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In the wake of Saturday’s cowardly act of mass violence at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, two things happened. The first was so expected as to almost not even be news: Democrats tripped over each other to decry the plight of gun violence and call for “gun reform” that would further infringe the God-given right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. The second belongs in the too-ridiculous-to-be-true column: On Sunday, Mexico threatened to take legal action against the United States for failing to protect its citizens. At least seven of the victims in the shooting were Mexican citizens.
Before this writer goes any further, two things need to be made clear: First, nothing — including the fact that seven of the victims of the shooting may have been in the United States illegally — justifies the actions of a coward hiding behind a racist ideology and a rifle while killing 20 people and injuring another 26. Murder is murder and cowardice is cowardice. Period. Second, nothing in the above statement does anything to change the fact that the United States is not responsible for what happened Saturday. Given the extreme likelihood that some — if not all — of those seven Mexican nationals were here illegally, a statement by Marcelo Ebrand of the Mexican Foreign Ministry that the shooting was a “terrorist attack against innocent Mexicans” misses the valid point that the terrorist — and this writer is apt to accept that description of the shooter — did not cross the border into Mexico as part of his terrorism, but illegal border crossings into America are happening at an alarmingly increasing rate.
Rather than policing its own citizens, Mexico is doing what Mexico does — passing the buck and blaming America. Typical.
Before Ebrand gets too far gone making threats of legal action against the United States for a crime committed here, of which Mexican nationals were among the victims, perhaps he should pay attention to the number of crimes committed here — against American citizens — at the hands of illegal aliens from Mexico. Because those crimes are the direct result of the failure of the Mexican government to deal with its own problems, including violent crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, criminal gangs, abject poverty, and illegal aliens from Mexico crossing into the United States with little interference from the Mexican government. And while not all of those crimes are violent, many are. And they all carry a real cost for Americans.
According to a great analysis published by the Constitution Party, the picture is bleak, indeed. That analysis quotes the New York Times — which can certainly not be accused of being anti-illegal-immigration — as showing that “about 4.5 million illegal aliens in the U.S. drive on a regular basis, many without licenses or insurance, or even the ability to read road signs written in English.” Every person who suffers property damage, injury, or death when one of those illegal immigrant/illegal drivers plows into them or their cars, homes, or businesses is a real victim.
Furthermore, “Yahoo.com writer J.C. Grant notes, ‘There is a statistically significant correlation between state per capita illegal immigration rates and car thefts. This correlation is particularly strong: the odds are less than two in one million that the correlation is a chance occurrence.’” Even worse, the Office of Immigration Statistics reported that of the 188,382 deportations of illegal aliens in 2011, 23 percent had committed criminal traffic offenses (primarily driving under the influence). This led Congressman Steve King (R- Iowa) to estimate that illegal-alien drunk drivers kill 13 Americans every day — with a death toll of 4,745 per year. So it is more than possible that when an illegal alien runs into another car and injures or kills someone, he is driving a stolen car and is either drunk or high.
Another 23 percent (or roughly 43,000 illegal aliens) had committed and been convicted of drug offenses. About half that many (or around 22,000) committed violent crimes — assault, robbery, sexual assault, and domestic abuse.
Some of the violent crimes committed by illegal aliens are especially heinous. On July 1, 2015, 32-year old Kate Steinle was walking with her father when he heard a single popping sound and watched his daughter fall dead. The criminal responsible for what police called a “random killing” was Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. He was back in the United States after having been deported to Mexico five times for other crimes he committed while being here illegally. When he murdered Kate just for being there, he was wanted by federal authorities on a drug charge.
The question someone needs to ask Ebrand is, “What did the government of Mexico do to keep this repeat criminal from wading back into the United States, where he murdered a woman who was guilty of nothing worse than walking on a pier with her father?”
Less than two weeks after that horrific crime, another illegal alien from Mexico, 23-year-old Aurelio Hernandez-Gomez, was arrested in Florida for kidnapping and repeatedly raping a 13-year-old child. And lest there be any doubt, he was arrested in the home where she was found — where he had kept her hidden while he put her through hell. And while it would do nothing to change the fact that Hernandez-Gomez “raped or otherwise penetrated the girl after incapacitating her or otherwise rendering her helpless,” it should be noted that in his native Chiapas, Mexico, her age would not have been an issue; the legal age of sexual consent there is the tender age of 12. Question for Ebrand: “What did Mexico do to protect this child from rape at the hands of this beastly criminal?” Nothing — in fact, the law in Chiapas serves as a fairly good indicator that Mexican officials don’t get it. Because sex with a 12-year-old is rape. Period.
And Hernandez-Gomez is no anomaly. Four months before his crime, Ramiro Ajualip, who — you guessed it — was in the United States illegally from — of all places — Mexico, sodomized the 10-year-old daughter of the family he was living with in Alabama. He had only been in the United States four weeks when he shattered that poor child’s innocence to relieve his own demonic lust. The Mexican government not only did nothing to protect her, but there was discussion at the time of allowing him to be deported back to Mexico without facing charges. Then he could have followed in the footsteps of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez and simply crossed back into the United States to commit more crimes.
Back to this writer’s assertion that “it is more than possible that when an illegal runs into another car and injures or kills someone, he is driving a stolen car and is either drunk or high,” in July 2015, an illegal Mexican alien driving high on marijuana was found guilty of a hit-and-run accident in Arizona that left a mother and her two young children injured. The five-year-old boy had severe lacerations and he and his two-year-old sister had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. That illegal alien, Manuel Perez-Vasquez, had already been through the revolving door of deportation six times. Well, at least the car he was driving wasn’t stolen.
There are more such examples than the space of this article allows.
In the final summation, it is ridiculous for Ebrand to blame the United States government for Saturday’s shooting and threaten legal action for the United States not protecting Mexican citizens. In fact, it is far worse than ridiculous; it is hypocritical. Because while Saturday’s shooting is an inexcusable tragedy and horrific crime, the only person to blame is the shooter himself. But the crimes listed above — with Americans as the victims of illegal Mexican aliens — are laid squarely at the feet of the Mexican government who seemingly deliberately exports its problems — drugs, gangs, and violence — to the United States.
In fact, if anyone should be bringing legal action against the United States government for not protecting citizens, it is the States, since the federal government has the Constitutional obligation — according to Article IV, Section 4 — to “guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion” yet refuses to do so.
Image: Zerbor via iStock / Getty Images Plus
