December 2, 2004
The Courier
The arrest of an illegal alien in the possession of 19 firearms, many of them semiautomatic weapons, highlights the dangers posed by illegal immigration.
If anything, such stories should prompt the federal government to expand its National Fugitive Operations Program.
The arrest occurred last week in the 1300 block of Vine Road in Conroe, where federal agents went to serve an arrest warrant on Emiliano Lugo, a Mexican national who had no criminal charges pending against him. He was being deported because he had entered the United States illegally.
When arrested, agents found 19 firearms, including nine long-arm rifles, a Browning .380-caliber handgun, a Colt Model 1911 .45-caliber, a TEC-9 9-millimeter handgun and other semiautomatic weapons.
U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement records show Lugo entered the United States illegally near Brownsville in 1992. He attempted to obtain legal status through an allegedly fraudulent marriage, but his petitions were denied.
The government began deportation proceedings, but Lugo failed to show up for any of his hearings.
That's not an uncommon story. Faced with an overflow of illegal immigrants and a serious shortage of detention beds, the government often releases immigrants facing deportation pending their hearings; most, like Lugo, never show. If the federal government is going to get serious about deportation, it needs to increase detention space for illegal immigrants like Lugo.
And with as many as 1 million people a year choosing to break the law to come into this country in the first place, it's no surprise that a large number of those end up committing other crimes. The ICE has the numbers to prove it. During fiscal year 2004, which ended Sept. 30, ICE removed 157,281 illegal immigrants from the United States, a record-breaking number. Of those, nearly 53 percent were aliens who had been convicted of a crime in the United States.
If an undocumented immigrant with no criminal record can end up with an arsenal inside his home, what other threats are still out there? How many terrorists have infiltrated our borders, waiting for a chance to strike while they assemble their own arsenals? That is the deadly threat posed by our out-of-control borders; it's time to regain control.
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