Crime
Biden’s Illegal Immigration Problem Has Gone From Bad To Worse As High-Profile Murders Rock US
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
A slate of high-profile crimes against women, allegedly committed at the hands of illegal migrants, has brought the issue of illegal immigration into sharper focus as the 2024 presidential election draws closer.
The killing of a nursing student in Georgia, the rape and murder of mother of five in Maryland, the strangulation killing of 12-year-old girl in Texas and several other significant local crimes has steadily compiled in recent months, prompting the passage of new legislation at the state level and keeping immigration in the news. The negative headlines have forced President Joe Biden, already dealing with low marks on immigration due to the ongoing border crisis, to remain on the defensive.
Biden was pushed into speaking about one significant murder during his most recent State of the Union speech.
“Lincoln [Laken] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed,” Biden began to say during the 2024 State of the Union address. The president was speaking about border security when Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled at him to “say her name.”
Biden held up a pin given to him by Greene and began to speak about the murder that took place a month prior.
“By an illegal. That’s right,” he said. “But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals? To her parents, I say: My heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand.”
Riley — a nursing student living in Athens, Georgia — was abducted and murdered while jogging near the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22. She died from blunt force trauma to the head, a coroner determined.
José Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan national, was subsequently arrested for her murder. Immigration and Customs (ICE) later confirmed that Ibarra entered the country illegally, further sparking statewide and national backlash.
The murder was followed by a recall campaign against Athens, Georgia, Mayor Kelly Girtz, the sheriff and the district attorney, with constituents calling on them to resign. Despite Girtz repeatedly saying in public that Athens was not a “sanctuary” city, unearthed emails revealed the mayor stating that he supported the town’s current policy of not being fully cooperative with immigration detainer requests.
At the state level, Riley’s killing was followed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signing into law legislation that sheriffs cooperate with federal immigration authorities or else risk losing state funding. The new law mandates local jailers hold any foreign national in their custody when they are wanted by ICE agents.
As more details emerged about how Ibarra was able to be released into the U.S. and his brother’s alleged ties to a Venezuelan prison gang former President Donald Trump, an immigration hawk, highlighted the crime on the campaign trail. The Republican candidate met with Riley’s family at a Georgia campaign rally in March, and was photographed embracing them before a crowd.
“He’s got no remorse, he’s got no regret. He’s got no empathy,” Trump said of the current president. “No compassion, and worst of all, he has no intention of stopping the deadly invasion that stole precious Laken’s beautiful, American life.”
Riley’s killing proved to be just the first local crime involving immigration this year that rocketed to national attention.
The body of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was found floating in a north Houston creek in June. Following several days of investigation, local law enforcement arrested two Venezuelan nationals, 21-year-old Johan Jose Rangel Martinez and 26-year-old Franklin Jose Pena Ramos.
DNA tests determined that the 12-year-old had been sexually assaulted before she was strangled to death. Prosecutors believe both men tied her up, pulled her pants down, sexually assaulted her and then suffocated her before dumping her body in a nearby creek.
Federal immigration authorities soon confirmed that both men were living in the U.S. illegally, with one of them having only been in the country less than a month before allegedly killing the young girl. The incident immediately attracted national attention, with the House Homeland Security Committee later publishing a report that questioned why both men were released into the U.S. when there was more than enough detention space to keep them in physical detention at the time they illegally crossed the border.
The alleged crime was not forgotten by Trump, even moments before the first 2024 presidential debate. The former president called Jocelyn’s mother just 10 minutes before his first debate with Biden to express his condolences, a gesture that reportedly “shocked” her, according to the New York Post.
It wasn’t the only time Trump reached out to an angel family that month.
The family of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was allegedly murdered by an illegal migrant, revealed last month they were “deeply touched” by Trump’s outreach following news that a suspect had finally been apprehended.
“I am deeply touched by President Trump’s kindness and concern,” Patty Morin, Rachel’s mother, said in a statement released by the family’s attorney. “He was genuine and truly wanted to know how our family was coping.”
Authorities confirmed that Morin’s alleged killer, 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, is also wanted for the murder of a woman in his home country of El Salvador — making him one of many illegal migrants who were able to enter the U.S. despite being wanted abroad for various heinous crimes.
The slate of killings have put a microscope on illegal immigration, a topic already of major concern for American voters as the border crisis has raged on. Under Biden, Border Patrol agents have encountered more than seven million migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. between ports of entry, according to the latest data by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Biden has enjoyed, very recently, a slowdown of migrant apprehensions thanks in large part to a crackdown by the Mexican government and an executive order last month that seeks to control the number of migrants seeking asylum. However, critics maintain that the record levels of illegal migration experienced under his tenure remain a problem of his doing.
