“We need to do something.”
This mentality now being harnessed to promote an unconstitutional and unhelpful policy on guns is never harnessed to address the political problems that are fueling the gang and opioid crises in our country and are responsible for death and mayhem in every major community. The influx of young violent criminal aliens into this country since 2012 as a result of the amnesty even Trump is trying to codify, in conjunction with the sanctuary cities that coddle them, has fueled the gang and opioid crises in this country. Where is the sense of urgency in Congress to shut down the amnesty agenda and punish sanctuaries?
There is a body count of at least 25 people killed by MS-13 – DACA deaths – in Long Island alone. Then of course there is the body count of tens of thousands killed by heroin and fentanyl that we allow into our country through the open-borders agenda. Yet the media doesn’t like to discuss body counts when the solution is as simple as enforcing our own sovereignty. It’s a lot easier to discuss bump stocks and the NICS system that targets seniors with surrogates taking care of their finances.
The MS-13 crisis stemming from DACA
Let’s just say that the illegals who streamed over the border in the summer of 2014 with the promise of DACA amnesty were not only harmless children — not by a long shot. A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies found that the resurgence in MS-13 gang violence, especially in places like Montgomery County, Maryland, and Long Island, New York, are the result of the 300,000 Central Americans who have been illegally resettled in our communities since DACA, as well as the growth of sanctuary cities.
The CIS reviewed 506 criminal arrests of MS-13 gang members and found, not surprisingly, that the biggest uptick in activity was in Maryland, Virginia, New York, and California. The MS-13 population in Fairfax County, Virginia, has doubled and has significantly increased in Prince William County, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland. From the information that was available, the CIS was able to determine that at least 120 of them, including 48 who were murder suspects, arrived recently as unaccompanied alien children (UACs), which lends credence to the DHS’s claim that 30 percent of the UACs in DHS custody have ties to gangs. This is the direct result of our politicians ignoring the letter of the law and treating smugglers and gang members as “severely trafficked” victims when in fact they are the perpetrators and, as such, are not eligible for resettlement in this country. Yet only four percent of all UACs have been deported.
The sanctuary problem has made things worse. As Jessica Vaughan notes, MS-13 was once a diminishing problem, especially after the Bush administration implemented the 287(g) program and worked closely with local law enforcement to target criminal aliens. “Documented gang members often were arrested on administrative immigration violations, which had the effect of disrupting the gang’s activities and ridding communities of troublemakers. In addition, these lower-level arrests often led to more significant criminal investigations of gang leaders and the dismantling of local MS-13 cliques,” writes Vaughan.
The surge in UACs and the willful violation of our laws by Obama led to a circuitous smuggling operation to bring in more young MS-13 recruits from Central America, as illustrated by the following finding in Vaughan’s report:
[O]ne MS-13 clique leader in Frederick, Md., who had received a DACA work permit and was employed as a custodian at a middle school in Frederick, Md., and who was recently incarcerated for various gang-related crimes, reportedly was told by gang leaders in El Salvador to take advantage of the lenient policies on UACs to bring in new recruits, knowing that they would be allowed to resettle in the area with few questions asked. Several of these unaccompanied minors now have been arrested and incarcerated for various crimes, including a vicious random attack on a sheriff’s deputy in 2015.
Sanctuary cities have only made this problem worse. They disrupt almost all communication between ICE and local law enforcement that would ensure that criminal aliens are immediately charged on immigration or fraud violations before they commit worse crimes. In 2014 alone, sanctuaries released 10,000 criminal aliens who had a 70 percent recidivism rate and undoubtedly contributed to the gang crisis. “Many of the hotbeds of MS-13 activity are also places where local officials have adopted sanctuary policies,” wrote Vaughan.
This is the national emergency that requires us to “do something.” We have enough problems with our own domestic criminals. Why are we keeping the gang members of other countries who commit horrific crimes in our schools?
The opioid crisis is an open-borders crisis
Talk about a crisis of body count: Overdoses on opioids are the ultimate crisis facing America. In 2016, well over 20,000 died from fentanyl and related synthetic drug overdoses and over 15,000 died from heroin overdoses. Not surprisingly, the 540 percent increase in deaths began the year after Obama enacted DACA, abolished the 287(g) program, and essentially suspended immigration enforcement. Obama began suspending federal enforcement with the “Morton Memos” in the spring of 2011 and terminated 287(g) while implementing amnesty in June 2012.
There are two components to the opioid crisis: the prescription drugs and the illicit drugs, such as heroin and fentanyl. As we’ve noted before, the recent growth in the prescription drug overdose crisis is largely fueled by the Medicaid expansion, yet neither party wishes to “do something” about it. But the greater crisis is on the non-prescription side, which accounted for 78 percent of the 64,000 deaths in 2016, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Worse than the numbers is the trend line from fentanyl and heroin alone, which occurred right after Obama suspended immigration enforcement.
