Sanctuary Cities

As criminal illegal aliens continue to do the horrific crimes that Americans wont do Fred Thompson speaks out.

If you listen to folks who oppose immigration and border enforcement, you get the feeling they think we put locks on our doors to keep everybody out. The truth is we have locks so we can choose who comes in.

An example of what happens when we don’t make the choice took place August 4th when three Newark, New Jersey, college students with great promise were executed, gangland style. The killers’ ringleader was apparently an illegal alien indicted twice in 2007 for felonies, including the rape of a kindergarten-aged girl.

Why would such a person be set free instead of being handed over to authorities for deportation? The answer is that Newark is a “sanctuary city” which bans cooperation between local officials and federal immigration officials. More than 60 sanctuary zones, including 30 of America’s largest cities, provide a national networked haven for foreign and organized criminals who recruit and operate outside those areas as well. These sanctuaries include Cambridge, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Austin and Houston, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and New York City.

The consequences of “sanctuary cities” may be most obvious in the city that became the first in 1979 — Los Angeles. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, a confidential California Department of Justice study from the mid-1990’s showed then that at least 60 percent of the members of L.A.’s most violent gangs, with membership in the tens of thousands, were illegal aliens. Of all outstanding murder warrants in Los Angeles, 95 percent are for illegal aliens. Frustrated police say they are powerless to pick up even well-known, previously deported felons.

The costs of policies that offer shelter to criminals are borne not just by the citizens of Newark, Cambridge, and other sanctuaries though. According to the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, illegal aliens made up 27 percent of the federal prison population in 2005, totaling 49,000 and costing federal taxpayers $1.2 billion. There were also more than 220,000 illegals in state and local prisons and jails. Now, I am not suggesting that all illegal aliens are violent criminals. They are not. Most are peaceful folks just trying to get by like the rest of us. But we would be far better off if we checked on people as they come into the country rather than find out who the bad ones are after they victimize people here.

We have the right to keep criminal predators out of our home. Those who want to immigrate into America need to knock, identify themselves, and ask permission first. They will not do so though if we can’t even ask who they are, which is prevented in sanctuary cities. Now I am a strong federalist, but immigration is a responsibility of the federal government, and the failures of local officials to enforce our national laws have a direct impact on communities around the country. So federal law must be enforced, or our neighborhoods will continue to be the scene of chilling and lurid crimes committed by those who broke the law in the first place to come to America.

Ann Coulter has put forth the possibility that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the Bush administration will now put victims on parade.

Mickey Kaus has raised the intriguing possibility that, since Bush's amnesty plan went down to humiliating defeat once Americans got wind of what the elites had planned for us, the Bush administration might respond by intentionally targeting highly sympathetic illegal aliens for deportation "in as clumsy, heartless and lawsuit-inspiring a fashion as possible, in order to create the maximum number of negative headlines."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described anti-amnesty Americans as being satisfied with nothing less than "the death penalty" for illegal aliens and recently warned of "some unhappy consequences" unless illegal aliens were granted amnesty. Yes, that Michael Chertoff -- the guy in charge of keeping us safe from foreign invasions.

So it was curious when we were treated this week to a weeping Mexican woman on TV, claiming the U.S. government was tearing her from her infant son and saying she knew the American people would be outraged if she were deported. (I note that her message might have been more effective in English.)

Admittedly, I'd just as soon have Homeland Security focusing on illegal immigrants like the one who shot four promising college kids execution style in Newark, killing three of them, possibly after sexually molesting two of them. Heck, I wouldn't have minded if they had deported Jose Carranza even before his girlfriend accused him of raping her 5-year-old daughter.

Or Ruben Hernandez-Juarez, an illegal alien charged with sexually molesting a 6-year-old boy in Martin County, Fla.

Or Alejandro Bautista, an illegal alien in Cook County, Ill., who was convicted for sexually molesting two teenaged boys.

Or Alejandro Xuya-Sian, the illegal alien who hit a pedestrian with his car in New York and dragged him for nearly a mile before dislodging the victim from his car, throwing him aside and driving off again. (Even more disturbing: Xuya-Sian may not have been wearing his seat belt at the time.)

Or illegal alien Alberto Barajas-Enriquez, who is charged with beating his Michigan neighbor to death with a golf club because the neighbor complained about the constant barking of Enriquez's dog. Asked by police how many times he struck his victim with the golf club, Enriquez said, "Let's see ... five, six ... uh, put me down for a seven."

Or Lucio Sanchez-Martinez, the illegal alien in Ohio charged with sexually molesting a sleeping 8-year-old girl.

For simplicity, I have limited my enumeration of illegal aliens I would like deported to those who were charged or convicted of heinous crimes last week. For illegal aliens charged with child molestation, I had to limit it to two days last week.

Read the rest here.