In the first year of his presidency, Biden undertook 296 executive actions on immigration, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute. Of those presidential proclamations, 89 specifically reversed or began the process of undoing Trump’s immigration policies — and Biden has undone major Trump-era policy initiatives, such as the shutdown of the Remain in Mexico program and the nixing of new border wall construction.
The president has also recently granted mass amnesty to half a million illegal migrants married to U.S. citizens — a move that critics say will only encourage more illegal immigration.
“There’s no reason to doubt that the Biden administration — with its history of paroling inadequately vetted, inadmissible aliens into the country — will rubber-stamp every application under the President’s executive order, thus granting half a million or more illegal immigrants permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship,” Erik Ruark, director of research for NumbersUSA, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Amidst an historic border crisis, President Biden’s illegal amnesty sends would-be migrants the message that our borders remain wide open, and that they will eventually be rewarded if they can get into the country,” Ruark continued.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Rumble/CNN)
Crime
Despite recent bail reform flip-flops, Canada is still more dangerous than we’d prefer
Our Criminal Justice System Is Changing
58 percent of individuals sentenced to community supervision had at least one prior conviction for a violent offence. 68 percent of those given custodial sentences were similarly repeat offenders. In fact, 59 percent of offenders serving custodial sentences had previously been convicted at least 10 times.
Back in 2019, the federal Liberals passed Bill C-75, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts”. Among other things, the law established a Principle of Restraint that required courts to minimize unnecessary pre-trial detention. This has been characterized as a form of “catch and release” that sacrifices public safety in general, and victims’ rights in particular on the altar of social justice.
I’m no lawyer, but I can’t see how the legislation’s actual language supports that interpretation. In fact, as we can see from the government’s official overview of the law, courts must still give serious consideration to public safety:
The amendments…legislate a “principle of restraint” for police and courts to ensure that release at the earliest opportunity is favoured over detention, that bail conditions are reasonable, relevant to the offence and necessary to ensure public safety, and that sureties are imposed only when less onerous forms of release are inadequate.
So unlike in some U.S. jurisdictions, Canadian courts are still able use their discretion to restrict an accused’s freedom. That’s not to say everyone’s always happy with how Canadian judges choose to use such discretion, but judicial outcomes appear to lie in their hands, rather than with legislation.
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Arguably, C-75 did come with a “soft-on-crime” tone (in particular as the law relates to certain minority communities). But even that was mostly reversed by 2023’s Bill C-48, which introduced reverse onus for repeat offenders and required judges to explicitly consider the safety of the community (whatever that means).
Nevertheless, the system is clearly far from perfect. Besides the occasional high-profile news reports about offenders committing new crimes while awaiting trials for previous offences, the population-level data suggests that our streets are not nearly as safe as they should be.
As far as I can tell, Statistics Canada doesn’t publish numbers on repeat offences committed by offenders free while waiting for trial. But I believe we can get at least part of the way there using two related data points:
- Conviction rates
- Repeat offender rates
Between 2019 and 2023, conviction rates across Canada on homicide charges for adults averaged 42 percent, while similar charges against youth offenders resulted in convictions in 65 percent of cases. That means we can safely assume that a significant proportion of accused offenders were, in fact, criminally violent even before reaching trial.
We can use different Statistics Canada data to understand how likely it is that those accused offenders will re-offend while on pre-trial release:
58 percent of individuals sentenced to community supervision (through either conditional sentences or probation) had at least one prior conviction for a violent offence. 68 percent of those given custodial sentences were similarly repeat offenders. In fact, 59 percent of offenders serving custodial sentences had previously been convicted at least 10 times.
Also, in the three years following a term of community supervision, 15.6 percent of offenders were convicted for new violent crimes. For offenders coming out of custodial sentences, that rate was 30.2 percent.
In other words:
- Many – if not most – people charged with serious crimes turn out to be guilty
- It’s relatively rare for violent criminals to offend just once.
Together, those two conclusions suggest that public safety would be best served by immediately incarcerating all people charged with violent offences and keeping them “inside” either until they’re declared innocent or their sentences end. That, however, would be impossible. For one thing, we just don’t have space in our prisons to handle the load (or the money to fund it). And it would also often trample on the legitimate civil rights of accused individuals.
This is a serious problem without any obvious pull-the-trigger-and-you’re-
- Implement improved risk assessment and predictive analytics tools to evaluate the likelihood of re-offending.
- Improve the reliability of non-custodial measures such as electronic monitoring and house arrest that incorporate real-time tracking and immediate intervention capabilities
- Improve parole and probation systems to ensure effective monitoring and support for offenders released into the community. (Warning: expensive!)
- Optimize data analytics to identify trends, allocate resources efficiently, and measure the effectiveness of various interventions.
