If only some parts of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s and
his legislative allies’ crime package had been in place prior to this year, likely
at least one more person would be alive today, along potentially with
reductions in many other crimes committed.
At the end of June, a woman who worked as tour guide was found shot dead early in the morning in the Vieux Carré. The next day, New Orleans police arrested Joshua Bonifacio-Avila, 19, Jerben Albarec, 17, and Kevin Nuñez, 15 for the robbery/murder with Nuñez as the alleged triggerboy.
That unhappy circumstance reflects poorly on Democrat Orleans Parish Juvenile Court Judge Candice Bates-Anderson’s decision-making, as Nuñez – despite his not being old enough to operate legally a vehicle – already had a record of seven counts of aggravated assault, illegal possession of a handgun, and domestic battery at his latest appearance earlier this spring. Bates-Anderson nevertheless sentenced him to home arrest and monitoring. Yet in another system failure, for some reason his ankle monitor was deactivated in May, allowing him to roam the streets that led to his alleged role in the robbery that escalated to murder.
Perhaps this lenient sentencing and chance that the erroneous deactivation that happened never would have occurred had Louisiana had on the books Act 14 of the Second Extraordinary Session from earlier this year. That would have required confinement in the state system of Nuñez after his second felony when he turned 14. This came into effect Jul. 1, the day after the crime and the day of the arrest.
But the incident also points to failure in national immigration policy, spurred by Democrat Pres. Joe Biden’s mass-parole, catch-and-release policies. Bonifacio was confirmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an illegal alien from Honduras. It could not be confirmed whether Nuñez and Albarec were as well, since as juveniles ICE doesn’t have administrative authority over them.
Two statutory changes as a result of this year’s Regular Session might have prevented this crime from occurring. Act 314, which came into effect last month, mandates that Louisiana law enforcement agencies cooperate and comply with ICE and other federal agencies in detaining, informing about, and turning over for disposition to federal authorities illegal aliens under arrest for other crimes. Act 670, also coming into effect last month, created the crime of unlawful entry by illegal aliens into Louisiana, meaning Bonifacio and possibly the other two could have been arrested for this, or at least had this charge added on incident to other criminal charges that might have gotten them off the streets.
Bonifacio has been arrested in Jefferson Parish on multiple occasions over the past year. He was released because of jail overcrowding.
As is typical, certain interest groups and their media enablers tried to distract from the issue. Protestations that data show immigrants actually commit less crime than citizens ignores that this statistic lumps in immigrants legally in the country, who are more law-abiding than typical, with illegal aliens, and that a study that purported to show illegal aliens also were less likely to commit crime was of questionable reliability and validity.
However, indisputable about all of this is that robust enforcement of immigration laws would have dramatically reduced the chances of apparent young career criminal Bonifacio from entry into the U.S. And that new laws backed by Landry would have aided in this outcome, in addition to keeping Nuñez off the streets.
Keep in mind Louisiana’s legislative Democrats almost to a legislator opposed all of these laws. And their counterparts at the national level from Biden on down have kept up the open borders regime. This miscreants that committed the crime are responsible for its horrible outcome, but it’s not unfair to say they were enabled by leftist politicians any or all of uninterested, uninformed, or uncaring.
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