Heinous murders put spotlight on immigration

The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

08-19-2007


Heinous murders put spotlight on immigration
MIKE KELLY
Date: 08-19-2007, Sunday
Section: OPINION
Edtion: All Editions


JOSE Lachira Carranza is not your typical illegal immigrant. But the immigration problem he now symbolizes needs to be faced just the same.

Carranza, 28, from Peru, did not sneak into America just to work hard and build a better life for himself as so many illegal aliens from poor nations are trying to do. Carranza, who is not known to have ever held a job except as a day laborer, is accused of playing a role in the execution-style murders of three Newark college students earlier this month.

For a city with a high murder rate, the brutality of these killings was startling. Around midnight on a Saturday, the victims were cornered on the playground of an elementary school. After being forced to kneel, each was shot in the head.

Was this Baghdad?

It's worth knowing that the murders are not the first crimes Carranza was accused of committing. In just the last 10 months, he has been charged with beating up bar patrons and with routinely raping a girl, beginning in 2003 when she was only 5, then threatening to kill her family.

It's also worth knowing that Carranza spent only three weeks in jail after being accused of the rapes and bar fight. He was freed on bail. A state judge even cut his bail in half in the rape case to let him out.

But neither the judge nor Essex County prosecutors ever told federal immigration authorities that the guy they were charging with sexually assaulting a little girl over a period of years and beating up bar patrons and then freeing on bail was an illegal immigrant. Incredibly, Essex County authorities say they do not tell federal authorities they have charged an illegal immigrant with a crime until that immigrant is convicted.

So a man who broke the law to get into America in the first place, and then was accused of breaking even more serious laws after he was here, was given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to go free while he awaited trial. Just like any other American citizen.

Another suspect in the murders Rodolfo Godinez, 24, of Nicaragua is not an illegal immigrant. But he is not a citizen either. He's a legal resident.

He was arrested four years ago for robbery and assault. Like Carranza, he was freed on bail. And as with Carranza, Essex County authorities say they did not tell federal immigration authorities that they had apprehended a "legal resident" for a serious crime against American citizens. Godinez disappeared and never showed up for court hearings on his case. Essex County authorities say they were told he fled the country and stopped looking for him.

Are we chumps? What kind of country behaves like this? Treating Carranza and Godinez this way is not the American way. The American way is grounded in fairness and smarts. Turning these alleged thugs loose on the streets was not fair to anyone. It was stupid perhaps even criminal.

The ridiculousness of this story does not end there, however.

Indeed, the litany of facts, especially about Carranza's immigration status and criminal record, has spurred a debate that borders on the surreal.

In the days after Carranza's arrest, you could almost feel the angst among so-called immigration advocates the loose-knit lobby that has emerged in recent years to protect illegal immigrants, often with an unfortunate strategy of labeling critics as racists who want to deport Hispanics.

Playing the race card like this has crippled America's immigration debate. It has stifled serious discussion about illegal immigrants and forced politicians from both major parties to resort to politically correct games in an attempt to win favor among Hispanic voters.

That crippling reality soon found its way into the discussion of Jose Carranza. Immigration advocates feared that Carranza's story and crime spree would spur America to crack down on illegal immigrants. So the lobby resorted to an old trick: It tried to minimize Carranza's immigration status.

Here, then, was an otherwise smart man Gustavo Ramirez of Passaic's Immigration and American Citizenship Organization making a shallow statement about the Newark murders. "This was a heinous crime and these suspects have deep psychological issues," he told The Record's Elizabeth Llorente. "This crime, however, cannot be explained by immigration status, any more than terrorism can be."

Huh? Who said anything about psychology?

Memo to Ramirez: Get real. These murders would likely not have taken place if law enforcement authorities namely a judge and prosecutors dealt seriously with Jose Carranza's immigration status and Rodolfo Godinez's legal residency.

What's more, terrorism is directly linked to the holes in America's immigration policy. If you doubt this, read the Sept. 11 Commission report, especially the portion about how two hijackers who were already on a CIA terror watch list were given visas no questions asked.

America will never be safe until it knows who is crossing its borders. That's not a racist statement; that's common sense.

And it's the kind of statement that the families of the three college kids who were murdered in Newark are making now. Why were Jose Carranza and Rodolfo Godinez allowed to walk the streets?

Governor Corzine is asking that question as he should. So are many other political leaders. But if Corzine is serious, he ought to add several national security experts to his recently appointed immigration panel. That panel has far too many immigration advocates. It needs some common sense some basic street smarts.

If our borders are not secure, our streets will not be safe.

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Mike Kelly is a Record columnist. Contact him at kellym@northjersey.com. Send comments about this column to letterstotheeditor@northjersey.com.
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