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Crime
RCMP Bust B.C. Fentanyl Superlab Linked to Mexico and Transnational Exports
Sam Cooper
In a remote mountainous area of British Columbia, federal police have dismantled the largest fentanyl laboratory ever discovered in Canada. This western province has become a critical front in the Five Eyes battle against the production and distribution of deadly synthetic narcotics trafficked globally by networks involving Chinese and Iranian state-sponsored mafias and Mexican cartels.
In a groundbreaking discovery, the RCMP located the superlab in Falkland—a village of 946 residents nestled in the rugged terrain between Calgary and Vancouver—using Phenyl-2-Propanone (P2P) to manufacture methamphetamine. This production method, primarily employed by Mexican cartels, stems from the precursors and scientific expertise Mexican cartels have gathered from elite Chinese criminals since the early 2000s, according to U.S. enforcement sources.
David Teboul, Commander of the RCMP Federal Policing program in the Pacific Region, underscored the significance: “Manufacturing methamphetamine using P2P had not been seen in Western Canada until now,” he said. “The P2P manufacturing method has been the primary method used by Mexican cartels to produce methamphetamine for years.”
Demonstrating the destructive power of the cartels involved, the RCMP seized a staggering cache of illicit substances and weapons. Officers confiscated 54 kilograms of fentanyl, massive amounts of precursor chemicals, 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, 35 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of MDMA, and 6 kilograms of cannabis. The superlab was described as the largest and most sophisticated of its kind, capable of producing multiple types of illicit drugs.
“To put things into context,” Teboul said, “the over 95 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl that have been seized could have taken the lives of every Canadian at least twice over.”
A large portion of the product was destined for other countries.
During the investigation, RCMP officers learned of several large shipments of methamphetamine prepared for international export. They intercepted 310 kilograms of methamphetamine before it could leave Canada, preventing a significant quantity from reaching global markets—a critical point as Canada faces pressure from its allies over its role in the global fentanyl and methamphetamine trade.
Teboul noted that the RCMP collaborated with its Five Eyes enforcement partners—an intelligence alliance comprising Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Although Teboul did not provide specific details, this cooperation underscores the international scope of the transnational investigation.
The first suspect, Gaganpreet Singh Randhawa, was identified and arrested during raids. He is currently in custody and faces multiple charges, including possession and export of controlled substances, possession of prohibited firearms and devices, and possession of explosive devices. More arrests are expected, Teboul said.
The scale of this criminal network echoes the power and violence fueling gang wars that have rocked British Columbia, putting innocent lives at risk during high-powered shootouts in Vancouver. Investigators seized a total of 89 firearms, including 45 handguns, 21 AR-15-style rifles, and submachine guns—many of which were loaded and ready for use. The searches also uncovered small explosive devices, vast amounts of ammunition, firearm silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armor, and $500,000 in cash.
British Columbia has been grappling with an influx of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, significantly exacerbating the opioid crisis across Canada. The province has witnessed a surge in overdose deaths, prompting law enforcement to intensify efforts against drug production and trafficking networks. Experts highlight weaknesses in Canadian laws and a lack of federal oversight at the Port of Vancouver, which have been exploited by transnational crime and money laundering organizations from China, Iran, and Mexico.
This significant bust comes at a time when Canada is under increased scrutiny from international allies over its role as a hub for the export of fentanyl and methamphetamine. The superlab takedown appears to align with serious concerns raised by lawmakers in Washington about how Canada and Mexico are being used by transnational crime organizations to distribute fentanyl worldwide.
A recent U.S. congressional report argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy relies less on overt military actions and more on covert tactics, including trafficking of fentanyl and leveraging money laundering, aimed at exploiting vulnerabilities across social, economic, and health domains.
“Fentanyl precursors are manufactured in China and shipped to Mexico and Canada. For precursors that arrive in Mexico, Chinese transnational mafias work with Mexican cartels to smuggle and distribute fentanyl in the United States on behalf of the CCP,” the report states. “The DEA confirmed Chinese transnational crime leaders hold government positions in the CCP and indicated that Chinese transnational crime organizations are dedicated to the CCP.”
“The public deserves to know about the CCP’s role in fentanyl production and how the Party is using fentanyl as a chemical weapon to kill Americans,” the report adds. It recommends that Washington publicly “blame the CCP as much as the DEA and its partners currently blame the Sinaloa Cartel” for fentanyl trafficking and urges the government to “educate international allies about CCP chemical warfare” and encourage them to condemn Chinese transnational crime.
According to congressional investigations, Beijing is actively incentivizing the export of fentanyl and methamphetamine worldwide. The report alleges that Chinese criminal organizations, including Triads led by individuals with official positions in the CCP, are working alongside Mexican cartels to generate profit to fund interference operations in America.
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