Jonny Alberto Enamorado-Vasquez, a Honduran and so-called “unaccompanied minor” who slithered across the border back in 2012 now sits in a Houston jail accused of murdering a Houstan-area man.
Vasquez crossed the border in early October 2012 and immediately was picked up by Border Patrol.
From that point on, Mr. Enamorado was in and out of authorities’ custody, passed between the Border Patrol, detention officers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the social workers at the Department of Health and Human Services, and eventually released from detention in late October because of what the government described as “lack of space.”
Unfortunately, Vasquez disappeared and only resurfaced after he and two others engaged in a gun battle after a botched heist which left Michael Phelan dead.
No statistics are kept on crime rates for these unaccompanied minors who are pouring over the border thanks to Obama Administration policy.
The President claims these “kids” are fleeing violence in their home countries but it may be they are the cause of violence there and are merely relocating to a more generous area.
Administration critics, though, disagree, saying dangerous conditions and poverty have existed in the region for decades, but what’s changed in recent years are the enticements to come to the U.S. — including the belief that U.S. enforcement is weak.
Indeed, the very punishment the Obama administration was touting last year — detailing an eventual deportation court date with unofficial permission to be in the country until then — was the same document smugglers were citing, saying it gave illegal immigrants a chance to be released into the country, where they could dissolve into the shadows with the rest of the 11 million illegal immigrants.
“After day one they don’t look back over their shoulders, saying, gosh, I’ve got to report for that hearing. They are home free. And their expectation is that by the time they need to appear, there is going to be an amnesty or a legalization,” Roger F. Noriega, former assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs last month.
Only about 40% of those ordered to appear in court appeared between July 2014 and February 2015. The rest simply disappeared into American society where many ended up like Vazquez.
One such absconder also got into trouble.
That was the case with Jalmar Mejia-Lopez, whom Louisiana authorities arrested and charged with aggravated rape last month after receiving an anonymous tip that the now-21-year-old illegal immigrant had impregnated his 12-year-old girlfriend, who was living with him.
“The 12-year-old victim stated that she is approximately four months along in the pregnancy and that she is in love with the defendant,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement of probable cause filed in the case. They discovered he’d had several outstanding local warrants for traffic violations, including driving without a license and failure to maintain control of his vehicle.
Not only did Lopez ignore his deportation order but even numerous local warrants for dangerous traffic violations didn’t deter him from American residency.
