Tag Archives: Illegal Immigration

News

Do illegal immigrants commit more crimes than law-abiding residents?

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Policeman investigates crime scene for evidence
Policeman investigates crime scene for evidence

I’ve had people on the left tell me that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than law-abiding US residents, so when I came across this article from the Daily Signal, I knew I had to share it. They managed to get hold of a Department of Justice report featuring a comprehensive breakdown of all crimes committed. And they even go over local crimes rates for illegal immigrants.

Here’s Hans Von Spakovsky writing for the Daily Signal:

Opponents of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress repeatedly claim that illegal immigrants are “less likely” to commit crimes than U.S. citizens—and thus represent no threat to public safety.

But that’s not true when it comes to federal crimes.

Noncitizens constitute only about 7% of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that noncitizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64%) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37% of all federal arrests were noncitizens.

These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Noncitizens accounted for 24% of all federal drug arrests, 25% of all federal property arrests, and 28% of all federal fraud arrests.

In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40% of all federal arrests.

In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.

Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1% of such arrests in 1998 to 20% today.

Now, people on the left like to say that of course illegal immigrants commit more federal crimes, because their federal crimes mostly involve immigration violations. I don’t know about you, but that list of arrests didn’t sound like “mostly immigration violations” to me.

Anyway, we actually do have numbers for border states regarding local crimes committed. Here’s an example from a very well-known border state:

A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 noncitizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are noncitizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.

The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.

According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.

Some of these cases are still being prosecuted, but the report states that there have already been over 225,000 convictions. Those convictions represent: 500 homicides; 23,954 assaults; 8,070 burglaries; 297 kidnappings; 14,178 thefts; 2,026 robberies; 3,122 sexual assaults; 3,840 sexual offenses; 3,158 weapon charges; and tens of thousands of drug and obstruction charges

These statistics reveal the very real danger created by sanctuary policies. In nine self-declared sanctuary states and numerous sanctuary cities and counties, officials refuse to hand over criminals who are known to be in this country illegally after they have served their state or local sentences.

OK, that’s not so good. And remember, none of those illegal aliens need to be here. We have methods for allowing immigrants to come here legally, and those methods also allow us to to keep out people who are dangerous to residents who pay taxes.

Here’s an example from the Daily Caller of some recent crimes (all in August) that were committed in a Democrat-dominated sanctuary area:

A sixth illegal immigrant was arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland, this month for sex crimes; this time, a Salvadoran national accused of molesting a 12-year-old girl and her younger brother.

Nestor Lopez-Guzman, 21, was arrested by Montgomery County Police on Aug. 18. A friend of the 12-year-old victim told a school counselor that her friend had been molested by Lopez-Guzman, according to the police report. The victim then confirmed that the abuse had been occurring over the past six months.

[…]Five other illegal immigrants have been arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland, since July 25 on sex crime-related charges. On Aug. 14, for example, ICE issued a detainer against Salvadoran national Nelson Reyes-Medrano, who is accused of raping a 16-year-old girl at knifepoint. In another case in the last month, two illegal immigrants were charged with repeatedly raping an 11-year-old.

Now, if you ask Democrats what their plan is to protect law-abiding taxpayers from criminals like this, they’ll say that their plan is to make law-abiding taxpayers pay for all the health care of illegal immigrants. No, really, that’s literally their plan. As for the children being raped, their answer is “we don’t care”.

These sorts of crimes will stop when the victims of these crimes are allowed to sue the Democrat politicians who allow open borders and sanctuary cities.

News

Are there any consequences to taxpayers who live in “Sanctuary Cities”

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Crime rates in major cities, all Democrat-run
Crime rates in major cities, all run by Democrat mayors

I thought this story from the weekend was very interesting. Chicago is well known as a far left city. They have the toughest restrictions on legal firearm ownership and self-defense. They are extremely soft on criminals. And they are also a “sanctuary city”. That means that they refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement when they are dealing with illegal immigrants with criminal convictions.

Here’s the story from the Daily Wire:

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is on the defensive this weekend after Immigrations and Customs Enforcement announced that a convicted felon, now facing charges of sexually assaulting a toddler in a downtown Chicago McDonalds bathroom, was supposed to have been turned over to ICE and deported — and had been deported before.

“ICE said in a news release Thursday [Christopher] Puente was placed into Chicago police custody in June of 2019 after he was arrested for theft,” according to a Chicago ABC affiliate. “According to ICE, Chicago police were expected to hold Puente until he could be taken into their custody, as Puente was expected to be deported.”

Because Chicago is a so-called “Sanctuary City” and has lenient bail policies, Puente was released back into the community.

Puente is now charged with raping a 3-year-old girl in the bathroom of Chicago’s landmark “Rock & Roll McDonalds,” a major tourist destination just north of the city’s downtown, and just west of its “Magnificent Mile” shopping district. Puente allegedly lured the girl away from her father, who was attending to the girl’s brother inside a bathroom stall. Puente, police say, dragged the girl into his stall, locked the door, molested and assaulted her. The girl’s father, alerted by her screams, rescued her, but could not catch Puente, CPD says, who bolted from the bathroom and out the door of the McDonalds, into the street.

[…]Chicago’s branch of ICE says “Puente had been deported to Mexico in 2014 over a prior burglary conviction, but tried to get back in five days later, claiming to be a citizen, and later skipped out on a hearing before an immigration judge. He was ordered deported again in 2017 in absentia,” according to CBS Chicago.

