WARNING: Not a show business opinion!
I learned about “Kate’s Law’ during the first Republican Debate. It’s a bill that was introduced by Senator Cruz entitled “the Establishing Mandatory Minimums for Illegal Reentry.” In short, this bill would set a minimum sentence of five years in prison for anyone caught trying to enter the country illegally for a second time. It is called “Kate’s Law” because it is in response to the murder of Kate Steinle by an “illegal alien” who had been previously deported five times. He also had, and probably more importantly, several felony convictions. It is, by anyone’s account, a horrific, senseless tragedy. When something terrible like this happens, we try to make sense of it. Try to understand it, in hopes of preventing it from ever happening again. We try to isolate a specific factor that lead to the tragedy; some crucial ingredient we can identify and work to eradicate. In this instance, the drafters of the legislation feel like the crucial ingredient, or defining characteristic of the murderer was his repeated entry into the country illegally. This has to be their conclusion, or the bill would have asked for minimum sentencing based on other criteria the murderer exhibited. They must not have thought his multiple felonies were the key ingredient, or they would have asked for minimum sentencing for people committing their second felony. I disagree with their conclusion. This should come as no surprise, as I am a well documented “faggy libtard.” I could moan on and on about the hypocrisy of xenophobia in a country whose economy is built on a foundation of cheap migrant labor, but who would listen? I understand. Thinking about the “aliens” as real, human beings with children and parents and siblings and favorite songs is not on the table. The fact that a large portion of these repeat offenders are simply trying to reconnect with family members who weren’t deported shall hold little sway. So I will instead keep my thoughts strictly fiscal: Incarcerating someone in prison is pricy. In 2011, the average cost per inmate in a Federal prison was $28,893.40. So if Kate’s Law is enacted, we can expect to spend $144,467 per conviction, (not including the considerable cost of apprehension, detention, prosecution and court appointed defense attorneys). Now, of the 188,382 “criminal aliens” deported in 2011, 86,699 had been previously deported and had returned illegally. That was in 2011. The number of deportations has risen dramatically since then, so the 86K number is light. I will use it anyway (because I can’t find 2014 figures, and I’m not CNN). So…with 86,699 annual offenders, we will be committing to pay $12,525,144,433 every year. That’s billion. A twelve-and-a-half billion dollar commitment. Year in and year out. Over the next 10 years we (or rather our Chinese lenders) will be paying well over a trillion dollars for Kate’s Law. And again, I am using the very conservative 2011 figures. I like people who have a different, or even opposite point of view from my own. I married someone who is diametrically opposed to 70-80% of my opinions, and I enjoy the challenge of seeing things through her eyes. The only thing that could take the fun out of it, is if her stance shifted radically from day to day. I would have a hard time understanding where she’s coming from if her place of origin was fluid. And herein lies my frustration with “The Right” on this issue. How can their platform be fiscal conservatism when this is so blatantly wasteful? How can the folks who think we can’t afford Sesame Street think we can afford this? It’s perplexing and inconsistent. And the candidates’ reactions to this bill at the debate was overwhelmingly supportive. It is tempting to frame this as an immigration reform bill of sorts. But it’s not. It’s called “Kate’s Law” for a reason. It is in response to a murder. And we should be diligent in determining what the “active ingredient” in this murder was before enacting legislation to address it. As it stands, the “illegal alien” component is what’s being targeted as the culprit. The problem with that is that there are 11.5 million people in this country that fit that description. This would be no different that determining that someone’s Blackness was the determining factor in a homicide, and that legislation for all African Americans was imperative. It’s just too broad and illogical. Not to mention a humongous waste of China’s money. If we are going to commit a trillion dollars to something, I hope it will create some jobs and opportunity. I hope it will be an investment, and not interest payments on a principal that we refuse to address. One in every hundred adults in Americans is already incarcerated. We can do better than that. And better isn’t one in every fifty.
I’m confused about something, When you read Kate’s Law, do you glean from it that the “illegal alien” the target, or is the target the more specifically the “criminal illegal immigrant”? I see those as two different issues and from what I have read about Kate’s Law, the target is the latter; repeat criminal offender. The majority of the11.5 million people, who are considered to be here illegally, don’t have any sort of sort of criminal background, accept the technicality of not having gone through the proper channels to come to the United States. I don’t think they have anything to do with Kate’s Law, nor should there be any reason it would apply to them.
I would say, that it is this “criminal” component that is being targeted and that may be for good reason. By my account, you can find in the news, about one murder(s) per week, where the suspect is an illegal immigrant, with a criminal record, who was not deported, even if --legally, they should have been.