Americans are suffering the real-world, catastrophic consequences of four years of Biden-Harris border policies, not the least of which are the unprecedented numbers of unvetted criminals streaming across the nation's borders. Several reports in August from the House Judiciary Committee have focused on criminal illegal aliens who cross the border and commit heinous crimes here in the United States.
Unfortunately, incidents involving criminal aliens are not one-off events. Many Americans do not realize that it is almost impossible to vet criminal illegal aliens until they have committed a crime in the U.S. It is, therefore, very easy for illegals who have committed crimes in other countries to travel to the U.S. with no worry of being turned away at the border. Their personal information is either unavailable or difficult to verify. Many illegals come to America with very few records; if they have records, they are often fake.
The past four years have seen unprecedented numbers of Illegal aliens crossing U.S. borders. The Biden-Harris administration has made it much easier to enter the U.S. through the CBP One app and its various parole programs. Biden's open-border policies have effectively sent out a bat signal to the cartels, NGOs, and countries far and wide that the U.S. is open for business. This, in turn, has stretched the HHS, DHS, ICE, and Border Patrol beyond capacity, making it impossible for border patrol and other law enforcement to properly handle the historic influx of illegal aliens, which is now over 10 million and counting.
Using non-public information and subpoenas, the Judiciary reports conclude that the reality of vetting criminals prior to their arrival on U.S. soil is abysmal at best. One of the reports explains:
"As one federal district court judge has observed, the checks that DHS currently performs on illegal aliens encountered at the southwest border should concern every American. As Judge Wetherell explained in 2023:"
"Although DHS says it is screening arriving aliens . . . to determine if they are a public safety threat, the more persuasive evidence establishes that DHS cannot reliably make that determination. Indeed, according to [the Administration's] own witnesses, DHS has no way to determine if an alien has a criminal history in his home country unless that country reports the information to the U.S. government or the alien self-reports. Therefore, DHS is mainly only screening aliens at the border to determine if they have previously committed a crime in the United States, and because many of these aliens are coming to the United States for the first time, DHS has no idea whether they have criminal histories or not."
The biometric and biographic data of illegal aliens are, according to the report, "only vetted against U.S. criminal databases, such as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and against INTERPOL information. Immigration authorities do not vet illegal aliens against databases in the aliens' countries of origin." Therefore, in most cases, there will be no pejorative information on illegals who cross U.S. borders.
In addition, there is the issue of vetting U.S.-based sponsors who take in unaccompanied minors (UACs). The Center for Immigration Studies reported in 2021 that the Biden administration was "cutting corners" when vetting sponsors. Reportedly, there are now "up to 140,000" UACs with whom the HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has lost contact. An "astonishing 420,000 have been released to sponsors," according to one interim report. Most UACs are never removed from the U.S. once they enter.
The issue of vetting sponsors is not new. Many of the problems with UACs began to occur following the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008 and the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) during the Obama-Biden administration. An important survey regarding the migrant crisis in 2018 and 2019 "revealed that the majority of those sponsors were themselves here illegally..."
Even more astonishing is the 2024 report from Todd Bensman, which showed that U.S. sponsors do not need to be "U.S. citizens or permanent residents to sponsor foreign nationals." Bensman writes that the "'Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans' (CHNV) allow foreign nationals (of any nationality) who have "temporary authorization" to remain in the United States – such as on parole – to sponsor other foreign nationals in turn to come here on parole." It is a fact that the Biden-Harris administration has expanded pathways for illegal aliens to enter and remain in the U.S." Frankly, Mayorkas' expansion of the parole programs alone has made it almost impossible to properly vet sponsors and illegal aliens, just because of the sheer numbers coming across.
Judiciary Reports on Criminal Aliens Expose Horrific Crimes
A series of reports published in early August from the Judiciary exposes to the American people a broad range of criminal activity resulting from open border policies. These reports include investigations of suspected terrorists, incidents involving illegal gang members who are terrorizing people in New York, and deadly crimes committed by individual criminal aliens like Garcia-Rodriguez, who was an unaccompanied minor (UACs) when he entered the U.S. Another covers adults like Jose Leonardo Marquez-Marquez who was caught at the Capitol with a machete.
