President Donald Trump and Capitol Hill Democrat leaders reportedly clashed Tuesday on border security and a possible government shutdown, according to Fox News, and an obscure homicide case in northeast Oregon just might underscore the intensity over illegal immigration.
The president reportedly told Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Charles Schumer—both ardent anti-gun Capitol Hill veterans—that he is prepared to shut down the government if his proposal for border security is not approved. Trump wants money to build a wall, and neither Democrat wants him to get it.
But unfolding in Umatilla County, Ore., is a murder case involving a recidivist illegal immigrant that just might illustrate why advocates for tight border security are adamant.
The suspect in the Oregon murder is a Mexican national who reportedly had been deported from the United States “at least eight times,” according to KEPR News in Pasco, Wash.
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Arrested in Washington’s Benton County, Antonio Vasquez Vargas is reportedly in the country illegally. The suspect is also known as Deciderio Vargas-Ortiz. He was arrested in Kennewick, where the Snake and Columbia rivers come together.
It is not the first time he has reportedly been behind bars. The story noted that he was convicted in U.S. District Court in March 2004 for Aggravated Felon Re-Entry after Deportation, and was sentenced to 39 months in prison.
Vasquez Vargas, 52, is alleged to have fatally shot Renee Luiz-Antonio at a creamery in Milton-Freewater, just south of the Oregon-Washington border near Walla Walla.
According to a story at Salina.com, non-citizens have been responsible for a considerable amount of crime in this country. Investigative journalist Diane Dimond noted that, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, “(I)n 2014, 75 percent of all defendants who were convicted for federal drug crimes were illegal immigrants…Most of those crimes occurred in a concentrated area, along the border region in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Florida and New York were also negatively affected by criminal immigrants.
“Then there is the FBI,” Dimond’s narrative continued, “which tracks murders in the nation and reports that from 2004 through 2008, 251,000 criminal aliens were incarcerated. The Government Accountability Office issued a study using the FBI data to create a sample population of criminal aliens and found that an estimated 25,000-plus homicide arrests were made.”
While the border security controversy is erupting, the latest Rasmussen Reports’ daily presidential tracking poll shows 49 percent of likely voters approve of the president’s job performance. An equal number disapprove.
With the country apparently evenly split on the Trump presidency, it is interesting to note that 43 percent of likely voters think the country is on the right track. That’s up 3 points from last week and, more importantly, far ahead of the mid- to upper-20s and low 30s during much of Barack Obama’s final year in office in 2016.
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