Below, Rep. Brooks listed some of the many preventable deaths caused by illegal [...]]]>
Below, Rep. Brooks listed some of the many preventable deaths caused by illegal aliens in the US.
One of the crimes was familiar, the deaths of Alabama residents Tad Mattle and his girlfriend Leigh Anna Jimmerson who died when Tad’s car was rear-ended by a drunk-driving illegal. The killer was a repeat offender (pictured in the inset of photo at right) who should have been deported after several DUIs but wasn’t.
Here’s the text version of Rep. Brooks’ speech:
]]>Brooks Slams Democrats in House Floor Speech for “Aiding and Abetting” Illegal Alien Killers January 15, 2019, Press Release
Washington, DC — Tuesday, Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-05) delivered a passionate House Floor speech describing the lives and deaths of people killed on American soil by illegal aliens and challenging Democrats in Congress who protect illegal aliens to, instead, help protect American lives.
The full text of Congressman Brooks’ speech follows:
Mr. Speaker, in 2018, more than 2,000 illegal aliens were apprehended by federal law enforcement officers for homicides committed on American soil.
That is roughly 2,000 dead in just one year! And that does not count some number of the 70,000 Americans whose lives are snuffed out each year by poisonous drugs, much of which is shipped illegally into America across our porous southern border!
Americans would know about these horrific killings if the media diverted just a fraction of the time it spends on extolling illegal aliens and attacking our brave border patrol and ICE officers and agents to telling the stories of American lives needlessly ended by illegal aliens.
Today I share a few stories about those who died solely because of illegal aliens and our porous southern border.
Louise Sollowin was a beloved mother, wife, and grandmother. Louise spent 50 years helping her sister fire up the oven at Omaha, Nebraska’s Orsi’s Italian Bakery, where she worked well into her 80s.
In 2013, after 93 years of life, Louise was brutally raped and beaten to death by an illegal alien. To make matters even more horrific, Louise’s daughter found her bleeding, battered and dying mother with a naked illegal alien passed out on top of her.[1]
In 2010 in Houston, Texas, 14-year-old Shatavia Anderson, was shot in the chest and killed by two illegal aliens. Shatavia loved her family and loved talking on the phone. She proclaimed that one day she was [quote] “gonna be somebody.”[2] [end quote] Shatavia was robbed of that dream by illegal aliens.
In July 2018 in my home town of Huntsville, Alabama, two drug cartel related illegal aliens took Oralia Mendoza and her 13-year-old granddaughter, Mariah Lopez, from their home in the dark of night. Oralia was stabbed to death while her teenage granddaughter, Mariah, was forced to watch. Later, and in order to eliminate a witness, the illegal alien drug cartel members then beheaded Mariah and abandoned her body in the woods. Mariah’s decaying body was not found for weeks. Mariah was a special needs student at Challenger Middle School. Her teachers described her as a [quote] “sweet little girl” who “had a lot of friends.” [3] [end quote]
I have a Washington staff member, Michaila Lindow, who well-remembers being baby-sat as a young child by family friend Tad Mattle.
In 2009 in Huntsville, Alabama, then 19-year-old Tad Mattle was driving home with his girlfriend from a church social. While stopped at a red light, an illegal alien who was fleeing the scene of yet another crime, and whose blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit, rear-ended Tad Mattle’s car. This illegal alien had three prior DUIs. Tad Mattle’s car exploded on impact, tragically killing Tad Mattle and his girlfriend.
Tad, the oldest of 3 children, enjoyed making music and served as percussion leader in the Grissom High School Marching Band. Three days before he was killed, Tad was awarded a full scholarship to the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he planned to pursue an engineering degree.[4]
Mr. Speaker, each of these horrific deaths have one thing in common. None of these lives would have been stolen from us but for illegal aliens aided and abetted by Democrats who protect, promote and prefer the lives of illegal aliens to the lives of American citizens.
Mr. Speaker, these killings on American soil will continue if America does not secure our porous southern border.
