Deporting Illegal Alien Bad Guys Is Not “Anti-Immigrant.” It Is Pro-Victim And Pro-Common-Sense

The open-borders crowd all too often depicts mentions of illegal alien crime, and even the deporting of criminal aliens, as nothing more than expressions of “anti-immigrant” or racist sentiment. In fact, such misguided thinking is a powerful driving force of reckless “sanctuary” policies that put innocent, law-abiding residents at risk. In reality, talking about – and removing – illegally-present bad guys is about protecting victims, many of whom actually happen to be immigrants, from preventable crimes. Below are two recent examples demonstrating this, although FAIR’s online archive of illegal alien crimes contains plenty more.

A Cold-Blooded Murderer

In Chicago, Illinois, on March 28, Mexican national Luis Pedrote-Salinas allegedly shot and killed his next-door-neighbor, Francisco Zamora, in front of the latter’s home. A Comcast contractor, Zamora was returning home from work. When the police attempted to interview Pedrote-Salinas, who was attempting to leave the scene, he injured three officers while resisting.

Pedrote-Salinas, who entered the U.S. illegally as a child, has a long criminal history. In 2010, he was arrested for battery. In 2011, he was caught with an open can of beer in his car and was placed on a gang member database because of a tattoo sometimes associated with the Latin Kings (he claimed that he simply liked the design). In 2015, he was also arrested for aggravated assault. In 2012, when he was supposed to voluntarily depart the U.S., he attempted to obtain a U visa by claiming to have been a victim of an armed robbery, and in 2014 and 2015 he unsuccessfully applied for the DACA program.

Pedrote-Salinas was angry that his inclusion in the gang member database sabotaged his efforts to obtain deportation relief. In July 2017, as he again faced removal, he sued the city of Chicago, claiming that police put him on the list out of racism. In November 2020, the lawsuit was eventually settled, and Pedrote-Salinas received $2,000 and a letter from the Chicago Police Department stating that it cannot verify that he “is currently a ‘gang member’” (as defined by state law). Six months later, rather than “quitting while ahead,” the illegal alien decided to kill his neighbor, shooting him in the forehead at point-blank range. Francisco Zamora left behind a wife and two children.

A Pedophile Rapist

On April 7, Fredy Aguilar-Menjivar of Salinas, California, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting a child (“Jane Doe”). The Salvadoran national raped and molested a female relative, who was under 14 at the time, on several occasions between August 2018 and March 2020. According to The Epoch Times, “the crimes were discovered by another family member during a party in which the child had attempted to stop Aguilar-Menjivar, the prosecutor’s office said. But the 31-year-old threatened to hurt her and her parents if she screamed.”

The illegal alien apparently had a brush with the law back in 2014, and received a deportation order in June 2016, but somehow managed to remain in the country. While the exact reasons why Aguilar-Menjivar wasn’t physically removed to El Salvador aren’t known, it is clear that this failure ultimately created an opportunity for him to repeatedly rape his teenage relative.

As the above cases make clear, had the perpetrators’ deportation orders actually been carried out – or had they not been in the country in the first place – Francisco Zamora would likely still be alive today, and “Jane Doe” would in all probability not have suffered prolonged sexual abuse. When it comes to illegal alien bad guys, illegal immigration is most certainly not a “victimless crime.” And those who mistakenly believe that they are being “compassionate” and “pro-immigrant” by supporting sanctuary policies, or looking the other way when illegal alien crime is brought up, should rethink their stance.