After My Daughter’s Death — A Father’s View of the Immigration Debate, By Ray Tranchant, Fox News, August 11, 2010
My 16-year-old daughter, Tessa, was killed by an illegal immigrant in Virginia Beach three years ago while sitting at a stop light. Her friend Ali Kunhardt, 17, also perished instantly. […]
Alfredo Ramos, a previous DUI offender and alcoholic, seemed invisible in a system that was good at looking the other way. Virginia Beach and Chesapeake were being accused of being “sanctuary cities” as Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera screamed at each other during the national news hour. O’Reilly was right.
I know what sanctuary means more than most ever will.
Ramos was actually smug at the trial and took his lumps: 40 years in prison. There was nothing I could do but forgive him; forgiveness cleanses the soul. He was an uneducated foreigner patronized by local merchants who needed cheap labor.
Hundreds of thousands of illegals in Virginia do the same. We don’t share a border with Mexico, so the awareness here isn’t as great as Arizona or California.
But the dilemma in Arizona is more important to Virginians than it seems. Last Monday, Sister Denise Mosier was killed in Prince William County. An illegal immigrant from Bolivia with two previous drunken-driving convictions is charged with killing her and critically injuring two other nuns while driving drunk.
As with me, her friends say they have forgiven him and hold no grudges.
Later in the week, in response to this tragedy, the Secretary of Homeland Security said she would get to the bottom of why the illegals are not deported when they are repeat offenders.
Here’s what I would like to tell the Secretary: Ms. Napolitano, ICE was not there in 2007 when my daughter and her friend died. And, though ICE picked up the man who hit Sister Mosier, he wasn’t kept in custody and was sent back out the streets.
This problem is not new.
We know it’s not the people but the system that fails Americans again and again. There have been hundreds of similar stories in America since Tess and Ali died.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez from Illinois reminded me personally in a Congressional hearing that the solution lies with a comprehensive plan that includes amnesty. After all, he said, “they pick your grapes, clean your hotels and are then victimized.” Luis should worry about protecting U.S. Hispanics and instead of counting on prospective Hispanic votes.
But waving a magic wand over 12 million people will not solve this immigration problem. It worries me that we would even consider giving foreigners legal rights to Social Security, health care and school in a time of $14 trillion dollar deficits.
Consider that when 12 million get citizenship, 10 million of their relatives will migrate legally. Of course citizenship will make them pay into the system, but the amount won’t be realized for many years.
I don’t believe the current system can process this many people and verify that some are not criminals or terrorists, let alone pay benefits to new Americans.