By Rene Sotolongo:
Have we lost all sanity? Sanctuary cities, are you kidding me? How irresponsible are our feckless politicians?
Close to 3,000 people lost their lives in the attack on 9/11. This was one of the worst terrorist attacks in human history and it only took 19 terrorists to accomplish what many thought was impossible. Yet now we have the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio vowing to protect its undocumented illegal immigrants. 
Then you have the Mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, vowing to keep San Francisco a sanctuary city. Is this not the same San Francisco where 45-year-old Francisco Sanchez – a seven time felon with five deportations – shot and killed Kate Steinle in broad daylight?
In fact, Sanchez was facing his sixth deportation, but authorities released him because San Francisco is a so-called sanctuary city. And the worst part? Mr. Sanchez publicly declared in an ABC interview that he chose the location specifically because it is a sanctuary city.
Over 300 municipalities around the country have now initiated policies that prevent law enforcement authorities from asking about the legal status of residents or criminals they come in contact with.
Have we lost all sense or reason?
The 9/11 commission found “multiple failures that enabled the terrorists to not only enter the United States but embed themselves hidden in plain sight.” If just 19 terrorists were able to kill close to 3,000 people, imagine what 10,000 terrorists hiding in sanctuary cities would be able to do.
The reality is that, according to the New York Times, Factcheck.org, Fox News and countless other news organizations, there are already over 2,290 unvetted Syrian refugees that have been scattered across the US. In 2015 the Obama administration announced that number would reach 10,000.
And the facts speak for themselves.
Documents obtained by Judical Watch (under the Freedom of Information Act) from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department prove that Sanctuary Cities are extremely dangerous. The documents reveal that violent crime has skyrocketed since 2011. Murder arrests are up by 55%. Rapes are up 370%. That is not a typo – it is a three hundred and seventy percent increase in rapes.
According to Breitbart News, in 2013, the San Francisco Sheriff and City Council expanded their infamous illegal alien sanctuary policies. The City changed policies and passed an ordinance that required local law enforcement to ignore most U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers.
Recall that ICE detainers require San Francisco authorities to hold detained illegal alien criminals until federal authorities determine their legal status (i.e. deportation order, etc.) and whether or not to take them into custody.
But as bad as these numbers are, they are only the tip of the iceberg. Despite the increased arrests for violent crimes, the overall arrest rate has plunged by 42 percent, according to Max Szabo, spokesman for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.
More crimes and less arrests. Does any of this make any sense?
Citizens, and even some politicians, understand that when San Francisco and other sanctuary cities release illegal alien criminals onto the streets, crime is going to increase. These new crime statistics suggest there are more murders and an epidemic of rape linked to San Francisco’s release of illegal alien criminals in violation of federal law.
Other Judicial Watch litigation forced the release of documents that show the Obama administration released 165,900 convicted criminal aliens throughout the United States, including many convicted of such violent crimes as homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, and aggravated assault.
And then you have the drug epidemic to contend with.
For those of you following me, you’ll recall I wrote an article on Afghanistan, the Heroin trade and the Golden Crescent. In that article we reported how opium production in Afghanistan was less than 200 tons in 2001. In 2009 (after our “invasion”) that number jumped to over 6,900 tons. In fact, according to the United Nations, Afghanistan provides over 90% of the world’s supply of opium.
According to the White House, The DEA, and NBC news (just to name a few) a majority of that heroin is coming into the United States by – you guessed it- sanctuary cities by using none other than the United States Post Office.
In fact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sounding the alarm about a worsening heroin epidemic here in the U.S.
It is a fact according to the Majority Staff Report of the House Committee on Homeland Security, “Not all illegal aliens are crossing into the United States to find work. Law enforcement officials indicate that there are individuals coming across the border who are forced to leave their home countries because of criminal activities. These dangerous criminals are fleeing the law in other countries and seeking refuge in the United States… the presence of millions of undocumented persons in our country has provided a perfect cover for various forms of criminal activity, ranging from drug trafficking to prostitution to identity theft to Terrorism.”
But it gets worse, in addition to drug trafficking and increased crime rates, illegal aliens also have higher rates of drunk driving and may have higher rates of sexual deviancy. Not surprisingly, “according to the radical Hispanic advocacy group, El Pueblo, “Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Hispanics in North Carolina; more than 20 percent compared to only 2.2 percent for Whites and 2.4 for African Americans.” And that’s just in North Carolina.
A 2006 report by the UNC Highway Safety Research Center likewise concluded that Hispanic drivers involved in crashes are two-and-a-half times more likely to be intoxicated than are whites; and three times more likely than blacks.
Finally, a study by Dr. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin concluded that “there are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also runs a special program, “Operation Predator,” which targets foreign nationals who commit sex crimes against children. To date, more than 10,000 individuals have been arrested through this ICE initiative, resulting in more than 5,500 deportations.
How long do we let the insanity continue? Even one death at the hands of an illegal alien is one too many. How many murders, rapes and cases of child abuse could we prevent by deporting illegal aliens and by shutting down sanctuary cities?
Concerns about increased threats of terror attacks are a major topic in Congressional hearings, yet “Sanctuary Cities” continue to flourish. They flourish with the tacit approval of the Obama administration even though they are clearly operating in violation of federal law.
Consider Title 8, U.S.C. 1324(a) Offenses:
Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.
Encouraging/Inducing — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who — encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.
Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.
So I say, again, what part of “illegal” do we not understand? Prosecute those who violate the law…PERIOD.
Rene C. Sotolongo is an OpsLens Contributor and a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer who served for over twenty years as an Information Systems official. Sotolongo also specialized in homeland security and counterterrorism.
