Illegal Aliens on a Texas-Sized Crime Spree
An illegal alien was sentenced last week to five years in prison for trying to drown a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a Texas creek.
Add it to the fast-growing rap sheet of serious crimes committed by illegals in the Lone Star State.
According to Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), more than 264,000 criminal aliens were booked into local jails between June 1, 2011, and Aug. 31 of this year. Of those, some 177,000 were classified as illegal aliens by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Over the course of their criminal careers in Texas, the 177,000 illegal aliens were charged with more than 442,000 crimes, including 977 homicide charges; 49,990 assault charges; 14,359 burglary charges; 57,140 drug charges; 656 kidnapping charges; 27,574 theft charges; 39,445 obstructing police charges; 3,374 robbery charges; 5,332 sexual assault charges; 3,258 sexual offense charges; and 6,448 weapon charges.
Thus far, those charges have resulted in more than 205,000 convictions, including 454 for homicide; 21,511 for assault; 7,445 for burglary; 29,663 for drugs; 266 for kidnapping; 13,050 for theft; 19,946 for obstructing police; 1,850 for robbery; 2,816 for sexual assault; 1,751 for other sexual offenses; and 2,886 weapons convictions.
Breaking down the numbers, illegal aliens were arrested for criminal acts at the astounding rate of more than 60 per day. (Some were repeat offenders apprehended on multiple charges.)
Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Louderback says transnational cartels that smuggle drugs and humans across the Mexican border are largely responsible for Texas’s crime surge.
“What the cartels have been able to accomplish is astounding. There’s not a county that isn’t affected by a criminal element of the cartel,” Louderback said. “The border has never been controlled by the Mexican government or the American government. It’s owned and operated by the cartels.”
In 2017, Texas became the first state to ban sanctuary cities. Yet the alien crime spree continues apace.
Open-borders enthusiasts at the Cato Institute claim that illegal aliens commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S. citizens. Such assertions, eagerly echoed in the national media without verification, are debatable since Texas is the only state that publishes convictions of illegal aliens for specific crimes.
Ultimately, the debate is pointless. A single criminal act by an illegal alien is one too many. And, as the DPS data show, criminal activities by illegal aliens are rampant. None of these thousands of Texas crimes would have occurred without the offending alien being in Texas to begin with.