AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
The election is one week from today, and many people - like me - have already voted. We vote for various reasons, with various interests; the economy, health care, foreign affairs, and taxation. There are as many reasons as there are voters.
But this year illegal immigration is a major issue for many voters, and not just those in border states. Note carefully that I state illegal immigration - and no, I will not call these people "undocumented," they are here illegally, they broke our nation's laws by entering, and there's an end to it. Few, if any, Americans are concerned with legal immigration; people who come here, through the legal process, to become Americans, to take advantage of the many opportunities America offers, are welcome.
The entire problem of illegal immigration costs the American taxpayers billions of dollars in benefits paid to those people, in enforcement activities, in lost jobs, and in depressed wages, but there is a human cost that sadly runs much, much higher - that human cost comes with human faces. Here are some of those faces:
Jocelyn Nungaray. This 12-year-old girl was assaulted, bound ankle and wrist, and strangled by two known Venezuelan gang members who were caught entering the country - and released into the United States. Her body was tossed into a creek. Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos were arrested three days later, and face capital murder charges, but that won't bring Jocelyn back, nor will it assuage the pain of her grieving family. This happened because of border czar Kamala Harris' open border policies.
Laken Riley. This 22-year-old nursing student was out for a jog one morning when she was kidnapped, assaulted, hit in the head with a rock, and strangled to death. The man accused of killing her is Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. He has been charged with 10 crimes: Malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, obstructing a person making an emergency call, tampering with evidence, and being a peeping Tom. That won't bring Laken back, nor will it assuage the pain of her grieving family. This happened because of border czar Kamala Harris' open border policies.
Lizbeth Medina. This 16-year-old Texas cheerleader was stalked and stabbed to death by Rafael Govea Romero, who is in the United States illegally on an expired visa. Romero has been charged with capital murder. That won't bring Lizbeth back, nor will it assuage the pain of her grieving family.
All of these deaths happened because of border czar Kamala Harris' open border policies.
There are others. In the same month during which Laken Riley was murdered, Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, an illegal alien from Honduras, was arrested for raping an unnamed nine-year-old girl at knifepoint, and for a robbery, also committed at knifepoint. In February, in one of the most egregious displays of defiance by a criminal, one of seven illegal immigrants charged with a gang assault on New York City police officers was released, inexplicably, from custody - and flipped the bird to reporters and photographers on his way out.
As of last month, more than 13,000 immigrants who have been convicted of murder are now wandering freely around the United States. We don't know where a lot of them are. We don't know what they are doing. We don't know what their plans are. And we may very well not know until it's too late.
There's more to it than just crime. In fiscal year 2024 alone, over 400 illegal immigrants were found to be on the federal Terrorist Screening Data Set - and those are just the ones that were caught.
This simply can't be allowed to continue. And, with a little bit of luck and some decent voter turnout, it won't.
This is a brutally unpleasant topic to consider. These crimes are horrible, they are unconscionable, they are the acts of savages - and they should not have happened at all. Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, and Lizbeth Medina should be with their families today, looking forward to their futures. Instead, they are gone.
We vote for many reasons. We vote on many issues. But illegal immigration, and the very preventable crimes allowed by the Harris/Biden administration's open-border policies, must not be allowed to continue. Whatever other reasons you vote for, whatever other issues concern you, remember these stories when you cast your ballot.
