OPINION:
The establishment poured scorn on former President Donald Trump when he dared suggest the Third World was emptying its prisons into this country. The mere suggestion that cutthroats, bandits and predators had concealed themselves among the millions crossing America’s undefended border illegally was decried as racist.
We learned Friday that Mr. Trump was right. Rep. Tony Gonzales, Texas Republican, released the official figures he received from the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outlining how many hardened desperadoes have entered illegally and remain free.
As of July, there were 425,431 convicted criminals in the country illegally, plus 222,141 immigrants who have been charged with crimes in their home countries.
“That’s over 647,572 migrant criminals that are in our country,” Mr. Trump said last Friday in a speech in Michigan. “It’s a killing machine. It’s a killing machine, and they’re killing people all over our country.”
ICE listed each of the offenses committed. There are 13,099 convicted murderers on the loose, along with 1,845 accused killers loose in the United States. Border agents often identified these thugs and called on the assistance of local police to stop them — only to be rebuffed.
“In recent years, however, as you know, some jurisdictions have reduced their cooperation with ICE, to include refusal to honor ICE detainer requests, even for noncitizens who have been convicted of serious felonies and pose an ongoing threat to public safety,” wrote Patrick J. Lechleitner, ICE acting director.
Fake “fact checks” insist there’s no truth to Mr. Trump’s assertion that foreign governments are emptying their prisons and mental wards to dump these dangerous individuals into the United States.
The statistics offered by the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence say otherwise. In Caracas, the number of violent deaths per 100,000 residents plunged from 77.9 in 2021 to 19.1 in 2023, which works out to a 75% drop — exactly as Mr. Trump has described.
Importing members of deadly gangs, such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, poses a danger, but the intruders are coming from all over the globe. There’s no way to know whether hostile foreign powers are putting in place assets for a future assault of the sort Hamas pulled off against Israel last Oct. 7.
Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden’s border czar, hasn’t just been giving killers a free pass. ICE has identified 969 convicted or accused arsonists, 20,061 rapists, 7,088 peeping toms, 3,372 kidnappers, 17,567 burglars and 3,852 car thieves in the country right now.
Democrats will deny their complicity and blame the GOP for blocking their disingenuous border legislation. That bill was shot down on a bipartisan vote and would have left the border wide open. It was introduced only to provide a campaign-trail talking point for Mr. Biden (and now Ms. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee).
That’s the same Biden-Harris administration that has been flying unvetted foreigners into the country on the taxpayer dime, using the CBP One program that grants asylum status to anyone who pushes a button on a smartphone app.
It’s Democrats — and some Senate Republicans — who blocked the construction of most of Mr. Trump’s border wall during his administration. It’s Democrats who created the sanctuary city policies that prevent ICE from doing its job.
Polls show the public is furious, often listing immigration as a top issue along with the economy. That’s why Ms. Harris is desperate as the campaign enters the homestretch to feign concern about border security.
It’s too little, too late.
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