4um: Illegal immigrant faces prison (only six years for murder)

Title: Illegal immigrant faces prison (only six years for murder)
Source: Omaha World-Herald
URL Source: http://www.omaha.com/article/20090930/NEWS01/709309953
Published: Oct 15, 2009
Author: Todd Cooper
Post Date: 2009-10-15 13:19:07 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 75
Comments: 2

The suspended driver and illegal immigrant blew a red light and slammed a pickup into a minivan near 180th Street and West Center Road in May — killing 4-year-old van passenger Josie Bluhm.

For those actions, Eleazar Rangel-Ochoa pleaded no contest Tuesday to driving under suspension, a felony, and misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide.

He isn't the only one. Josie's loved ones, including parents Kyle and Jayme Bluhm, have had to carry on without their 4-year-old middle child — a blonde-haired, blue-eyed bundle of fun.

Jayme Bluhm was driving the couple's three children, then ages 5, 4 and 1, to day care on May 12, when the crash happened, prosecutors said.

“All of these cases are horrible,” said prosecutor Matt Kuhse, who handles Douglas County's motor-vehicle homicide cases. “But it's particularly troubling when it's a child who is so, so young — especially when her life ended in such a violent way.”

Rangel-Ochoa's case has been marked with questions about why he was driving and why he was still in the country after three drunken-driving convictions.

Rangel-Ochoa's attorney, Joe Lopez-Wilson, said Rangel-Ochoa, 27, is torn up over his actions — and has little explanation for why he was driving.

Lopez-Wilson said Rangel-Ochoa got behind the wheel of the pickup because the truck's owner wasn't going to work that day. Rangel-Ochoa and his two passengers were headed to work at a construction site.

The attorney said he was uncertain whether Rangel-Ochoa's two passengers could have driven, or whether they had driver's licenses. Rangel-Ochoa didn't. His driver's license had been suspended for 15 years after his third-drunken driving conviction in 2003.

It also was unclear why Rangel-Ochoa hadn't been deported after his drunken-driving convictions — all of which preceded 2003.

Lopez-Wilson, who handles immigration cases, said that, back then, authorities were more concerned with illegal immigrants who committed violent offenses.

Shortly after the crash, Lopez-Wilson said, his client wanted to “man up” by pleading to the charges against him. Lopez-Wilson said he wouldn't let Rangel-Ochoa do so until the attorney had a chance to review the charges and all of the evidence. (Rangel-Ochoa wasn't drunk that morning — hence the misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide charge.)

Rangel-Ochoa faces up to six years in prison — five years for driving under suspension, one year for motor vehicle homicide — when he is sentenced in December. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have a deportation hold on him now — and Rangel-Ochoa is expected to be deported after he serves his sentence.

“From Day One, he was distraught,” Lopez-Wilson said. “Every time I talk to him, he's downtrodden.

“He knows whatever happens to him in court is temporary. He's going to have to deal with the consequences of what he did for the rest of his life.”

Death toll in 2006 far overshadows total U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, Afghanistan

WASHINGTON – While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens – men, women and children – were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began.

Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research.

Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.

Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863. Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289, according to the Department of Defense.

But the carnage wrought by illegal alien murderers represents only a fraction of the pool of blood spilled by American citizens as a result of an open border and un-enforced immigration laws.

While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745. That's 23,725 since Sept. 11, 2001.

While no one – in or out of government – tracks all U.S. accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.

A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.

Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.

King also reports eight American children are victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day – a total of 2,920 annually.

Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.

As the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases, so does the number of American victims.

According to Edwin Rubenstien, president of ESR Research Economic Consultants, in Indianapolis in 1980, federal and state correctional facilities held fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. But at the end of 2003, approximately 267,000 illegal aliens were incarcerated in all U.S. jails and prisons.

While the federal government doesn't track illegal alien murders, illegal alien rapes or illegal alien drunk driving deaths, it has studied illegal aliens incarcerated in U.S. prisons.

In April 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during 2003. It found the following:

The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests – some eight arrests per illegal alien;

Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses – some 13 offenses per illegal alien;

36 percent had been arrested at least five times before.

"While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators," states Peter Wagner, author of a new report called "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration." "That is part of the dark side of illegal immigration and when we allow the 'good' in we get the 'bad' along with them. The question is, how much 'bad' is acceptable and at what price?"