Illegal Alien Crime: Yes, Measure Impact but Act Now
House Republicans may have had in mind management guru, Peter Drucker’s, famous advice that “what gets measured, then gets managed” when they recently called for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to update its research examining the link between mass, uncontrolled immigration and crime. After all, the last GAO study on this topic was released in 2018 — prehistoric data really — given it was long before Biden swung open the borders that have fueled 300,000 illegal-crossing encounters each month.
Worried about the skyrocketing numbers — and the administration’s refusal to fix the border crisis, let alone measure its impact — 23 House members sent a letter to GAO stating, “The possible correlation between uncontrolled immigration and rising crime in major cities across the U.S. is a major concern for Congress, local law enforcement, and everyday Americans. Congress needs data outlining incarcerations, arrests, crimes, convictions, costs, and removals of noncitizens to properly evaluate the relationship between increased illegal immigration and current criminal alien population.”
All well and good and refreshed facts will be crucial — if not eye-popping — but the nexus between illegal immigration and crime is already well documented. Indeed, FAIR’s 2019 report, using State Criminal Alien Assistance Program data revealed that illegal aliens commit crimes at a much higher rate than citizens and lawful immigrants, and that they are typically at least three times as likely to be incarcerated. More recently the Heritage Foundation reported that “convicted‐criminal‐alien assaults, rapes, and homicides—have spiked during President Biden’s time in office” while further observing that the true extent of crimes committed by illegal aliens remains unknown because there are also over 1.7 million unaccounted for “gotaways” since Biden’s term began.
GAO needs to comply with the House request, but in the meantime, America’s borders must be secured now because the fact is that all illegal aliens break the law. The only way to claim they don’t is to claim America has no immigration laws…which it does. The illegal alien population is composed of those who cross the border illegally, and others who enter legally but overstay their visas. The former is a crime and the latter is a civil offense and both are deportable offenses under the Section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states unequivocally: “Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable.”
Violating immigration laws is a serious offense; a crime. But if that’s not enough, consider this: those entering the country illegally do not arrive with background checks in hand and criminal records are impossible to verify, particularly when daily encounters can exceed 10,000. And even if an illegal alien doesn’t have a criminal history in the U.S., they may have one in their home country and are thus fleeing justice.
But even if an illegal alien doesn’t come to the U.S. with a criminal history, the initial breach of immigration laws is often the first offense in a series of other offenses including document fraud and identity theft, and/or filing false information for jobs or benefits, all of which violate numerous state and federal laws. Then too, is the necessity of paying off traffickers who brought them to country, which can lead to reckless decisions and illicit activity to locate funds.
Illegal entry is a criminal act which begets more criminal behavior.
When, and if, GAO, ever complies with the House request to investigate the link between crime and illegal immigration, it’s a pretty good bet that the question will emerge: What is an “acceptable” level of crime from illegal aliens?
Ask that question of the widows of Sacramento Deputy Sheriffs Danny Oliver and Jeff Davis who were murdered in 2018 (the year of the last GAO report) by Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte. That was a particularly gruesome event forever burned into the memory of law enforcement and Americans in general. The assailant was a twice-deported, convicted criminal illegal alien who fired his gun point blank in the face of both officers.
Ask those officer’s widows if even one crime is acceptable.
Then, ask hundreds of other families tragically impacted by illegal immigration which has expanded by another 3 million in only five years.
Drucker’s advice about measuring then managing is solid advice, yet in the context of Biden’s unprecedented border crisis, “measuring and managing” at the same time is critical.