In one a sports broadcaster in Oklahoma City was killed in a traffic accident; in another a 32-year old woman was shot and killed as she and her father were walking on the pier in San Francisco. In Phoenix, a mother and her two children were injured by the drunk driver; in Laredo, Texas, a man used a hammer to murder his wife
In all these cases, the perpetrators were illegal aliens. In America illegally, these perpetrators had been deported three, five, six and four times, respectively. In other words, had the federal government done its job and kept the perpetrators from reentering the country, the victims would be alive or uninjured today.
Bob Berry Jr., a sportscaster in Oklahoma City, was riding his motorcycle as an illegal immigrant was driving on the same street in the opposite direction and pulled an illegal U-turn right in front of Mr. Berry's motorcycle. The illegal didn’t have a driver’s license; he was in possession of cocaine; and he had been deported three times since 2010. Kathryn Steinle, 31, was shot as she was taking photos with her father on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Her killer, an illegal immigrant, was (illegally) shooting at sea lions when he accidentally hit Ms. Steinle. He had been deported five times and convicted of seven felonies. In Phoenix, an illegal immigrant had been deported to Mexico six times in the last three years. On July 4, he was driving an SUV and swerved into another lane, crashing into a vehicle and injuring a mother and her 2- and 5-year old children. He is reported to have confessed to smoking marijuana before the collision. In Laredo, an illegal immigrant beat his wife to death with a hammer. He had been deported four times.
To go back a few months, in October 2014, Antonio Holmes was shot and wounded by an illegal immigrant as the latter was attempting to carjack Mr. Holmes. The man had been deported twice and also killed Sacramento sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis, Jr. and wounded another Deputy.
There are many more comparable cases, but the point is obvious: These people all were ordered to be deported at least three times - yet all remained free in the United States, and all committed violent crimes.
Let us be clear: We are not claiming that all illegal aliens are violent criminals, nor that native-born US citizens or legal immigrants do not commit crimes - but we are saying this: had these men been kept out of America the last time they were deported, their victims would be alive or uninjured.
The Steinle case is especially tragic because San Francisco is a "sanctuary city" that refuses to cooperate with the immigration authorities. We don’t know if the Federal government actually would have deported her killer (they hadn’t been successful the first four times), but they didn't have the chance, because San Francisco chose not to obey the federal law.
A few years back, the Obama administration and the Courts objected to an Arizona law which required that citizenship checks be run on any person arrested or detained who police suspected of not being a citizen or a legal immigrant. The Administration and the Supreme Court didn’t like the law because they claimed that such checks would overwhelm the system and that immigration policy was a prerogative of the federal government. So, it would seem that consistency would also compel the courts and the Obama Administration to object to “sanctuary cities” on the same grounds – that only the US government can establish immigration laws. But no – Arizona’s law, which sought to assure that the immigration laws would be enforced, prompted boycotts and was overturned; the local laws, such as San Francisco’s, which impede the enforcement of federal law, find favor with the Administration.
But let’s not overlook that a similar circumstance affects the US citizens as well, for a substantial number of crimes are committed by people on probation, early release, or awaiting trial. Deportation for an illegal immigrant is akin to jail for a citizen or a legal immigrant. If they are, as the case may be, either deported or jailed, they cannot victimize the general population. And one more thing: perhaps the saddest stories are those that report that the offender is a “career criminal,” yet was on the streets, able to commit crimes. The refusal to keep the criminals (citizens or illegal alike) away from the innocent, it seems, is a fundamental tenet of the modern progressive.
But although the practice of mild punishments extends far beyond illegal immigrants, the latter is our subject today. We are pretty sure that the Obama Administration sees illegals as a voting bloc (even though citizens should not be voting at all). If so, it is truly outrageous that its desire for votes compels the Administration to welcome not just illegals, but those such as the men described above, who have committed felonies and been deported multiple times. The policy of allowing illegals to “jump the line” and remain here would be far easier for the general public to understand if the violent criminals were deported permanently.
Defenders of the Obama administration warn us not to "point fingers" at the sanctuary city policy or the Obama Administration's policy that allows illegal aliens to remain in America even if they have been ordered deported or convicted of a felony. Interesting, isn't it, that we dare not make an issue of a policy that gives free rein to lawbreakers – yet we blame, for example, the Confederate flag when a deranged racist killer is pictured holding it. If legislatures want to remove the Confederate flag from public property, so be it; but if they want to do something truly meaningful, they should take steps to assure that laws be enforced and the law-abiding population be protected.