On July 7, 2012, the Democrat mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, announced a “Welcome to Chicago Ordinance” establishing the Windy City as a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. Chicago thus joined some 60 localities across the United States that currently choose not to enforce the federal rule of law on deportation of illegal aliens.
Emanuel formerly served as White House Chief of Staff in the Obama administration, which condones sanctuary cities. Such municipalities ignore U.S. immigration law that makes it a crime to enter the United States without documentation. Emanuel thus set the tone of his administration by condoning immigration law breakers.
What followed is a crime wave in Chicago so severe that voices of reason suggest the new mayor may not be up to the job. In August 2012, The Chicago Tribune reported that Emanuel had called for the assistance of federal law enforcement. President Obama (once a Chicago community organizer) responded with 50 federal agents. Their assignment is to reign in the shootings and killings by crime gangs that are tying Chicago in knots.
Since Chicago is a sanctuary city, law enforcement officers, including the “feds”, cannot question criminals about their citizenship. By failing to detain illegal alien gang members for deportation, these federal agents find themselves complicit in violating U.S. immigration law — at the behest of the Obama administration.
The current code word for Chicago’s daily shootings and killings is not “murder” but “violence.” No mention is made by the mayor that the gangs committing the “violence” are Hispanic and include large numbers of illegal aliens. Chicago now ranks above Montgomery County, Md., and Los Angeles both with sanctuary designations, as home to the nation’s most vicious illegal alien criminal gangs.
The exact number of gang members in Chicago is guesswork but ranges from 68,000 to 150,000 members in 70 to 100 gangs. Politicians and social justice activists do not acknowledge that the vast majority of gang members are illegal aliens. As a result, Chicago, with its large Hispanic gang presence, provides safe havens to criminals and dangerous crime zones to law-abiding citizens.
Although law enforcement officials estimate that the Latin Kings are the largest crime gang in Chicago, other observers believe MS-13 or Surenos (Mexican Mafia gang) or Barrio 18 may have the most gang members. The city also has black crime gangs, whose power is being diminished by the sheer number of Hispanic gang members. The black gangs, with a majority of their members U.S. citizens, appear to be joining forces to combat the Hispanic gangs.
With shootings a daily experience, Chicago has become the murder capital of America. On September 30, 2012, the Chicago Sun Times reported that, thus far this year, the city had 395 killings and 2,090 woundings, including70 stabbings; and this may be a lowball count. In one recent weekend, the city had five killings and 30 woundings. Many of the victims were innocent bystander adults and children.
No one knows how to stop the “violence”, not the Chicago Crime Commission; Chicago Justice Project; Chicago Police Department; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA); Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives (ATF); social-justice nuns; and especially not the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, internal documents provided to congressional committees by Obama’s Department of Homeland Security indicate that DHS officials have falsified “record” deportation numbers. In addition, these documents fail to mention that deported gang members often return to the United States in a matter of hours to resume gang activities. U.S. Border Patrol agents say off-the-record that deportation numbers have lots of helium in them.
Police describe some Chicago neighborhoods as “Free Fire Zones” that even armed officers hesitate to enter. The City of Chicago Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) is an agency that monitors police activities. On September 3, 2012, a shooting by a suspect armed with a TEC-9 (considered an assault weapon) occurred in a public housing project where President Obama once worked as a community organizer.
When police then wounded the assailant, IPRA opened an investigation of the action, as it does most actions where police officers use weapons; yet IPRA fails to investigate crimes where gang members use weapons.
Chicago is not the only city to hide its illegal alien crime rate and gang numbers. It is joined by other sanctuary cities that have Hispanic gang killings, drug sales, prostitution rings, and political payoffs. At the same time that the Obama administration inflates deportation numbers, sanctuary cities deflate the number of criminal alien gangs.
What is a nation to do? The United States Congress has the power to withhold federal monies from sanctuary cities, until they honor federal immigration law and cooperate with federal immigration officials. Freedom depends on the rule of law; but in sanctuary cities like Chicago, the rule of law is yielding to gang rule.
James H. Walsh was associate general counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1994. Read more reports from James Walsh — Click Here Now.
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