Two Dead Cops in Sacramento Because We Will Not Secure Our Borders

This post first appeared in Eagle Rising.


From illegal immigration to drug smuggling to border violence to Middle Eastern terrorists coming up through Mexico to  the recent flood of unaccompanied Central American children to the Ebola virus. For years now we have been talking ourselves blue in the face over our government's refusal to secure our borders. Now this (as if it were the first): This past weekend two police officers in the Sacramento area were murdered, one other officer wounded, and a motorist shot in the face all by an illegal immigrant. As if that's not bad enough, this same man had been previously deported twice.

Nor is this the first case of a criminal illegal alien who had gone through our justice system committing murder in California. In 2008, Jamiel Shaw, a high school football star, whose mother was serving in the military overseas, was murdered in Los Angeles for no reason by an illegal immigrant gang member who had just been released from jail-without ICE being notified. The same year in San Francisco, another illegal immigrant gang member shot and killed a father and his two sons in some kind of road rage incident. Again, the  killer had recently been let out of jail without ICE being notified. He is now serving life in prison. The then San Francisco DA, ultra-liberal Kamala Harris, was famous for consistently refusing to pursue the death penalty for any and all cases in her jurisdiction. She is now California's attorney general, is running for re-election, and is rumored to
be considered as a replacement for Eric Holder or a spot on the US Supreme Court.

But what is the problem in California? Both San Francisco and Los Angeles are so-called sanctuary cities, where local police will not cooperate with the feds in getting illegal alien gang members and other criminals off the streets and out of the country. The current policy in most California cities is that when an illegal alien criminal is set to be released, the jails will not honor any holds placed by the feds, who instead have to be right there to take the defendant into custody as soon as he is released. Sanctuary policies are fully supported by Governor Jerry Brown.

This is not the way law enforcement is supposed to work. Stopping crime is supposed to be a joint effort at the federal, state and local levels. Ideally, ICE and local police should be working hand-in-hand to identify illegal alien criminals in the community sharing their intelligence and resources to rid the community of these criminals who are not even legally in the country. When I was a DEA agent working in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, our task force group consisted of DEA, Immigration and LAPD officers who worked as a team. It was a sound tactic and worked quite well.

I suspect some readers will conclude that I have something against immigrants in general or Hispanics in general. Far be the case. My wife is a Mexican immigrant (legal). I am very pro-immigrant as long as people come legally, obey our laws, and assimilate. I also well understand why millions of Mexicans come to this country because of the lack of opportunities in Mexico, which is a topic for another discussion. However, the plain fact is that no country can tolerate the presence of millions of people in the country illegally. Aside from the otherwise honest ones who are working, there is also a certain percentage who are criminals, and we must consider them as our top priority.

Yet, in spite of all common sense and in spite of all the horror stories, until we get a government that is serious about securing our borders, providing strong disincentives for local sanctuary policies (for example funding and other punitive measures), and getting rid of the foreign criminal elements, we will continue to suffer more outrages like the ones I have illustrated just in the state of California-to say nothing of the other 49 states.