Guy W. Farmer: Crime rates talk distracts from Iowa murder

The Reno Gazette-Journal late last month devoted more than a half page of valuable newsprint to a USA Today story attempting to downplay the murder of a 20-year-old Iowa coed by an illegal immigrant. Shame on them!

“NO ... Immigrants Don’t Commit More Crimes than U.S.-Born People,” screamed the boldface RGJ headline on page one of its national and international news section. The first problem with this headline is that we’re not writing about all “immigrants;” we’re writing about ILLEGAL immigrants. The USA Today article by Alan Gomez asserted that the incarceration rate for illegals is lower than it is for native-born Americans, but that’s not the issue. The issue is thousands of heinous crimes, including rape and murder, committed by immigrants who don’t belong here in the first place.

After downplaying crimes committed by illegal immigrants (they’re not illegal, just “undocumented”), including the fact they’re here illegally, Gomez acknowledged that it’s difficult to assess the criminality of immigrants “because statistics are hard to come by.” Duh! Just try to find out from the RGJ and local law enforcement whether people arrested in Northern Nevada for crimes like drug trafficking and murder are legal or illegal. They either don’t know, or won’t say.

They also don’t want to talk about gang affiliations; however, my friend Larry Martines, a former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who specialized in gangs and terrorism, tells me that ultra-violent, Central America-based MS-13 is quite active in our area, and I believe him. Just look at the increasing number of random shootings in our area. Nevertheless, Mayor Hillary Schieve says Reno is a “welcoming” city. So, does she welcome bloodthirsty MS-13 gang-bangers?

Back in Iowa, 24-year-old illegal immigrant Cristhian Rivera is accused of killing 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts last month in a rural area near the small farming community of Brooklyn, Iowa. Journalist Gomez briefly mentioned the brutal murder of Ms. Tibbetts before asserting (in a straight news story) that “any proof that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes ... than native-born Americans” was missing from news coverage of the Tibbetts murder.

But the issue isn’t who commits the most murders; it’s the fact that even one murder committed by someone who shouldn’t be in our country is one too many. For example, we remember the 2015 murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle on the San Francisco waterfront by an illegal immigrant who had been deported five or six times. As one family member said after Ms. Steinle’s murder, “I don’t care one bit about whether the crime rate in San Francisco is higher or lower than anywhere else. The issue isn’t crime rates; it’s what we do with that small fraction of immigrants that is committing crimes.” Amen!

So, Mr. Gomez and USA Today, don’t try to distract us from crimes illegal immigrants are committing by writing about crime rates. We’re not interested in clumsy, transparent attempts to downplay serious crimes committed by illegals. You and your fellow illegal immigration advocates are going to fail because most Americans ­— including most voters — want the federal government to enforce our immigration laws firmly but fairly and they want Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. And moreover, most of us don’t want to open our borders to the Third World’s wretched refuse, nor do we want to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that enforces our immigration laws.

Many “progressive” Democrats will be running on open borders/abolish ICE platforms this fall. Those who do deserve to lose. I hold them in contempt.

Guy W. Farmer was married to a LEGAL immigrant from Mexico for more than 40 years.