International Fugitives Outrun Law By Seeking Safe Haven in United States

Today’s commentary is predicated on a news release that was posted on the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) website on September 7, 2011 and chronicles how Ivan Hernandez-Barroso, a citizen of Mexico and an alien who was illegally present was deported to Mexico where he is wanted for the alleged murder of a woman he shot to death when she refused to dance with him at a party in Mexico on March 12, 2005.

He apparently entered the United States in an effort to evade law enforcement authorities in Mexico. This is one of the points I have been hammering ever since I endeavored to alert our fellow citizens and our leaders about how important our nation’s borders are and why our nation’s immigration laws are not a formality but are actually essential for the safety and security of our nation and our citizens.

An alien who runs our borders leaves no record of his entry into our country and is likely an alien who for a number of serious reasons would not be entitled to legally enter our country.

Consider this quote from the news release:

“Ivan Hernandez-Barroso is a violent criminal who tried to escape justice in Mexico by hiding in the United States,” said Ricardo Wong, field office director for ICE ERO in Chicago. “We will not tolerate international fugitives who think they can outrun the law by seeking safe haven in this country.”

It is important to give some thought to the nature of our immigration laws in terms of the various categories of aliens who are statutorily ineligible to enter the United States.

Here is a link to Title 8, United States Code, Section 212, the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that enumerates the various categories of aliens who are statutorily ineligible to enter the United States:

http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-1956.html

In reviewing the various categories of aliens who are supposed to be prevented from entering the United States include aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases, aliens who suffer mental illness and are prone to violence or sexual deviates such as pedophiles, aliens who are convicted felons, aliens who traffic in narcotics or human beings, aliens who are war criminals or who have committed human rights violations, are engaged in terrorism or in espionage. The list is far longer and you can read all of these reasons that under the law, aliens are supposed to be prevented from entering our country or may be removed (deported) from our country. This section of law is designed to protect our nation and all those who are present in the United States. This section of law is no mere technicality but is of extremely great importance.

Yet when citizens of our country express justifiable concern that our nation’s borders are not secure and therefore our safety is being compromised, the President of the United States had the unmitigated chutzpah to deliver a speech in, of all places, El Paso, Texas, just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, arguably the most violent city in Mexico to mock the concerns of the citizens of the country he swore an oath to protect by enforcing our laws and our Constitution!

Please take a moment and go to watch the unbelievable video of what President Obama had to say on May 10, 2011, about the citizens of the United States who are concerned about the deplorable situation where our failures to secure our borders are concerned:

Here is a link to a You Tube video of a portion of what Obama had to say:

“Alligators in the Moat”: Obama Mocks Concerns About Border Security:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAOEInEzpec

Wasn’t it amazing to hear the President proclaim that the fence is essential completed?

Perhaps he should develop a new campaign slogan, “Don’t confuse me with the facts!”

Recently New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo withdrew New York from the Secure Communities Program that is supposed to identify criminal aliens in prisons and provide notification to ICE that they are in custody so that with a minimum of effort and expenditure of resources, these aliens can be expeditiously handed over to ICE for removal from the United States if should action is warranted.

Cuomo and other “leaders” like him have bemoaned the fact that if the United States deports criminal aliens that they would be ostensibly separated from their families in the United States.

This news release also provided additional details about Hernandez-Barroso. Reportedly he had been previously deported from the United States Here is an additional excerpt from the news release that lays out the salient issues concerning this particular case:

Hernandez-Barroso is wanted in Mexico for allegedly killing a woman who refused to dance with him at a party in Cueramaro in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. According to the arrest warrant issued in Irapuato, Mexico, Hernandez-Barroso attended a party on March 12, 2005 where several women at the party allegedly refused to dance with him. As the women left the party in a pick-up truck, Hernandez-Barroso allegedly fired shots at the truck, hitting one of them in the head. The victim later died from a gunshot wound at a local clinic.

Hernandez-Barroso had been previously deported after serving a three -year sentence for a 2003 conviction in California for assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon.

