America Has a Problem Keeping Out Deported Criminal Aliens
It’s been more than a week since a Sacramento County deputy and a Placer County homicide detective were fatally shot in the line of duty. Following the incident, police took Marcelo Marquez into custody but learned that name was an alias for the suspect’s true identity, Luis Enrique Monroy Bracamonte, a twice-deported illegal alien from Mexico.Bracamonte was last deported in 2001 and it is unknown when exactly he returned to the U.S. The lack of information begs the question of how many other previously deported criminal illegal aliens have also reentered. Judging from last year’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement report, quite a few. In 2013, 10,358 previously deported aliens were removed. Of course, these 10,358 illegal aliens are just the ones who were caught by law enforcement and who ICE actually removed from the country.Deported aliens appear to have little difficulty sneaking back into the country and even less fear of the law. Although it’s a felony to reenter the U.S., punishable by up to two years in federal prison, only 20,000 are serving time for this offense, according to Fox. Deported aliens keep coming back to the U.S. because they know the odds are that they won’t do the time for their crime.The Justice Department needs to enforce the law and urge U.S. attorneys to prosecute these repeat offenders. If we do not start enforcing our laws, we leave ourselves vulnerable to preventable tragedies, as the families of Michael Davis and Danny Oliver have unfortunately learned.