Posted on 08/14/2007 8:26:26 AM PDT by ovrtaxt
I was just about to speak to the Republican gathering in Ames, Iowa, Saturday when I learned something so distressing that it caused me to change the topic of my speech.
By now you have heard about the three young college students who were murdered execution-style in Newark, N.J., last week. Another student was shot in the head but survived.
What you might not have heard is that the shooter in this horrendous crime was in the country illegally.
This was not his first vicious crime. He was indicted last month for raping a five-year-old girl repeatedly over a four-year period and threatening to kill her family.
And 10 months ago, he was charged with assaulting patrons in a bar.
A career criminal whose illegal status, Fox News reports, the authorities have known since his prior arrests.
A murderer who, despite all these facts, was still free on a Saturday night to line up four young people in a Newark schoolyard and shoot them in the head.
At the funeral of one of the young victims, Newark Mayor Cory Booker pounded the coffin and shouted, "Enough is enough!"
He was more right than he knew.
The War Here at Home
There is a war here at home, and it is even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Far more Americans are being killed by violent, evil people here in America than in our official military "combat zones" overseas.
The truth is, all too many Americans are being killed. But what is so completely senseless is having the lives of three young, achieving students cut brutally short by someone who not only should not have been in the United States in the first place but also, after two previous arrests for violence, should not have been on the streets. Instead, the suspected killer should have been in jail awaiting trial, sentencing, prison and eventual deportation.
Another case in point: Authorities are now seeking an additional suspect in the Newark killings -- yet another suspected illegal alien.
The second suspect is a Nicaraguan national who was ordered deported in 1993 but clearly never left. He, too, has a long record of arrests for violent crimes going all the way back to 1999.
New Jersey was already recently in the news for its failure to protect its citizens from illegal aliens when the federal government arrested six would-be terrorists for plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix. We soon learned that three of them had been illegally in the U.S. for 23 years, during which they had been charged by the New Jersey police more than 75 times. And still, our government never discovered they were here illegally.
Now the failure of our government to determine if a criminal is here illegally and to detain him has played a role in the execution-style killing of three young college students and the shooting in the head of a fourth student.
The Government of the United States Is Not Protecting the People of America
Yet the problem is by no means confined to New Jersey.
Mayor Booker cannot protect the people of Newark if the government of the United States is not protecting the people of America.
The federal government's incompetence, timidity and uncoordinated efforts to identify and deport criminal illegal aliens have had devastating consequences for innocent Americans.
While Fox News has reported that immigration authorities knew that the Newark shooter was here illegally, the Newark Star Ledger quoted Mark Ali, head of the Essex County Prosecutor's child abuse unit, who "questioned whether immigration officials would have taken any action to detain [the shooter] even if they had been notified of his prior arrests."
Ali told the Star Ledger: "In 19 years, I have called immigration maybe a dozen times, and not once have they come to put a detainer or arrest someone."
Trapped in Partisan Wrangling as Usual
As a father and grandfather, I am outraged that our government failed to protect these four promising young people in Newark.
As an American, I am sickened that the political leadership of America could continue to go on vacation and do nothing, even when there was the most painful and tragic proof of the failure of the current system.
As I told the crowd at Ames, a fundamental reality of where we are as a country is this: Real change requires real change.
No matter how painful, big or urgent the problem, we are trapped in politics as usual and partisan wrangling as usual:
Real Change Requires a Special Congressional Session
The President should call Congress back into special session for three days to pass a single, decisive bill.
It should be called the "Terrance Aeriel, Dashon Harvey, Iofemi Hightower Act" in honor of the three young students who lost their lives due to their government's failure to protect them.
We need a special session because, as the Newark Mayor said, "enough is enough."
Either Congress will pass a bill to establish a new system for winning the war here at home and protecting Americans from criminal illegal aliens or Congress will fail to act and we would know we need a new Congress.
Either way, enough is enough.
The President, too, ought to be furious at the failure of bureaucracies to protect the American people.
Why are the August vacations for the President and the Congress more precious than the lives of young Americans who are being killed because of government incompetence and inaction?
The Aeriel-Harvey-Hightower Act to Protect Americans
The Aeriel-Harvey-Hightower Act should be very simple and straightforward:
The War at Home Is Just as Important as the War Abroad
The issue is simple: Either Congress and the President want to defend innocent Americans from violent illegal aliens or they don't.
