Mary Ann Mendoza, whose son Sgt Brandon Mendoza was killed by an illegal alien, stands next to the Rio Grande, which is the border between the U.S. and Mexico, in Hidalgo, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Congressional Inaction on Border Protection Is Killing Americans

In their recent confrontation with President Donald Trump, congressional Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York repeatedly claimed, “We all want border security.” No, they don’t! If that were true, the border would have been effectively secured years ago. But it hasn’t been.

While these transparently self-serving politicians feign interest, tens of thousands of Americans have been raped, maimed, robbed, and murdered by illegal aliens. And while we give away our jobs to illegals, we taxpayers shoulder the burden of covering their welfare, to the tune of $116 billion per year.

We stridently object! But, for doing so, we are reviled as “racists,” “bigots,” “xenophobes,” and worse.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), along with other attack mechanisms of the left, smear organizations such as the Remembrance Project, which serves to remind us of those who have been killed by illegals. The SPLC’s tone deafness is universally shared by the left, which cares only about potential future voters.

It’s an absolutely infuriating outrage. The U.S. Congress and most presidents over the past 40 years have been complicit with the left as it pushes an open-borders agenda that has put their various political interests ahead of American lives.

It is astonishing that whenever illegal immigration is discussed, all we hear about these days—even on Fox News—is the plight of the “DREAMers.” No one mentions the victims. It’s almost verboten to even bring up the subject.

Pundits argue about whether a border wall will work, what we should do about those 20-plus million people here illegally now, and how we can be “compassionate,” while still somehow managing not to totally shred the rule of law.

Statistics

So let me be the turd in the garden party punchbowl. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published three studies of Criminal Alien Statistics studies—in 2005, 2011, and in July.

The most accurate statistics are those reported by the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), which provides reimbursement to states for the incarceration costs of criminal illegal aliens. So, while we don’t know the total number of illegals in the United States, we do have some idea of how many are in prison and what they were convicted of.

The following figures are derived from the latest GAO report. It provides a percentage breakdown of numerous categories of crime, and a rounded-out total number of convictions on which those percentages are based.

The data come from Arizona, California, Florida, New York, and Texas—five states that together house about 64 percent of all SCAAP illegal aliens incarcerated in the United States as of 2015. It’s important to note that the numbers don’t reflect the total convicted and imprisoned in 2015, but rather those serving time for the offense in that year. They may have been incarcerated earlier.

For example, in Arizona, there were 6,300 primary offenses for which SCAAP illegal aliens were serving time in 2015. Six percent–or 378—of those offenses were homicides. Similarly, in California, about 18,600 crimes were committed for which SCAAP illegals were incarcerated in 2015; a whopping 28 percent were homicides. That translates to more than 5,000 deaths at the hands of illegals in California—and those are just the ones who were caught.

In total, illegal aliens have been convicted of committing more than 9,000 homicides in those five states alone, accounting for a whopping 21 percent of all the crimes for which illegals in these states have been convicted.

And that’s only for two-thirds of the SCAAP incarcerated population. If that 21 percent rate applied to all SCAAP prisoners nationwide, illegals would be responsible for more than 14,000 deaths. That’s 14,000 Kate Steinles, or Mollie Tibbettses, or Brandon Mendozas.

And that’s only for 2015. Texas has compiled statistics of illegal alien crime spanning 2011 to 2018. Note that the total illegal alien convictions in Texas for homicide is 1,599, significantly higher than the GAO figure of 960.

Straw Man

When these statistics do surface, the open-borders lobby quickly jumps in, claiming that illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than Americans do. It is a straw-man argument, of course. If there were strong border controls, none of these crimes would have been committed. Those 14,000 bereaved families could live their lives, while the rest of us could feel secure in the knowledge that our leaders are doing their jobs.

Ask any of those bereaved families if it matters to them that illegal aliens commit fewer murders than Americans.

It’s a false argument, anyway. In 2015, I obtained exact SCAAP conviction data for the same five states through a FOIA request to GAO, based on GAO’s 2011 Criminal Alien Statistics report.

The following table compares the GAO’s Arizona data from 2008 with convictions of all prisoners housed in Arizona state prisons on the same charges in 2009. While the numbers aren’t strictly comparable, they don’t tend to vary widely from year to year. For example, total Arizona convictions for the infractions listed below changed by less than 1 percent from December 2015 to December 2016.

I was able to obtain a figure for total violent-crime convictions in 2008 from the Arizona Department of Corrections to back up the detailed findings below. There were 16,842 inmates imprisoned for convictions of homicide, assault, robbery and sex crimes in 2008. According to GAO data, 2,081 in these categories were SCAAP illegal aliens—12.4 percent of the total.

Compared to their 6 percent representation in the population of Arizona, illegal alien crime rates are off the chart, especially kidnapping. A recent study confirms this overall impression, finding that the illegal alien crime rate in Arizona is double that of legal residents of the state.

Selfish Political Reasons

A few years back, I attended an Immigration Law forum presented by Georgetown School of Law. Many of the usual suspects performed in a fawning open-borders propaganda show for law students.

During a panel discussion, Marielena Hincapié, director of the National Immigration Law Center, bewailed the fact that an illegal alien dad wasn’t going to be able to share Christmas with his young son because he was incarcerated for violating immigration laws.

What would Hincapié say to the thousands of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and children who will never see their deceased beloved ever again, because organizations such as hers were preventing our nation from protecting itself against the very people she is trying to help?

Another panelist said those opposing illegal immigration do so because illegal aliens “don’t look like us.” Of course. So we’re all “bigots” for getting upset about mass murder, welfare fraud, job theft, and illegality. That kind of arrogant, presumptuous slander is the go-to response for these people, because when facts are presented, they don’t have an argument.

That’s bad enough. But much of the political infrastructure on both sides of the aisle ally with them for conspicuously selfish reasons. Democrats drool at the thought of amnesty for 22 million illegals, who will vote about 70 percent Democrat most of the time. If successful, the United States will become a one-party state, and rapidly devolve into Venezuela.

Pelosi will never again have to face being criticized for her taxpayer-funded luxury personal airliner. Republicans bow at the altar of the Chamber of Commerce, which advocates giving U.S. jobs to foreigners, while seeking to drive down overall wage rates by flooding our nation with low-wage workers. It is a merry Ferris wheel to Hell.

Americans are being killed because our congressional leaders are unwilling to honor their pledge. They are accessories to mass homicide. President Trump: Build the wall and shut down the government for eternity, if necessary, to get it done.

James Simpson is an economist, former White House budget analyst, businessman and investigative journalist. His latest book is “The Red Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America.” He can be found on Twitter @jamesmsimpson

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.