Letters page
If an angel appeared to announce another impending world-wide flood of the entire earth, members of Congress would still plan to take five-week vacations before deciding when and where to build a boat like the Ark. By majority rule perhaps they then would ascertain that responding to a religious message would not tarnish the halls of Congress. However, the Senate would insist on months of environmental impact studies since all the waters of this nation, including backyard pollywog puddles, are governed under state or federal jurisdiction. Putting this project out for bids might take weeks to find dues-paying union workers, not those common, highly qualified shipyard craftsmen who work at a conservative rate. It also needs to be determined as to whether these important workers be given health benefits equal to that of congressional members whose extensive health coverage is not sanctioned by Obamacare. Another obstacle might be finding wide ship-building planks due to major restrictions of logging in old growth forests; therefore, it might become necessary to piece together used barrel staves.
It’s beyond comprehension how the governing body of this nation, who are elected to supposedly represent the people’s best interests, can spend so much money and accomplish so little while still being able to sleep at night. Likewise our Campaigner-in-Chief President seems focused on taxpayer-funded vacations or fundraising for the Democrat party. Like Nero who supposedly fiddled while Rome burned, Obama plays golf.
It’s unbelievable that action wasn’t taken years ago to secure our southern border. And Congress can’t make decisive choices. Along with the torrential influx of illegal people streaming across the border that will overwhelm all welfare resources for years to come, it is frightening to think how terrorists could also easily infiltrate our country. Also of concern is the threat of infectious diseases from measles to smallpox that could be spread similar to the Ebola outbreak in Africa that is taking a drastic toll. While this nation attempts to keep harmful pathogens at bay, under the present circumstances there could also be an outbreak of animal diseases such as Hoof and Mouth Disease that is prevalent in parts of South America. A rampant outbreak of this type could decimate our livestock industry.
Hopefully it won’t take a flood of Biblical proportions to make a change. All the intervention we need is some good old common sense.
Vice President Biden recently referred to the children crossing our border illegally as "our children." My first reaction was to think he should set an example and adopt one...
...the purpose of fostering the influx is to create future members of the Democratic Party.
Town Halls, please
... I was hoping that my Congresswoman, Suzanne Bonamici, would have a Town Hall meeting...she is not – for the month of August anyway.
...she would want to do some explaining as to why she voted "No" on the bill that would keep President Obama from granting amnesty to immigrants without approval of Congress. I am very disappointed that Congresswoman Bonamici is behind the president on this. She will not get my support in November.
...pleased to see that Rep. Greg Walden was having three and Rep. Peter DeFazio 17. Congressmen Earl Blumenauer and Schrader are having zero Town Hall meetings this month.
...The lack of meetings suggests they are afraid to face their constituents and face the music.
President Obama was elected on promises of “hope” and “change.” We’ve definitely seen the change, but we haven’t yet found the hope.
Thousands of people are breaking into America’s house through our southern door; the national debt will soon be double the $10 trillion it was six years ago; more than 100 million able Americans can’t find work; record numbers are living in poverty, and there are numerous unanswered scandals, including using government agencies to intimidate the president’s opponents.
The administration is lying about its failing health care plan and a foreign policy that’s made the world a more dangerous place, to further its agenda. America is now a laughingstock when it comes to anything our administration says.
Democrats have been in control in Washington for nearly six years and Obama vacations, attends fund-raisers and seems totally disengaged.
In Oregon the governor who took an oath to defend our laws says he won’t enforce the death penalty (or any other law he disapproves of) and has proposed giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses without their having to meet legal requirements Oregonians must meet. He also didn’t instruct our attorney general to defend our voter-approved one man/one woman marriage law (which was overturned by a homosexual judge who was recommended by Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley).
Democrats have been the majority political party in Oregon for decades. Hope will be long in coming to Oregon and to the United States so long as Democrats remain in the majority.
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 of 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 7.51 percent of the DOC’s July 1st prison population.
All 1,099 DOC criminal aliens had U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), detainers. An ICE detainer placed on a prisoner is an indicator that U.S. DHS–ICE believes he or she may be a deportable alien.
