The Threat of Illegal Immigrants

Christopher Maier was a 21 year old student at the University of Kentucky. He and his girlfriend, Holly were walking along railroad tracks near the university in Lexington, Kentucky. On that August night in 1997 they became the first victims of the Railroad Killer, according to Joseph Geringer of trutv.com, Christopher was beaten to death and his girlfriend Holly was raped and beaten, but miraculously survived the tragic event.

Angel Maturino Resendiz or The Railroad Killer wreaked havoc among rural strips of railways, stalking and slaying 15 unsuspecting victims in a two year span, according to MSNBC. Angel Maturino Resendez, an illegal Mexican immigrant, wandered along railroad tracks, breaking into homes nearby. December 17, 1998 Resendiz stabbed, raped and beat Dr. Claudia Benton repeatedly with a bronze statue after breaking into her home outside of Houston, which according to MSNBC down the street from the Union Pacific St. Louis Southwestern Railway. When .

Geringer explains in his article that Resendiz evaded the full scale manhunt with ease, complicating the search with his constant undocumented travels across the border to and from Mexico and even Canada. In May 1999 Resendiz, still on the run, struck again, murdering Norman and Karen Sirnic in the United Church of Christ in Weimar, Texas where Norman Sirnic was a pastor. With fingerprints and DNA found in Benton's Jeep Cherokee, which had been abandoned in San Antonio, MSNBC reports that the police used the evidence to tie him to the Sirnic's mysterious murder. Soon was warrant for his arrest A little more than a month later, after three more killings, Resendiz now one of the F.B.I.'s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives was lured by Texas Rangers with the help of his sister Manuela, from where he had temporarily been hiding in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico to El Paso. Then and there on June 13, 1999 Resendiz surrendered and was arrested and charged with the murder of Dr. Claudia Benton, for which he was convicted of and sentenced the death penalty.

Though more than a decade ago, this real life horror story where 15 innocent lives were stolen by one psychotic killer, shows the threat that illegal immigrants have. A large percentage of criminals at large are illegal aliens, evading the authorities much like Angel Maturino Resendiz, using several aliases, and moving in and out of the country without documentation.

Resendiz's killings show how illegal immigrants can evade the police and authorities with ease. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2005 that in studying a population of almost 56,000 illegal aliens they found that among the group there were more than 450,000 arrests, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal immigrant. Of the group 15,000 of them or 26% of the study group had been arrested 10 or more times. Forty-five percent of that group were arrested for drug or immigration violations. Fifteen percent arrested for property-related crimes, such as theft or larceny. Twelve percent of them were arrested for violent crimes, assault, murder, or rape (that's 6720 violent criminals for every 56,000 illegal aliens)

Most illegal aliens convicted of a crime spend a short time in jail and are then deported to their native country. Resendiz had been charged several times for crimes as minor as false identification and as major as burglary and was repeatedly deported as consequence, but continued to sneak back into the U.S. to kill and steal. In the past decade, the illegal alien population in the United States has tripled and the Government Accountability Office reported in 2005 that an estimated 700,000 people illegally enter the country every year. With the millions of immigrants it is obvious that some come with good intention running towards the American dream, but others come with intention to sell drugs, rob hardworking Americans, and in Reseniz's case to kill. Americans have the right to be protected by the government from becoming the victim of foreign criminals, who illegally enter our country. The government should keep the horrendous murders in mind when making laws about illegal immigration and thinking how to protect our international borders.

MSNBC wrote of Resendiz's execution, June 2007. Though Resendiz said in court he didn't believe he could die, he said before the lethal injection, "I deserve what I am getting". Indeed he did. Though he was only convicted of Dr. Claudia Benton's murder, it was proven that he had killed at least 15 others, eight of which are pictured on trutv.com along with Geringer's article. The pictures show Christopher Maier, Dr. Claudia Benton, Rev. Norman Sirnic, Karen Sirnic, Noemi Dominguez, Josephine Konvicka, George Morber, and Carolyn Frederick. It would be a shame if something as horrible as this would happen today due to inaction by the government to regulate and secure our borders from the threat of illegal immigrants.

Geringer, Joseph. Angel Maturino Resendiz: The Railroad Killer http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/resendez/track_1.html