Now Republicans plan to pass a new “opioid bill” next week to throw more money at the problem, when in essence the illicit drug crisis is a result of open borders, sanctuary cities, and our refusal to treat the drug cartel problem on our border with the same seriousness with which we treat Islamic civil wars halfway across the world.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 80 percent of the illicit opioids sold in this country are from drug cartels based in Mexico and Central America. Heroin is almost exclusively a problem emanating from Mexico, drug cartels, and illegal alien smugglers. Given that the transnational drug cartels, illegal alien smugglers, and gang street traffickers are the main perpetrators of this crisis, immigration enforcement agencies are the best equipped to deal with the problem.
This was made painfully obvious earlier this month when the Feds discovered a stockpile of fentanyl in Boston connected to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel large enough to wipe out the entire state of Massachusetts. Sadly, ironically, tragically, yet humorously, the entire state was declared a sanctuary last year by a court at the behest of a criminal alien who was later arrested for slapping and mugging a wheelchair-bound woman leaving a bank.
As Jessica Vaughan, herself a resident of Massachusetts, explained in her testimony before the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, federal immigration agents “have expertise and intelligence on cross-border drug trafficking and smuggling, attaches in foreign countries and relationships with foreign and international law enforcement agencies, and extensive databases of foreign gang members and other criminals, including biometrics, and including information on the movement of individuals across borders. They are not limited in jurisdiction by state or city boundaries.” However, local law enforcement personnel “are not trained to recognize immigration documents or signs of identity theft by foreign nationals, and need to have the discretion to contact the DHS agencies that can assist in identifying criminal aliens involved in the drug trade.”
Guess who are the ones who initially making contact with drug traffickers on the streets? It’s not the ICE agents, because they don’t patrol the streets. It’s local law enforcement. They make the initial contact, but federal immigration officials have the intel on immigration status. It’s a match made in heaven and broken up by sanctuary cities.
Given that most of the drug-runners are foreign nationals and that sanctuary cities are making illegal aliens a protected class, sanctuary cities are not just a refuge for your average-Joe illegal alien but for drug cartels as well. Detective Nick Rogers of the Denver Police Association gave a riveting testimony on how the drug runners are mainly young illegal aliens 18-25 from Mexico and Central America (DACA!) and how sanctuary ordinances discipline law enforcement for working with immigration officials to bust up their rings.
Thus, we have the mixture of the promise of amnesty for youngsters, the ensuing flow from Central America, and sanctuary cities that are plaguing our communities with gang violence and dangerous drugs that are killing thousands. These are killing more people in our schools than mass shootings.
Where’s the outrage? Isn’t it time to “do something?”
Yes, it’s time to do something about killings, crime, and immigration
Announce an end to all amnesty and make it clear to Central America that nobody — irrespective of age — who comes here illegally will ever get amnesty. This was Trump’s direct promise in his Phoenix speech in August 2016.
Rather than pushing amnesty in the omnibus bill, demand the inclusion of the Toomey amendment to cut off funding to sanctuary cities.
Pass the Rokita bill authorizing up to one year of prison time for local officials who harbor illegal aliens and violate federal law.
Pass the Zeldin bill, which requires the denaturalization of any gang member who obtained citizenship and is later found to be a member of MS-13 or another similar group.
Pass the Davis-Oliver comprehensive interior enforcement bill to reinstate and strengthen all of the successful federal-local cooperation to root out criminal aliens.
Expand expedited deportation for all criminal aliens.
Completely remove immigration policy from the jurisdiction of Article III courts and have it handled exclusively by administrative judges, as was the case until fairly recently.
Trump must follow through with his executive order to properly interpret the UAC law so that only those who are severely trafficked qualify for refugee resettlement. Everyone else should be deported immediately, including most of the 300,000 already here.
Finally, treat the Mexican drug cartels with the military operations they demand. If we are able to keep our military in Afghanistan for the rest of time in order to referee an Islamic tribal war, we can create a military buffer zone to stop gang violence and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans as a result of drugs, as well as the crushing cost of illegal immigration.
Yes, it’s time to do something about mass killings. And the easy way to start is by getting rid of other countries’ criminals who kill and poison our people. It won’t infringe upon our constitutional rights, it won’t strip innocent people of the right to self-defense, but it will save lives.
Sadly, don’t expect either party to let this emergency stop their clamor to pander and shamelessly politicize something that is not political while ignoring something that is manifestly rooted in public policy choices through the voluntary policy of immigration. Instead of focusing on any of these items next week, our “leaders” will promote gun control. As for the opioid crisis, these same “leaders” will merely throw money at the problem they created and make it worse with their agenda for continuing amnesty and sanctuary cities. (For more from the author of “DACA and Sanctuary Cities Fueling Gang and Opioid Crises” please click HERE)
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