ICE had released about 30,000 convicted criminal aliens from ICE custody in 2014 alone, according to The Washington Times, which first reported the statistic.

[…]During the hearing, Saldana said that ICE releases criminal aliens back into the community based on the agency’s “discretionary control.”

[…]“So you don’t automatically deport them, then?” Chaffetz asked.

“Automatically, sir? No,” Saldana responded, adding that “the law gives us that discretion.”

“And so when we say, if you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported, that’s not necessarily true,” Chaffetz said.

“It is true, sir. It’s in–”

“After they get released back into the public for untold number of times?” Chaffetz asked.

“It does happen. It does happen, yes, and that’s exactly what we’re here to do,” Saldana admitted.

“What does happen? That they get released?” Chaffetz asked.

“Yes,” Saldana said, “Even criminals that are released.”

“Those people were released under the laws of the United States,” Saldana added, explaining that according to “due process,” it can easily take “months and even years to deport folks.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports on some criminals who were amnestied by Obama’s executive action.

Excerpt:

Nearly two dozen of the illegal immigrants picked up in a nationwide sweep for criminal aliens earlier this month had previously been approved for President Obama’s deportation amnesty, the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday.

All 23 were part of Mr. Obama’s original program for so-called Dreamers, which began in 2012 and which had granted tentative legal legal status to nearly 640,000 as of the end of last year.

Of the 23, 15 were still actively part of the amnesty, while eight had been approved once but had not gotten their status renewed after the first two-year period expired.

[…]Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron said 14 of the 15 Dreamers who were still part of “deferred action” were convicted of their crimes after they were approved. The other one had a has a pending criminal charge but hadn’t yet been convicted or acquitted.

Now I am all in favor of legal immigration and even naturalization of skilled workers who come here on work permits and prove over a long period time that they can 1) keep a job, 2) avoid committing crimes, and 3) not collect any benefits from the government. But I am really at a loss to understand why the United States shows almost no interest in getting skilled immigrants to settle down, but a great interest in giving special benefits to illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes. It really makes no sense to me – it’s not fair. It’s really a mystery to me how a “Republican” presidential candidate like Jeb Bush can be in favor of amnesty when this is what amnesty actually does, in practice. Why is Bush even running as a Republican? He should be challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination.