Illegal immigration is, among other things, a crime that breeds further crime.
This is a grim fact that the open-borders advocates rarely discuss.
Crimes of passion and bank robberies, on the other hand are usually, to use the English phrase, "one-off" actions. Deplorable as they are, they are self-contained events and do not usually lead to other, on-going criminal activities.
I have not seen this typology before, but perhaps some criminologists have been using it for years.
Illegal immigration falls into the same category as violating today's drug laws, or the prohibition laws of years ago. These are all crime-generating crimes.
It isn't that Joe Smith grows a little weed, and sells it to his friends; if that were all there was to it, it would not be very worrisome.
No, the weed and the cocaine and the heroin are usually grown in bulk, often in some distant place; then the drugs are processed; then they are packaged and shipped to wholesalers who sell them to dealers, and finally onto the ultimate customer. All of these acts are both illegal and very profitable.
But what is much, much worse that any of these activities per se are the accompanying crimes, both the public-sector corruption and the bloody private-sector turf battles as rival gangs seek to control, and profit from, the various steps in the process.
In the case of Afghanistan and its poppies, the by-products of the opium sales to distant individuals are so significant, and so corrupting, that the trade helps influence the very shape of the nation's governance, and is a major obstacle to U.S. interests in the area.
Similarly, the drug wars in Mexico are another dramatic example of the terrifying complications that can grow out of the apparently mild crime of buying a little marijuana.
While none of these sweeping thoughts were contained in it, a recent ICE press release described one of the more spectacular instances of violent crime following in the wake of illegal entries.
A gang of coyotes had brought about 25 illegals across the Rio Grande and then, according to court documents, "the smuggled aliens are transported to locations south of various [Border Patrol] check points where they are guided on foot to locations north of the check points. The smuggled aliens are [later] transported to Houston, Texas where they are sometimes held at places called 'stash houses' until their relatives and/or friends pay the alien smugglers a fee for their release . . ."
Among the coyotes guiding and ransoming this group of illegals was one Eliceo Moctezuma-Cisneros, a man who also has six other names. He was an illegal alien himself, who had been arrested and deported after at least one previous trip to the U.S.
On the evening of March 29 Moctezuma-Cisneros interacted violently with a Honduran citizen, presumably an illegal alien also, named Kenneth Barahona. Let's pick up the story from the complaint against the latter filed in court:
Barahona stated he was at his residence [in Houston] when he received a telephone call from a friend he knows only as "Snake". Barahona stated that "Snake" told him he had a "lick", which he defined as a way to make money, involving illegal immigrants. Barahona stated "Snake" told him they could make as much as $20,000 USD . . . Barahona stated "Snake" knew some "coyotes" had just smuggled a group of undocumented aliens into the United States and would have at least $18,000 on them.
Barahona agreed to raid the stash house with Snake, put on a garment bearing "ICE" on it, and, working with "Snake," sought to capture the illegals. Much gunfire followed, and both Barahona, the raider, and Moctezuma-Cisneros, the raidee, wound up with bullet wounds, presumably from shooting each other. Both were arrested, convicted, and sent to jail for several years, with deportation slated to follow.
Readers who subscribe to PACER, the federal court electronic reporting system, can read more about the respective adventures of Barahona at Case 4:10-mj-00264, document 1 and of Moctezuma-Cisneros at Case 4:10-cr-00257, document 20, both filed in the Southern District of Texas (TXSD.)
In this case the bad guys wound up shooting each other, being arrested, and being convicted by the feds, but in all too many cases the violence is one-way, and no one is arrested.
There is, of course, plenty of nonviolent crime that follows in the wake of illegal entry. Most illegals come to work, and then proceed to buy forged documents and/or steal identities of citizens as they seek to obtain jobs in the U.S. These nonviolent crimes presumably are far, far more numerous than the violent ones.
A particularly unattractive example of the former behavior was reported recently in a news story. A U.S. Marine, just returned from overseas to his base at Miramar, Calif., started to get dunning notices for unpaid bills in Kansas; these, in turn, related to an illegal alien named Inocente Monroy-Alcantara, who had stolen the Marine's identity both to get a job in a slaughterhouse and to obtain a credit card. Inocente wound up in jail and will be deported after he serves his time. The Marine, understandably, asked that his name not be revealed.
It would be helpful if the crime-begetting nature of the crime of illegal immigration were more widely recognized.