This administration’s deliberate gutting of immigration enforcement means many, many more Americans will be victimized than would otherwise be the case.
“Mr. President, what is the acceptable number of little girls to be raped and murdered by illegal aliens waved into the country on your orders?”
Neither Jake Tapper nor Dana Bash will ask that question at tonight’s debate, but they should.
The latest outrage was the murder last week of twelve-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston, which the New York Times finally deigned to notice on Tuesday, using the usual “Republicans pounce and seize” template (the subhead literally says the murder “has become the latest crime seized on by Republicans”).
It’s not just that the two perps — described by the Times as “accused of killing the 12-year-old girl and leaving her bound and without pants in a drainage ditch” — were illegal aliens. They were border-jumpers who were in the Border Patrol’s custody and were then released in accordance with policies put in place by Joe Biden and his impeached DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas.
Here’s how NBC news reported the ICE statement on the perps’ immigration history:
On March 14, Martinez was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol near El Paso, Texas. That same day, he was released on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear. Pena was apprehended by Border Patrol on May 28 near El Paso. He was released on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear the same day he was apprehended.
This despite the fact that federal law mandates that border-infiltrators be kept in detention over the entire course of their proceedings.
Any time an illegal alien commits a crime, the federal government bears some responsibility. But if the alien criminal had successfully evaded law enforcement — not encountered the Border Patrol or ICE or local police — before committing that crime, the government’s responsibility is more attenuated.
But when the illegal alien is taken into custody and then released — the same day, i.e., with little opportunity to do even the useless vetting for people from dysfunctional countries with little state capacity — then the administration that ordered that release bears direct responsibility for the crimes.
Young Jocelyn isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, American killed by Joe Biden’s illegal aliens; the body count includes Kayla Hamilton, Rachel Morin, and Laken Riley, not to mention many more killed by drunk-driving illegal aliens. And homicide is only the worst crime committed by Biden’s illegals; an Ecuadoran released at the border in 2021 raped a 13-year-old girl in New York earlier this month (and filmed it) and was caught only because neighbors recognized his description and effected a vigorous and forceful citizen’s arrest until police arrived.
The defenders of de facto unlimited immigration — both leftists and libertarians — respond to this litany of horrors by saying illegal aliens have a lower crime rate than the native-born. There is data to support this (and there’s contrary data too, because this is a murky area where statistics on legal status are often deliberately not collected). But so what? The Times story quotes a Democratic activist responding to Jocelyn Nungaray’s murder by saying, “Texas is not threatened by what is happening at the border.” Maybe, but Jocelyn Nungaray sure was.
Every crime committed by an illegal alien is preventable. In the real world, of course, not all will be prevented, even with the most muscular enforcement of immigration laws. But this administration’s deliberate and across-the-board gutting of immigration enforcement means many, many more Americans will be victimized than would otherwise be the case.
And their blood is on Joe Biden’s hands.