Mexico’s Safe Haven for CriminalsMichael Cutler
For a number of years I have read accounts of an incursion of armed men from Mexico into the United  States. Whenever I raised this issue during debates, those I debated were dismissive of my concerns and tried to make it sound as though the many stories about armed men in uniform, possibly members of Mexican armed forces, were to be filed away with stories about sightings of Big Foot, flying saucers and Elvis.
Of course even the U.S. government now admits that there have been such incursions but continues to try to downplay the number and their significance. I’d like to address a different sort of incursion: that of the Mexican government into our country's efforts to enforce criminal laws and bring criminals to justice.
It is now believed that Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, accused of killing 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in mid-December (months after she accused him of rape), may have fled to Mexico to evade capture and to avoid the death penalty in the event he is captured and extradited. Laurean is a 21-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Mexico.
Mexico has a 30-year-old policy forbidding the return of fugitives unless the death penalty is waived.
This may not seem unusual, as other countries that do not have the death penalty generally do whatever they can to prevent their citizens from being executed for crimes committed here. I myself have concerns about capital punishment, especially the possibility that innocent people can be executed. However, the idea that the government of Mexico is often unwilling to cooperate with United States law enforcement officials in turning over fugitives is extremely disturbing, seeing as how the Mexican constitution has zero tolerance for any meddling by outside governments within Mexico.
Yet even more disturbing is this:
Lolita Parkinson, a spokeswoman for the Mexican Consulate in Houston, said Mexico opposes capital punishment on human rights grounds and has a particular obligation to protect the rights of people of Mexican descent who face prosecution in the U.S.
It seems clear that the Mexican government is not only concerned about the treatment of its citizens in the United States, but of American citizens who may have either been born in Mexico or are descended from former Mexican citizens.
There have been reports that the Mexican government was instrumental in convincing our government to come up with the draconian prosecution of United States Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean – a prosecution that has been described as excessive. If this is true, who can blame Mexico for continuing on its present course? It doesn’t help that some of our leaders in Washington have allowed them to get away with it. And a number of presidential candidates are openly courting open borders activists.
It shows an extreme level of chutzpah that Mexico seems to show none of these grave concerns while their citizens are still in Mexico. Illegal immigrants face many dangers: ill-treatment by coyotes (smugglers); the possibility of injury or even death while crossing the desert; and also the possibility of being arrested at the border by the Border Patrol – thus losing the money they paid the coyotes and enduring all for nothing.
Those who do make it know they will be likely treated miserably by employers, landlords and others because illegal aliens are vulnerable, making them easy to exploit by unscrupulous individuals. After the amnesty of 1986, I had a number of informants tell me that by participating in the amnesty program, they acquired lawful status – thus emboldening them to demand the prevailing wage from their employers. Many of them were then fired to make room for the next batch of illegal aliens. This, in part, is how we have wound up with so many illegal aliens today.
Why do they go through all of this? Because they do not have the economic opportunities in Mexico that even the meager wages they earn in the United States can match; nor do they have access to the same education or the health care. Additionally, the violence and corruption in Mexico has spiraled so far out of control that cities like Nueva Laredo are, for all intents and purposes, "free fire zones."
Yet, under the banner of "human rights" concerns, Mexico offers a safe haven for its criminals who commit act of extreme violence in the United States and then race home, enabling them to avoid arrest and prosecution in most cases, and providing them with unfair bargaining chips when, on those rare occasions, the Mexican government "cooperates" with the United States.
It is also extremely important to remember that Mexico is the number one country where the flow of narcotics into the United States is concerned.
With friends like Mexico, who needs enemies?
At a time when we are concerned about terrorists and criminals entering our country and threatening our safety and survival, how can our leaders not believe that 20 million aliens who have no verifiable way of identifying themselves are not a threat to our safety and security?
Michael W. Cutler graduated from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1971 with a B.A. in Communications Arts and Sciences. Mr. Cutler began working for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in October 1971 when he entered on duty as an Immigration Inspector assigned to John F. Kennedy International Airport. From 1973 until 1974 He was assigned as an examiner to the unit which was responsible for adjudicating petitions filed by United States Citizens and Lawfully Admitted Permanent Resident Aliens (LPRs) on behalf of their alien spouses to accord them LPR status. His goal in this assignment was to attempt to uncover fraud marriages and fraud marriage rings.
In August 1975 he became a Criminal Investigator (Special Agent) for the INS at NYC. He rotated through virtually every squad in the Investigations Branch. From 1988 until 1991 he was assigned as the INS representative to the Unified Intelligence Division (UID) of the DEA in New York. In 1991 he was promoted to the position of Senior Special Agent and was assigned to the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) which required that he work with members of other law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S.Customs and local and state police as well as law enforcement organizations of other countries including Israel, Canada, Great Britain and Japan, to conduct investigations of aliens involved in major drug trafficking organizations which ultimately resulted in the seizure of their assets as well as their arrest and successful prosecutions for a wide variety of criminal violations.
Finally, Mr. Cutler has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including the O'Reilly Radio Factor, O'Reilly's No Spin Zone, Fox News and the Lou Dobbs Tonight Program on CNN to discuss the enforcement of immigration laws and has participated in various public debates and panel discussions on issues involving the enforcement and administration of immigration laws.
E-Mail:
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Michael Cutler articles can be emailed to a friend with just two clicks!
Click the email link near the article headline.
Michael Cutler Authors Page and Archives
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