On March 11, 2008, Hernandez-Barroso was arrested by the South Bend (Ind.) Police Department for drunken driving and transferred to ICE custody after a criminal records check revealed his prior removal. Re-entering the United States after being formally deported is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison. He was prosecuted in the Northern District of Indiana for re-entry after deportation, convicted, and sentenced to 46 months in prison. While Hernandez-Barroso was serving his sentence, ICE officials learned that he was wanted in Mexico on homicide charges. He was released from the Oxford Federal Correctional Institute in Wisconsin on Aug. 16 and turned over to ICE for deportation.

Hernandez-Barroso also had a criminal history in our country. He had been deported after serving a three year jail sentence upon conviction for assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon in California.

(I somehow feel compelled to ask, “Is this the sort of work Americans are not doing?” (This is the argument often posed by the immigration anarchists in insisting that our nation’s immigration laws not be enforced!)

At some point after being deported and after allegedly committing a murder in Mexico, he managed to reenter the United States illegally by presuming running our not so secure southern border.

Now here is where it gets really interesting- it is entirely possible that if Hernandez-Barroso had been living and drinking and driving (likely without a driver’s license) in a so-called “Sanctuary City” he would likely never have come to the attention of ICE and would probably still be “out there” posing a threat to the safety of the folks he lived and worked among. Fortunately for us and not so fortunately for him, he was stopped for drunk driving and arrested. The police in South Bend apparently ran his fingerprints and discovered that he had been previously deported from the United States and they contacted ICE.

This is how the system is supposed to work!

This is why it is vital that the local police routinely work cooperatively with ICE to prevent crimes of violence. Given the proclivities to commit acts of violence repeatedly demonstrated by Mr. Hernandez-Barroso, I do not think it is a stretch to say that the actions of the South Bend police officers prevented more people from being injured and, perhaps killed, by this illegal alien who apparently found our border to not pose much of a barrier to him in fleeing law enforcement authorities in Mexico.

A news release that was posted by ICE on June 21, 2011 contained an interesting paragraph:

In May, ICE officers from all 24 ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field offices throughout the nation located and arrested more than 2,400 aliens with prior criminal convictions in all 50 states. All of the criminal aliens taken into custody had prior convictions for crimes such as armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors, aggravated assault, theft, forgery and DUI. In total, 22% of the individuals ICE officers took into custody were immigration fugitives-convicted criminal aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who had failed to leave the country.

Here is a link to that news release:

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1106/110621washingtondc.htm

Here is another excerpt from another ICE press release posted on May 24, 2011:

“Between Oct. 1, 2010 and April 30,2011 ICE returned to their countries of origin more than 215,900 aliens, including 109,700 aliens with criminal convictions. Of those, 585 were convicted of homicide, 3,177 were convicted sex offenders, and 24,593 were convicted of serious drug offenses.”

Here is the link to that press release:

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1105/110524elpaso.htm

When you realize that there are millions of illegal aliens in our country for whom absolutely no record exists for their entry into the United States and you realize that there is no quick or most likely, reliable way of knowing their true identities or backgrounds, you have to understand the magnitude of the threat our porous borders pose to our nation and your have to realize how outrageous it is that instead of getting the commitment from our leaders to truly secure our borders and protect our nation and our citizens from what is truly a clear and present danger, we are mocked by the President of the United States and yet not a single GOP candidate for the Presidency has taken a clear position on the issues of securing our nation’s borders and really enforcing our nation’s immigration laws from within the interior of the United States!

The President is protected by the finest security service in the world, the United States Secret Service. Perhaps this makes it easier for him to joke about moats and alligators.

Who is protecting you and your family?

A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

If our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!

We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.

My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.

The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.

If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”

The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.

The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!

The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians. I implore you to get involved!

I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world. However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!

If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!

All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!

Additionally, on Friday afternoons from 4:00 PM until 5:00 PM, Eastern Daylight Savings Time I fill in for Tom Garcia on his show, “The American Hour” on the USA Talk Radio Network’s excellent show, “The American Hour”

I hope you will be joining me, on Fridays!

Here is the link for this program:

www.USARadioNetwork.com/tom.htm

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1109/110907chicago.htm

Michael Cutler, a former Senior INS Investigator, an expert witness in more than a dozen Congressional Hearings is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and an advisor to the ‘911 Families for a Secure America.’ He writes about the nexus between immigration and national security.