According to the DOC’s July numbers 28 of the 36 counties in the state (77.78 percent) had been impacted by at least one alien crime that resulted in a foreign national being sent to prison.
What follows is a list of 15 Oregon counties whose County Circuit Courts adjudicated cases that sent the most criminal aliens (95.36 percent) to serve time in DOC prisons:
- 267 Multnomah, 24.29 percent of alien prisoners;
- 264 Marion, 24.02 percent of alien prisoners;
- 186 Washington, 16.92 percent of alien prisoners;
- 76 Clackamas, 6.91 percent of alien prisoners;
- 57 Lane, 5.19 percent of alien prisoners;
- 49 Jackson, 4.46 percent of alien prisoners;
- 29 Yamhill, 2.64 percent of alien prisoners;
- 26 Linn, 2.36 percent of alien prisoners;
- 18 Deschutes, 1.64 percent of alien prisoners;
- 17 Umatilla, 1.55 percent of alien prisoners;
- 16 Polk, 1.45 percent of alien prisoners;
- 14 Benton, 1.27 percent of alien prisoners;
- 12-Malheur, 1.09 percent of alien prisoners;
- 9 Lincoln, 0.82 percent of alien prisoners;
- 8 Klamath, 0.73 percent of alien prisoners.
Oregon’s remaining 11 counties sent 51 foreign nationals to prison, 4.64 percent of alien prisoners.
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 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.
Here is how the 1,099 criminal aliens currently in the DOC prison population violently, brutally and mercilessly victimized the residents of this state:
- 199 sex abuses, 18.11 percent of alien crimes;
- 172 rapes, 15.65 percent of alien crimes;
- 161 drugs, 14.65 percent of alien crimes;
- 145 homicides, 13.19 percent of alien crimes;
- 103 assaults, 9.37 percent of alien crimes;
- 93 sodomies, 8.46 percent of alien crimes;
- 68 robberies, 6.19 percent of alien crimes;
- 44 kidnappings, 4.00 percent of alien crimes;
- 23 burglaries, 2.09 percent of alien crimes;
- 13 driving offenses, 1.18 percent of alien crimes;
- 12 thefts, 1.09 percent of alien crimes;
- 5 vehicle thefts, 0.45 percent of alien crimes;
- 2 arsons, 0.18 percent of alien crimes;
- 2-forgeries, 0.18 percent of alien crimes.
The remaining 57 foreign nationals in the state’s prisons committed other types of crime or a combination of the preceding crimes, 5.19 percent of alien crimes.
Focusing on the Americas and Caribbean, 976 of the 1,099 criminal aliens (88.81 percent) in the DOC prison system self-declared their citizenship from the following nations:
- 884 Mexico, 80.44 percent of alien prisoners;
- 34 Guatemala, 3.09 percent of alien prisoners;
- 15 El Salvador, 1.36 percent of alien prisoners;
- 11 Honduras, 1.00 percent of alien prisoners;
- 11 Cuba, 1.00 percent of alien prisoners;
- 5 Canada, 0.45 percent of alien prisoners;
- 3 Ecuador, 0.27 percent of alien prisoners;
- 3 Peru, 0.27 percent of alien prisoners;
- 2 Costa Rica, 0.18 percent of alien prisoners;
- 2 Jamaica, 0.18 percent of alien prisoners;
- 2 Nicaragua, 0.18 percent of alien prisoners;
- 1 Argentina, one Belize, one Brazil and one Panama, the four preceding numbers combined, 0.36 percent of alien prisoners.
One hundred twenty-three criminal aliens were sent to the state’s prisons from various other counties around the world, 11.19 percent of the alien prisoners.
Criminal aliens incarcerated in the DOC 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 $34,930,835.80 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 law makers, 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 November 4, 2014 General 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 Senator Wyden is immune from the voters’ wrath during this election cycle.
Along with the possibility of replacing their congressional representation, voters in the state will also 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.
David Olen Cross of Salem writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. He is a weekly guest on the Lars Larson Northwest Show. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com or at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/.
Officials are laying the groundwork for a large scale expansion of immigration law violations.
Our elected Congressional representatives oppose these comprehensive dictatorial edicts, and their implementation would prompt a major clash with angry American people.
