Illegal immigration affects Oregon

The current ongoing immigration surge, call it an invasion, across the United States of America’s border with Mexico by persons who have illegally entered the country is really old news revisited to those who have been victimized by foreign national criminals in Oregon.

An unpublished July 1, 2014 report from the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) indicated there were 1,099 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in the state’s prison system.

Criminal aliens made up approximately 7.5 percent of the DOC’s July 1 prison population.

All 1,099 DOC criminal aliens had U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, detainers. A detainer placed on a prisoner is an indicator that the department believes he or she may be a deportable alien.

According to the DOC’s July numbers, 28 of the 36 counties in the state (77.8 percent) had been affected by at least one alien crime that resulted in a foreign national being sent to prison.

(See list “Counties” for where the crimes were committed.)

The types of crimes, the level of violence, being committed by aliens who have illegally entered the country against the state’s residents are the type of crimes one might read about in an international newspaper or view on a television news program covering Mexico or third-world counties located in Central and South America or the Caribbean.

(See accompanying chart and list “Countries of origin.”)

Criminal aliens incarcerated in the Oregon prison system by numbers per county, by types of crime or even by countries of origin, reveal only three elements of how foreign national crime has affected and victimized the residents of this state.

Another element of foreign national crime that has affected the residents of this state is the cost to incarcerate criminal aliens in the state’s prisons; 1,099 alien prisoners cost the state’s taxpayers $34.9 million per year.

Unfortunately for Oregonians, this seemingly unchecked wave of foreign national crime and violence has gone on in the state under watch of recalcitrant Washington, D.C. politicians like Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden along with Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Kurt Schrader, Peter DeFazio and Greg Walden; politicians whose political parties during their elected tenure in office at one time controlled all three elected branches of government (The Presidency, The Senate and The House of Representatives).

These congressional representatives have done nothing legislatively that has been passed and signed into law by President Barack Obama to stop the invasion of criminal aliens preying on the residents of this state.

With leadership comes responsibility, they as a collective group of lawmakers, it would be fair to say, have the blood of those victimized by alien criminals on their hands.

Oregon’s registered voters during Oregon’s Nov. 4, 2014 election will have a chance to replace six of the seven politicians who have failed to protect citizens and resident aliens from the invasion of foreign national criminals, only Sen.Wyden is immune from the voters’ wrath during this election cycle.

Along with the possibility of replacing their congressional representation, voters in the state also will have the unique opportunity in the fall to show their members of Congress leadership on immigration legislation by voting “no” on Measure 88; legislation that would grant Driver Cards for those who cannot prove legal presence in the United States; legislation if it were to pass that could send a new wave of foreign national criminals into the state.