“Puente has been previously convicted of burglary, forgery, trespassing, domestic battery and related offenses and has a record dating back 20 years,” CBS noted.

This sort of thing happens all the time in sanctuary cities. Here is one from earlier from New York City, another sanctuary city, run by another far-left Democrat mayor.

New York Post reports:

Federal officials on Tuesday blamed Mayor de Blasio for a fatal sex attack on a 92-year-old Queens woman — saying his “sanctuary city” policy kept the accused killer from being held for deportation last year.

“It was a deadly choice to release a man on an active ICE detainer back onto the streets after his first arrest included assault and weapon charges, and he now faces new charges, including murder,” said Thomas Decker, New York field-office director of enforcement and removal operations for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“New York City’s sanctuary policies continue to threaten the safety of all residents of the five boroughs as they repeatedly protect criminal aliens who show little regard for the laws of this nation.”

ICE said it lodged a detainer request with the NYPD for Reeaz Khan, an illegal immigrant from Guyana, on Nov. 27 — the same day he was busted for allegedly attacking his dad during a fight in their South Richmond Hill home.

Now I have a  friend who calls himself a Christian but who votes Demcorat, and he thinks that Democrat policies on immigration are very compassionate and generous. Whenever I ask him about cases like this he says “illegal immigrants are no more violent than natural born Americans”. That’s a false statement, and I’ve blogged about the statistics on that before. But the more important point is this: none of the illegal immigrants should be here to commit these crimes. The crimes committed by people who are here legally cannot be prevented by kicking them out. They belong here. But the crimes committed by illegal immigrants never have to happen in the first place, because they shouldn’t even be here. That’s the important point that the compassion crowd always seems to forget.

Also, where is the compassion of the victims of these criminals from people on the left? Or do law-abiding taxpaying Americans count for less than criminal illegal aliens?

News

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Jesus was a refugee: is she right?

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This meme provides a good quick response to the challenge
This meme provides a good quick response to the challenge

I keep hearing that Jesus was a refugee from people on the left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, things have gotten so bad, that even my Southern Baptist pastor told us the same thing in a recent Wednesday night Bible study! I think we better take a look at this, in case anyone else needs a response.

Fox News reports on the tweet:

U.S. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. wished her Twitter followers a Merry Christmas Tuesday by referring to the newborn Jesus as a “refugee.”

“Joy to the World!” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Merry Christmas everyone – here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)”

And here is the response, in the same article:

Mary and Joseph are not depicted as refugees in the Nativity story. According to the Gospel of Luke, Joseph brings the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem so that he may enroll in a census ordered by the Roman emperor Agustus. The couple are forced to take shelter in the stable where Jesus is born due to a lack of room at the inn.

However, in the Gospel of Matthew, Mary and Joseph flee into Egypt with the infant Jesus after King Herod of Judea orders the murder of every boy aged two and under in Bethlehem after the Magi ask him where to find the newborn “King of the Jews.” The Holy Family escape the slaughter and are told by an angel to return to Israel once Herod is dead.

The second part seems to be more like a refugee situation, until you remember that both Judea and Egypt were different states of the same Roman Empire. The strict definition of a refugee from the United Nations, recognizes persons as refugees:

“who are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence and unable to return there owing to serious and indiscriminate threats to life, physical integrity or freedom resulting from generalized violence or events seriously disturbing public order.”

Did Joseph and Mary cross national boundaries by moving from one Roman-ruled province to another? Did they cross national boundaries illegally? Did they intend to remain permanently? The answers to those questions are NO, NO and NO. So they were not refugees according to the standard meaning of the word.

People try to make the Jesus-birth narrative into an immigration situation because they want Jews and Christians to support open borders. The problem is that the Bible has a lot to say about immigration, and it doesn’t support the left’s open borders agenda.

I always find it funny when atheists on the political left want to misuse the Bible to try to get political support from Jews and Christians. It makes me wonder whether the secular leftists take the Bible seriously as an auhtority on any other issue.

Is Ocasio-Cortez willing to take Jesus seriously on marriage being defined as a commitment between one woman and one man? How about Jesus’ rejection of no-fault divorce? How about Jesus’ view of the exclusivity of salvation? I think you know where what the secular leftists would say about Jesus as an authority on those issues. Most secular leftists don’t take Jesus seriously on any issue. Many don’t even think he existed as a historical figure. But that doesn’t stop secular leftists from trying to win over religious Jews and Christians by appealing to their emotions.

What concerns me about this promotion of illegal immigration and refugees, though, is that people forget who pays the bills for all of this compassion. Ocasio-Cortez isn’t tell you what she’s going to do with HER OWN money when she promotes illegal immigration and refugees. She’s telling you what she’s going to do with YOUR money. And she’s telling you that so that you will think that she’s a very generous, compassionate person. The truth is that her supporters who click retweet and like on her stuff do that in order to communicate that they are also good and generous people.

Everyone is doing what feels good, and what makes them look good to others, but are they willing to pay for it? If Democrats had to PAY FOR the things they claim to want, then would they be in favor of those things? You need only look at the French leftists who voted for Emmanuel Macron to stop global warming, and then they rioted when he passed a gas tax that would stop global warming. Leftists shouldn’t be seen as rational people. They vote in order to feel good and look good to others. When they get what they voted for, they riot in order to get out of it. The same people who elected Ocasio-Cortez will riot against her policies once they realize that they are the ones who have to pay for what they voted for.