None of the broad-sweeping White House possibility options include comprehensive immigration law enforcement.
Do executive dictatorial edicts that change or violate existing laws break the Presidential oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution? If so, what corrective recourse might be available to the American people?
There have been reports in the news about Hamas using children as shields in the Gaza-Israel war and then displaying their bodies to gain sympathy.
Using children that way is a crime.
Similarly, to court the Hispanic vote the Democratic Party has invited impoverished children to leave their homes and to swarm over our southern border.
That’s also is a crime, because it can terrify and endanger the children.
Although politicians strive to fan hatred of the opposition while lusting for power, higher standards of human decency toward children should be hoped for in our country.
Regarding the current ongoing Central American illegal immigration: My response has nothing to do with humanitarianism, it has to do with sanity.
The nation is under siege. The economy is struggling, despite the optimistic picture portrayed in a recent letter to the editor. Our public institutions are underfunded.
The infrastructure needs repair and the government continues to assume more debt and taking the risk of going bankrupt in the process. How can we assume the responsibility of giving these thousands of illegals an education, as well as providing them with health care? Who is concerned about our citizens and their children? There are children in the U.S. going to bed hungry, and here we are taking on another country’s responsibility. What are we thinking?
Since this illegal immigration of children has been going on since 2011, why weren’t we citizens informed of this activity long before now? Was it because the number of illegals crossing the border weren’t in great enough numbers to cause concern, or was it kept under cover to keep us quiet?
Does one really believe that the Democrats are the humanitarians they profess to be? The administration is catering to La Raza and the Mexican vote to ensure continued power for the Democratic Party and their march to socialism and thrashing the Constitution in the process. Wake up America!
Both parties in power have been derelict in their duties to uphold the Constitution and the laws of our country. Shame on them.
According to estimates, the government’s plan is to reunite these illegal children with illegals already in this country — presumably relatives — with no questions asked as to their legal status. So now, we have illegals being reunited with illegals already established in our country.
What are we thinking?
I would like to address the gentlemen that was irate with us conservatives with our border fiasco.
He kept referring to these children as “poor immigrant children.” No, they are “illegal immigrant children.” By the way, my grandfather came to America from Poland in 1889 legally. It cost him around $400 and took him close to five years. In 1889, $400 was a lot of money.
Going back to our border: In 2012, Obama wanted Congress to pass the “Dream Act” bill. As it was presented to Congress; the bill was way too broad, and had amnesty all over it. So, Congress dropped it. Obama passed a version of it by executive order.
According to our Constitution; the Executive Branch is supposed to enforce our laws — not make them — that’s Congress’ duty. Obama’s executive order prompted the “traffickers” and “coyotes” in Mexico to start up a business of bringing young Central Americans to our borders at a cost of between $5,000 to $7,000 a person.
Homeland Security saw this coming and so did others. A document uncovered by CNN early in June stated that Homeland Security told their accounting to start procuring transportation for approximately 60,000 to 65,000 unaccompanied illegal minors that would be crossing our borders.
That 25 percent would be transported by local transportation — 25 percent would be transported by ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement) — and 50 percent would be transported by commercial planes. This Homeland Security document came out Feb. 2.
Going back to the border! There is no “humanitarian crisis on our border.” What we have is a “leadership crisis” on our border.
Unlike Oregon, Massachusetts driver’s licenses for illegals was vetted properly, through the Legislature, and was defeated.
Massachusetts became the 11th state in 2014 to consider driver’s licenses for illegals, House Bill 3285, and shut it down.
Opponents argued it would make Massachusetts a magnet for illegal immigrants, reward illegal behavior and shield illegals from federal law enforcement.
Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson testified against it, asking the question, “… Do the laws really matter?”
New Mexico, having granted licenses to illegals since 2003, has actually seen the rate of uninsured motorists increase and now has “the second highest percentage of uninsured drivers.”
Oregon’s November ballot will ask some variant of the question regarding driver’s licenses for illegals, thanks to the heavy lifting of Oregonians For Immigration Reform.
Had Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber vetted this idea properly, this bit of election drama could very well have been avoided.
