Many Americans are stocking up on
treats for neighborhood children in scary costumes, but you may want to think
twice before opening the door to strangers this Halloween. That same weekend,
October 30 to November 2, the Obama administration plans to release 6,000
felons from federal prison.
This is believed to be the largest
one-time release of prisoners in American history. I doubt that federal halfway
houses have the capacity or that federal probation officers have the ability to
supervise that many prisoners released all at once.
Yet the 6,000 felons are just the
first “tranche” of some 46,000 federal prisoners who are now eligible to apply
for early release, and 8,550 more of them are expected to be set free over the
next 12 months until Halloween of 2016. All those prisoners were convicted of serious
drug trafficking offenses and sentenced to at least 10 years in federal prison.
Even those numbers don’t tell the
whole story. A bill pending in the Senate – which has attracted the support of
several Republicans who should know better – would permanently reduce the
prison sentences for serious drug trafficking.
There are many things wrong with our
criminal justice system, such as federalizing crimes that should be handled at
the local level and criminalizing offenses that don’t deserve to be punished
with prison time. I have written many columns pointing out examples of unjust
criminal punishments, but the sentencing reform bill doesn’t address any of
those problems.
The sentencing reform bill and the
impending prison release are built on the false premise that it’s unjust to
punish “nonviolent” drug offenses – as if a drug trafficker’s primary offense
is the gun he is carrying, rather than the drugs he is delivering.
The answer to that falsehood was
given by Carly Fiorina who, in the CNN Republican debate, responded to a
question about legalizing drugs with the unanswerable statement that “My
husband Frank and I buried a child to drug addiction.” I, too, have a dear
friend who lost a child to a supposedly “nonviolent” drug offender.
The 6,000 drug traffickers who are
being released next week, and the 8,550 who will be released over the next 12
months, are not in prison merely for using drugs or possessing a small quantity
for their own use. They were convicted of trafficking, transporting or delivering
a substantial quantity of dangerously addictive substances, mostly at the
behest of the Mexican gangs who control the drug trade in this country.
The Obama administration has admitted
that fully one-third of the prisoners to be released on Halloween are illegal
aliens who never should have been allowed in this country. Officials are saying
those 2,000 criminal aliens will be deported after their release, but there are
too many examples of Americans who were killed and maimed by aliens who should
have been deported but weren’t.
Earlier this year, for example,
21-year-old Grant Ronnebeck was shot to death while working at a Mesa, Arizona
convenience store, and a Mexican drug trafficker named Apolinar Altamirano has
been charged with that murder. The Mexican was supposed to be deported after he
pleaded guilty to a previous felony, but he was free on $10,000 bond and not
under supervision.
When outraged members of Congress
demanded an explanation from the Director of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, the ICE director admitted that it’s not rare for released criminal
aliens to re-offend. In the five fiscal years 2010 through 2014, some 121
illegal aliens who had previously been released to an unsuspecting public were
subsequently charged with “homicide-related offenses.”
Although a large fraction of
convicted drug traffickers are illegal aliens who should be deported, another
large fraction enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship while conspiring with
Mexican drug gangs. The Washington Post recently profiled 22-year-old
California-born drug trafficker named Gerardo Vargas who had a regular job
transporting 1 kilogram of heroin in his stomach for the 3,900-mile trip from
Uruapan, Mexico to Dayton, Ohio.
Heroin, the most feared drug in
history, is now the fastest-growing menace to suburban young people across
America, causing thousands of deaths each year. As the Washington Post reports,
Mexicans completely dominate and control the heroin trade, with corporate-like
efficiency, from field to factory to courier to pusher to user.
This is no time to release 6,000 drug
traffickers on our cities, many of which are already coping with a sharp rise
in the murder rate. And it’s no time for Congress to send the wrong message by
reducing the punishment for those who deliver dangerous drugs that ruin the
lives of our young people.
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