There are four reports so far, including the one on Juan Garcia-Rodriguez below. The investigations expose several disturbing findings and data points. However, as thorough as the reports are, they recount a mere sampling of the problems caused by ineffective and dangerous border policies.
The Aug. 5, 2024, Terror at Our Door report shows how the Biden-Harris administration "undermines national security and endangers Americans." For example, as of the date of the report, "375 illegal aliens on the terrorist watchlist have been apprehended under" this administration's watch. That is a "3,000 percent increase of watchlisted alien encounters compared to all four years of the Trump Administration," according to the Aug. 5 report.
Also, according to the Aug. 5 report, between FYs 2021 and 2023, DHS "released into American communities at least 99 illegal aliens on the terror watchlist, with at least 34 others in DHS custody but not yet removed from the United States." During the same years, Border Patrol at the southwest border encountered aliens on the terrorist watchlist from 36 different countries, including places with an active terrorist presence."
The Aug. 7, 2024, interim staff report from the Judiciary highlights the case of an illegal alien gang member who has allegedly been "terrorizing New York City." Daniel Hernandez-Martinez is, according to the report, just one of many gang members with "a lengthy rap sheet in the United States."
The screencap from the Aug. 7 report details the extensive rap sheet on Hernandez-Martinez. It is not unusual for illegal aliens to have long rap sheets like this, and yet, they are still not prioritized for removal. It should not take multiple fatal or harmful incidents for the system to flag these individuals. Mayorkas' policies have made it much more difficult to remove alien criminals, according to the report.
The Aug. 12, 2024, interim report highlights a Guatemalan criminal alien named Juan Carlos Garcia-Rodriguez "whose release was fast-tracked" by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Garcia-Rodriguez was 17 years old, an unaccompanied minor (UAC), when he was smuggled across the border in January 2023. As is often the case, HHS lost contact with Garcia-Rodriguez just like the "up to 140,000 UACs with whom HHS has lost contact," according to the report.
HHS is charged with the care and placement of unaccompanied alien children (UACs). The judiciary has struggled to get information from HHS and DHS, often resulting in their having to issue subpoenas that have been stonewalled for months. Mayorkas and his crew all say it is in the name of privacy. The committee stated in its press release that the Biden-Harris administration "has demonstrated its prioritization of the privacy interests of criminal aliens over the safety" of American citizens.
On Aug. 12, 2023, Rodriguez strangled and beat an 11-year-old girl in Pasadena, Texas. The details of the crime, as written in the Judiciary report, are heartbreaking:
"According to press reports, on Aug. 19, 2023, police in Shreveport, Louisiana, arrested Juan Carlos Garcia Rodriguez, an illegal alien from Guatemala, in connection with the murder of an 11-year-old girl in Pasadena, Texas. Just weeks after her eleventh birthday, the young victim was found brutally assaulted and murdered in an apartment she shared with her father."
"The details of this crime are horrifying. Shortly after leaving for work the morning of Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, the victim's father received a message from his daughter that someone was knocking at the door. He cautioned her not to open it. After receiving no reply to several subsequent messages, the father called on nearby family members to check on his daughter. When they arrived, there was no sign of the girl. The father later found "his daughter's body wrapped in a trash bag and stuffed in a laundry basket that was put beneath her bed." According to the Harris County Medical Examiner, the victim "died from asphyxia caused by strangulation as well as blunt force trauma to the head and neck."
The Aug. 14, 2024, report tells the story of Jose Leonardo Marquez-Marquez, an illegal alien from Venezuela. The U.S. Capitol Police "caught him with a knife, a brick, and a machete" on the grounds outside the Capitol. His A-file gave no indication of a criminal record. A database search using his fingerprints "revealed no prior arrest." As per the report:
"Just one day after he illegally entered the United States, Border Patrol released Marquez-Marquez into the country 'due to detention capacity at the Eagle Pass North Station Sub: Soft-Sided Facility.'" According to DHS's own data, however, the agency had [the] capacity to detain Marquez-Marquez when he was released."
Unfortunately, horrific crimes committed by illegal alien criminals are becoming all too common. Borders that are properly controlled would significantly reduce these unnecessary traumas to American families. Well worth the read; these reports reveal example after example of policies that have put Americans in harm's way and the country's national security at risk.
