Legislature should act to fight illegal-immigrant crime

Letter date: 
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Letter publisher: 
The Oregonian
Letter author: 
Cynthia Kendoll
Letter body: 

Last summer in San Francisco, Kate Steinle was shot dead by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times. Steinle's murder sparked bills in the U.S. Senate that aimed to stiffen penalties on previously-deported illegal immigrants and de-fund the "sanctuary cities" that protect illegal immigrants from deportation.

...Oregon Senators. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley joined other Senate Democrats to kill those bills. Disturbingly, their vote came barely a week after Oregon's own Kate Steinle-type tragedy: On June 27, Bonifacio Oseguera-Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported six times, was arrested for allegedly shooting and killing three people and critically wounding a fourth in Woodburn.

The Senate's vote was but one of many federal government decisions and policies that ensure the continued presence of countless illegal-immigrant criminals....

As it does for the nation at large, illegal-immigrant crime bedevils Oregon.... almost half — some 47 percent — were in for rape and other sex crimes. Eight percent were in for assault, almost six percent for robbery, and some 11 percent for drug offenses. A shocking 14 percent were serving time for homicide.

Comes, then, the question: Given our federal government's dereliction of responsibility, what can be done at the state level to limit illegal immigrants' crimes against Oregonians?

The best way to stop illegal-immigrant crime is to prevent it. And the best way to prevent it is to dissuade illegal immigrants from coming to Oregon...

First, they should reject any new attempt to give illegal immigrants the driving privileges...

Second, they should mandate that Oregon employers vet their new hires' legal U.S. presence through the federal E-Verify system...

Third, they should pass a law to deny illegal immigrants most non-emergency state services.

And last, they should repeal Oregon Revised Statute 181.850, a de facto "sanctuary" law that presumes to limit state and local law-enforcement agencies' efforts to help apprehend illegal immigrants.

Two weeks ago, as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, I listened to heartrending speeches by parents of Americans murdered by illegal immigrants. And I heard Donald Trump promise, if elected, to protect his fellow citizens from illegal-immigrant crime via a restored, robust enforcement of immigration law.

Oregon's elected officials must do their part, as well. Illegal-immigrant crime is preventable ...

Cynthia Kendoll of Salem is president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform. Last month, she served as an at-large Oregon delegate to the Republican National Convention.

Please read the full article here