"My constituents and I believe that after five years of unbelievable bloodshed on all sides--4,024 dead and, 20,000 plus wounded...you have to wonder why the best you can say is the gains are fragile and reversible?." 

~ Senator Barbara Boxer questioning General Petraeus on April 8, 2008

I was intrigued by the quote from Senator Barbara Boxer that I clipped from the Orange County Register. It is a tragedy that any lives have to be lost in defense of our country in the war on terrorism, but I do believe that the United States must continue to fight radical Islamic terrorists at home and abroad.

She voiced concern that over 4,000 American lives have been lost in Iraq over the course of the conflict, but I have never heard her offer much public concern for the thousands of United States citizens killed at the hands of illegal immigrants on American soil.

It is estimated that 25 Americans loose their life everyday at the hands of illegal immigrants. That is 9,000 citizens a year who die as a result of violence, drunken driving, and other acts perpetrated by people who have no legal right to be in our country. The fact that local, state, and federal officials refuse to make the true numbers and facts of crime committed by illegal immigrants public is a crime against our communities.

If the 25 per day killed by illegal immigrants number is correct--that means that 45,000 citizens, over 10 times the deaths mourned in Iraq, have been killed. Many more have been affected by crimes directly attributed to illegal immigrants in our neighborhoods.

I think it is time the Senate investigate crimes by illegal immigarants and provide the number of illegal immigrants who are currently incarcerated in the U.S by state, and what kinds of crimes, and the number of offenses, they are incarcerated for.

Jamiel Shaw, a promising young man gunned down by an illegal immigrant gang member in Los Angeles recently, is only one example of a horrible loss caused by lack immigration law enforcement.

Senator Boxer and her colleagues would do our community more service by working to end illegal immigration than any other single agenda item discussed in the Senate. Illegal immigration contributes to poverty, wage deflation, illiteracy, overcrowding, gang violence, and a whole host of societal ills. I know that there is a way to create a robust guest worker program, control our borders, and identify those in our country illegally. But, our Congress must act to correct the problems that have been festering for decades.

I do not think that offering some type of illegal alien amnesty is the answer to the Federal government's lack of enforcement of our immigration laws. Rewarding those here illegally with citizenship or legal residency status will only convince more and more illegals to flood our neighborhoods.

Congress needs to focus its energy on ending the flood of illegal immigration. I know that my family and neighborhood will be safer when the flood of illegal immigration slows to a trickle. My next-door-neighbor was killed by an individual who fled the country six years ago this month.