What the media won't tell you about illegal immigrant crimes

I'm an advocate for immigrants who are drawn to America by the calling on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But I'm equally an advocate for doing so in a legal fashion that keeps Americans safe.

While mainstream media outlets continue to focus upon the couple thousand immigrant families separated at the border, who are indeed a concern for me too, what they're not telling you about are the tens of thousands of increased and heinous crimes committed by those who illegally cross our borders every year.

Case in point. As a Lone Star state resident and honorary Texas Ranger, I was deeply concerned when I read the recent Judicial Watch Report titled, "Busy Month for Illegal Immigrants Committing Heinous Crimes."

JWR reported, "In the last few days alone, an illegal immigrant who had been deported eleven times attacked his wife with a chainsaw in front of their children, another got charged with a series of violent rapes and dozens were arrested for operating a major human and drug smuggling enterprise in a major U.S. city."

The report further explained, "In the other recent case involving serious illegal immigrant criminal activity, 18 human smugglers and 117 illegal aliens got arrested in three stash houses in the area surrounding El Paso, Texas and southern New Mexico. Most of the illegal aliens – 93 – are from Mexico and the rest from Guatemala (12), Honduras (6), Brazil (3), El Salvador (2) and Peru (1). At least three of the illegal immigrants have serious criminal records, according to information released by ICE. A 32-year-old Mexican man busted in the ring has convictions for child endangerment and driving while intoxicated as well as being arrested for illegally re-entering the U.S. after being deported. A 30-year-old Mexican has ties to a drug cartel and was previously arrested for fraud and misuse of visas. A 34-year-old Guatemalan has an outstanding warrant in Florida for driving under the influence and has also been charged with illegally re-entering the U.S. after deportation, according to the feds."

What's pure insanity is that we've been enabling these types of illegal thugs to pour into our country for decades, according to Hans A. von Spakovsky, a legal authority on a wide range of issues – including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment and immigration.

Sakovsky reported:

For example, the Government Accountability Office released two unsettling reports in 2005 on criminal aliens who are in prison for committing crimes in the United States, and issued an updated report in 2011.

The first report found that criminal aliens, both legal and illegal, make up 27 percent of all federal prisoners. Yet non-citizens are only about nine percent of the nation's adult population. Thus, judging by the numbers in federal prisons alone, non-citizens commit federal crimes at three times the rate of citizens.

The findings in the second report are even more disturbing. It reviewed the criminal histories of 55,322 aliens in federal or state prisons and local jails who "entered the country illegally." Those illegal aliens were arrested 459,614 times, an average of 8.3 arrests per illegal alien, and committed almost 700,000 criminal offenses, an average of roughly 12.7 offenses per illegal alien.

The 2011 GAO report is more of the same. The criminal histories of 251,000 criminal aliens showed that they had committed close to three million criminal offenses. Sixty-eight percent of those in federal prison and 66 percent of those in state prisons were from Mexico. Their offenses ranged from homicide and kidnapping to drugs, rape, burglary, and larceny.

On top of all that is MS-13, the notorious and barbaric gang from Central America who has proliferated to just about every major city in the U.S.

I wrote in my New York Times bestselling cultural manifesto, "Black Belt Patriotism":

One of the aspects of illegal immigration often overlooked is the effect it has on the 30,000 street gangs, which have up to 1 million members in the United States. The gang considered the most dangerous is the MS-13, which has ties to the Mexican Mafia. It is estimated at 10,000 members, many of whom are illegals. Seven hundred MS-13 members were arrested by law enforcement in 2005. According to The Washington Times, MS-13 is believed to have a major smuggling operation that transports drugs, firearms and people. What's even more alarming is that in 2005, the Honduran security minister and the president of El Salvador warned that MS-13 was in talks with al-Qaida to transport terrorists into our country!

Citing FBI and other sources, Wikipedia explains: "In the U.S., MS-13 has an especially heavy presence in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California; the Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas of Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Prince George's County, Maryland; Queens, New York; Long Island, New York; Newark, New Jersey, Plainfield, New Jersey; Jersey City, New Jersey; Elizabeth, New Jersey; the Boston, Massachusetts area; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Houston, Texas. There is also a presence of MS-13 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada."

As if that's not enough, Americans need to know that MS-13 is coming after our kids and grandkids by recruiting elementary kids using social media.

As far as MS-13's ultimate goal, consider these statistics: The Daily Signal reported that in a recent poll, residents of El Salvador were asked, "Who runs your country?" Forty-two percent reported gangs, while only 12 percent said the government.

The Guardian reported that in El Salvador, where MS-13 and 18th Street gangs have so proliferated and embedded that country, they have the highest murder rate in the world. Two former gang members who are now pastors say that members are so indoctrinated and entrenched for life in the gangs that the only true way out for members to experience freedom is to become born-again Christians.

Why isn't mainstream media reporting the foreign gang's stronghold in the U.S., or why do they stay so far away from reporting the extent and heinousness of their crimes? What's just as worse is instead of commending our president and the brave soldiers of ICE for rounding up MS-13 members around the country (796 in 2017), media outlets are accusing the president of overblowing MS-13's criminalities!

Is it any surprise that a new Gallup national poll reveals that most Americans consider immigration the most important problem facing the nation?

Now more than ever, we must protect our borders and sovereignty. With MS-13 currently in at least 44 states, we must secure the borders now. So far, our government has failed to produce suitable solutions to doing so or stopping illegal immigration. Amnesty is not the answer. And (more) immigration laws aren't effective if we continue to allow them to be dodged or ignored. Furthermore, globalization efforts and commerce have only confused security matters, further endangering our borders as well as our national identity – our sovereignty.

And the question that keeps coming back to my mind is this: How is it we can militarily topple such tyrants as Saddam Hussein or ISIS, yet we can't keep illegals from crossing our borders?

As our friend and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee once said, "If the government can't track illegals, then let's outsource the job to UPS or FedEx." If they can track lost packages anywhere in the world within minutes, they certainly can track down and keep track of illegal immigrants.

If you want to do something about illegal immigration and particularly the criminals from other countries pouring into cities by you, here's a petition to demand that your governor enforce our nation's immigration laws already on the books.