Former U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo has penned a piece for Breitbart that should become part of the discussion of the campaign. The article is about illegal alien crime and the silence by the press on this issue.
Illegal alien crime is a symptom of the much broader problem of our inability to control our borders — who comes in, who stays out, and how many immigrants we allow to come in.
Controlling one’s borders is a prerequisite for sovereignty. No leaders in Europe are advocating that all the African migrants washing up on the shores of Greece, Italy, and other southern European countries be allowed in. Neither should we. And thousands of Americans have paid for our weak and ineffective immigration enforcement with their lives — cut short by criminals who came here illegally.
Tancredo outlines the problem:
The mainstream media – including, sadly, major segments of the presumably conservative media, like the Wall Street Journal — are working overtime to keep the American public and the American voters in the dark on the scope of illegal alien crime. The murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco exposed only the tip of a massive iceberg, and the media establishment is desperate to avoid dealing with the iceberg underneath.
Let’s look at a few numbers. You haven’t seen them in the New York Times, Atlanta Constitution, or the Miami Herald, nor have they been featured on NBC Nightly news or CNN. So, the average American is blissfully unaware of them.
- Between 2008 and 2014, 40% of all murder convictions in Florida were criminal aliens. In New York it was 34% and Arizona 17.8%.
- During those years, criminal aliens accounted for 38% of all murder convictions in the five states of California, Texas, Arizona, Florida and New York, while illegal aliens constitute only 5.6% of the total population in those states.
- That 38% represents 7,085 murders out of the total of 18,643.
That 5.6% figure for the average illegal alien population in those five states comes from US Census estimates. We know the real number is double that official estimate. Yet, even if it is 11%, it is still shameful that the percentage of murders by criminal aliens is more than triple the illegal population in those states.
Those astounding numbers were compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) using official Department of Justice data on criminal aliens in the nation’s correctional system. The numbers were the basis for a presentation at a recent New Hampshire conference sponsored by the highly respected Center for Security Policy.
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There is widespread public ignorance of illegal alien crime in every state because the mainstream media does investigate such matters. Why? Because they do not want the public to think about such things. The media, from the Associated Press down to the Main Street News, does not even allow the phrase “illegal immigrant” to appear in print.
The lack of media coverage of this issue is an illustration of the power of identity politics. Portraying illegals in anything but a positive light brings a storm of criticism from Hispanic activists who claim such negative coverage is racist and unfair because it supposedly tars all Hispanics as violent criminals. It’s the same reason that the race of suspects in crime stories is never mentioned, nor are pictures of the criminal usually used. Any media outlet that changed that policy and began to report the truth would no doubt be subject to boycotts and harsh criticism from the social justice crowd.
Our deportation policies are a joke. While we apprehend record numbers of illegals crossing the border, it does little good because the law says the government can’t incarcerate the lawbreakers until they can be deported. Hence, after being released (after promising to show up for their hearing), the illegals melt into vast underground never to be heard of again — unless they commit a heinous crime.
And in several states, that happens far too often.
I don’t see us solving this problem, but we can do a much better job of stemming the flow of illegals than we are now. It will take billions of dollars and a government that is resolute in addressing the crisis. So far, we haven’t been willing to spend the money and have watched as fickle administrations give lip service to border security while doing little to protect us.
Unless that changes, those horrific numbers on illegal alien murderers will continue to rise.
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