Either the killing of three young Americans is a horrendous event that requires us to act or we will go on with politics as usual while young Americans in our inner cities are massacred by people who should not be here.
There is a war here at home that is just as important as the war against terrorism overseas.
There are combat casualties here in America just as there are combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When you watch the President and the members of Congress on their August vacations, ask yourself why they can't spend a few days honoring the lost lives of Dashon Harvey, Terrance Aeriel and Iofemi Hightower by passing a law to save their younger relatives from the same tragic end.
We Should Demand More of Our Leaders, or We Should Get New Leaders.
Real change will only come when we, the American people, insist on real change.
A special session would be one step toward real change.
A law establishing a system for identifying felons who are here illegally and detaining them would be real change.
Having the government take responsibility for its failures would be real change.
More talk and more pious hand wringing while doing nothing is just politics and bureaucracy as usual.
We should demand more of our leaders, or we should get new leaders.
Imagine that these four college students had been your children, your nieces or nephews. We cannot expect Mayor Booker to defend Newark if the government of the United States does not defend America, and we need to win the war at home as much as we need to win the war overseas.
Please pray for the families and friends of these students.
Seems the illegal was doing a job that Americans wouldn’t do.
He IS exactly right, and as a result, EXACTLY NOTHING will change in response to this horrendous incident. It will happen over and over and over again. Until some DC pol with an actual spine and a set of testosterone producing glands, stands up and says, THIS WILL END NOW! AND THIS IS HOW WE ARE GONNA DO IT!.........
The biggest threat to this country is not Iraq but the open border and the hordes of illegal aliens who have invaded this country. From the amnesty vote, it is obvious that the enemy has already infiltrated our government.
How can he repeatedly rape a five-year old over a four year period?
Imagine sitting on a NO levy board and knowing that the welfare of the city depended on the vote of some senile old senator from Alaska. A city like NO, being a major port, should be prosperous on its own. Most cities in the world have been ports. The feds must have wrongly claimed revenues from ports thereby starving them of their own revenue and making them dependant on per capita revenue sharing schemes, instead.
As usual, Newt does not look to how the government creates problems. He's just for more government.
Face it, things like this will never change, there’s too much money in politics.
We need term limits, period, senators and reps should be only allowed to serve 2 consecutive 4 year terms, and after your time is up that person should be restricted from working in a government post for 2 years after the completion of their terms.
This would help prevent out elected officials from getting too greedy in office, and if they do, they’ll be out in a few years anyways.
Sorry, I dont mean to minimise the seriousness of the offense, it just struck me as being a bit suspect.
I tuned Newt out years ago. Even when he makes a point my revulsion of him and his ego can’t bear listening. He’s hoping to be begged to run.
I agree, as far as that goes.
Nevertheless, he’s right about this.
Now that war has spread into the interior parts of the US.
Over the ;ast few years we have had quite a few women killed by illegals, including a young actress in New York, Adrienne Shelly
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[http://blogmeisterusa.mu.nu/archives/204653.php]
November 10, 2006 NY Actress Murdered By Illegal UPDATE
The other day, I posted about the murder of indie-film actress Adrienne Shelly in NYC by an illegal alien who was given a job.
Today, Michelle Malkin discusses it, and also highlights the liberal policies that led to this tragic event.
To refine something I said in my original post, the quest for cheap labor has cost Shelly's family more than can ever be repaid.
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Its good to finally see Newt swing around to Duncan Hunters thinking. Duncan has had this position for over three years!
There...Fixed it!
The points you make are correct. But his solution is simple- law enforcement.
A much as I hate big government, law enforcement is a legitimate role.
You are right. And enforcement would go a long way to alleviate these problems.
He raped her until she was 9. It was poorly stated by the “writer”.
NEWT FOR PRESIDENT
He’s not entirely right. One thing he does not point out, for example, is that the local authorities in NJ who are now blaming the Feds actually never reported the man’s illegal status, even while they had him in the criminal justice system. They knew about it, did not report it, and even gave him bail.
Don’t forget, Newark is a “sanctuary city,” something the Mayor of Newark himself seems to have conveniently forgotten.
He is right. I posted about it elsewhere, but a close friend of mine; his sister was kidnapped, beaten and raped by an illegal alien that worked at the same place she did. And he had a violent record. Makes what Newt is saying hit home.
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