OPINION:
Once again, America is confronted with the headline horror of U.S. citizens being killed by an illegal — a previously deported illegal, to boot.
This time? It’s Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson, 26, and his Uber driver, Jeffrey Monroe, 54. Here we go again.
It’s tragic.
Tragic and senseless. Honestly, Congress needs a dramatic mindset shift, one that places them in the same situation being endured by U.S. citizens — one that tears down the gated community walls behind which they hide and feign concern for their fellow Americans and puts them right on the streets where illegals roam.
The guy who’s been arrested for drunkenly plowing his vehicle into Jackson and Monroe before fleeing the scene on foot is Manuel Orrego-Savala, a 37-year-old illegal who first entered the United States in 2004, and who was then convicted of driving under the influence in 2005, ordered removed from the country in 2006, deported to Guatemala in 2007 — and who then came back into the states, illegally, shortly after. In 2009, he was again deported.
On top of that: “Besides the two deportations and DUI conviction, Orrego-Savala has many other misdemeanor arrests and convictions in California and Indiana,” ABC News reported.
If Orrego-Savala hadn’t sneaked back into America, and allegedly committed this heinous act. both Jackson and Monroe would likely still be alive. There’s no way to spin that; it’s the blunt truth.
But politicians on Capitol Hill are still dickering and dithering with tightening borders, clamping down on illegal crossings, dealing with DACA — in other words, keeping American citizens safe from those who don’t legally belong in America.
President Donald Trump’s got it right, when he tweeted: “So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed @Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the Border, and with illegal immigration, FAST!”
But not just “Dems” — Republicans, too.
The borders under the previous administration were virtually non-existent, and for that, America still seems to be paying a price. Just ask the families of Jackson and Monroe.
The Republican-dominated Congress has a real chance to rectify this situation and pressure their amnesty-minded colleagues to either cave or explain to a grieving American people just why they won’t protect U.S. borders from illegals who seek to do harm. Yet it’s all talk, little action.
How many more innocent citizens must die before the GOP-led Congress takes advantage of a White House that is only all-too-willing to sign off on tough border controls?
It’s almost as if Republican members are simply trying to stall — to wait until this president is replaced by another who isn’t so tough on the borders, or until November elections bring a Democratic majority. Then? Well then they’ll have an easy excuse to sell to the American people on why they can’t clamp borders, one that goes like this: Sorry, citizens, we don’t have the majority any more. Already their excuse is they don’t have the 60-vote voice in the Senate.
But these excuses have worn thin. People are dying. People are being killed.
Fact is, congressional members should look at border control like this: Imagine your daughter brutally murdered by an illegal.
Imagine your son cut down in the prime of his life by a drunken man with several previous deportations, several past arrests and convictions.
Imagine, just imagine, if that killed person in the news right now wasn’t Jackson but, say, Malia Obama, the former president’s daughter.
Very likely border bills would come flying left and right, from both Democrats and Republicans, and at least one with tough crackdowns would sail through both sides of Congress.
Isn’t Jackson worth the same as Malia? Isn’t Monroe’s life as valuable as that of a congressman’s child?
The American people think so. The American people want to be treated as if their lives, their families, their futures count as much as those whose salaries they pay for political representation. And right now, with all the illegals running around killing and injuring people, and the tone of Capitol Hill a collective shoulder shrug, fact is, they don’t. Americans feel as if they’re being treated like second-class citizens with second-class priorities because, well, they are. And that’s a tragedy in and of itself.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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