Criminal Illegal Aliens 3

It seems absurd to pay money to imprison criminal illegal aliens, but what else can we do with them? If we deport them they'll just come back and commit more crimes. I think part of the problem is that we treat illegal immigration like a law enforcement problem rather than a national security problem. Mexico could do a lot to close up its borders and stem the flow of criminals and miscreants if they were properly motivated by economic sanctions and the threat of military force. As it is, they make fools of us by refusing to extradite their citizens that come here, murder our people, and then flee back to Mexico.

Ratified in 1980, the treaty allows Mexico not to surrender suspected murderers wanted in the U.S. unless U.S. prosecutors waive the death penalty. In 2001, following a Mexican Supreme Court decision that declared life imprisonment unconstitutional, Mexico stopped returning suspects unless U.S. prosecutors waived life sentences, too.

There are hundreds of murderers living free and clear in Mexico. An additional problem is that many state laws in the United States prevent prosecutors from prosecuting crimes that have already been punished in Mexico. So when we ask for extradition, Mexico can decide to prosecute the crime themselves and then hand out incredibly weak sentences. If the criminal then returns to America, many states can't even touch him because of misconceived "double jeopardy" laws.

The core issue here is the same one raised by terrorist attacks: The federal government has a duty to defend Americans against killers who enter our country and murder our people. It doesn't matter whether the killer is from al Qaeda or a drug gang. The duty is the same.

Mayors and governors can run schools and build highways. But only the president can make a foreign government hand over a fugitive who has killed an American. President Bush needs to confront President Fox: Is Mexico with us, or against us, in seeking justice for killers?

Not to even mention that blame shared by the American employers who give jobs to illegal aliens, or the obvious threat from Islamofacist terrorists crossing in from Mexico.