As for those who support amnesty and open borders: how many American lives and dreams must be snuffed out by illegal aliens before Washington has the guts and integrity to secure our porous southern border?
How many dead Americans does it take before you will start saving lives rather than aiding and abetting those illegal aliens who take them?
###
[1] https://www.omaha.com/news/man-to-be-charged-with-first-degree-murder-in-connection/article_c2a0e8de-f143-5e28-b279-bf349fc8ff17.html
[2] https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-family-reeling-from-slaying-of-14-year-old-1698537.php
[3] https://whnt.com/2018/06/14/authorities-identify-body-of-13-year-old-girl-homicide-investigation-underway/
[4] http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/08/for_huntsville_couple_still_gr.html
Sadly, the “Big Easy” has seen an uptick of foreign pests because the city leaves aliens alone, and next-door Alabama has chased them out with its state enforcement. [...]]]>
Sadly, the “Big Easy” has seen an uptick of foreign pests because the city leaves aliens alone, and next-door Alabama has chased them out with its state enforcement. Louisiana did nothing to kick out the aliens who came to mooch jobs after the Katrina disaster, and they never left New Orleans. Some of the tribe like to call it Nuevo Orleans, to mark territory and announce they are pleased to occupy another American city.
Now more are coming from Alabama, illustrating once again that enforcement works.
]]>New Orleans Draws Illegal Immigrants: Alabama’s Restrictive Laws Push Immigrants West, CNN, March 14, 2012
NEW ORLEANS (CNN) — Humberto Guzman drove big rigs in Alabama for two months. As an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, he feared being deported everyday.
“The police would come after us a lot,” Guzman said. “Where we parked was the problem because they always asked us for our papers.”
Last week, two more parts of Alabama’s tough immigration law, which makes it more difficult for illegal immigrants to live and work in the state, were blocked by a federal appeals court. Another piece, requiring schools to check the immigration status of students, was put on hold last year. The entire law is being challenged by the federal government and activist groups.
Anticipating the worst, around the beginning of the year, Guzman packed his belongings and headed for Louisiana. He was familiar with the state. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, illegal immigrants like Guzman flocked to the city. They came in droves, drawn by the high paying jobs.
“Louisiana is a state where [police] don’t bother you. Over [in Alabama], you can’t even eat in peace,” Guzman said of the reason why he chose to come to the state, instead of stopping in Mississippi on his drive-in from Alabama. “The governor from here has been very kind to us…and he’s Republican!”
Despite Guzman’s sentiments, Louisiana did pass two immigration laws in May 2011, which Governor Bobby Jindal signed. They are both designed to make sure businesses check that their workers are legal. A much tougher bill was introduced in the same session– and withdrawn.
Louisiana law has not stunted the flow of unauthorized immigrants or the businesses who hire them. In 2010, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the illegal immigrant community to be around 65,000 people in Louisiana. By comparison, neighboring Mississippi had an undocumented population of about 45,000.
Hiberto Apolo owns the hauling business that contracts Guzman. Apolo, originally from Ecuador, came to Louisiana looking for work after Hurricane Katrina. Now others are coming to him looking for a similar opportunity.
“The reality is many have come here and they’ve said to me, “Sir, can you help me get work? Can you give me work? I have problems in Alabama and they’re supposedly going to deport me,” Guzman says.
Of the 13 workers that Apolo currently contracts, about a third came from Alabama in the last few months. More are coming, he says.
“The truth is here is a bit calmer, I see that. But what I hear on the news is that everyone is afraid of what’s happening, so who knows? That fear could touch here too,” Apolo says. “We may have to run here too, but at this stage it’s beautiful in Louisiana, and we thank God that they treat us well.”
Although most of the work for undocumented workers is found in New Orleans, many immigrants have chosen to settle in nearby Kenner, Louisiana. Some areas of that city have seen a dramatic shift almost overnight. Latinos now make up about 25 percent of the population of Kenner—nearly a 10 percent increase since before Katrina, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
With the boom comes adversity. Jacinta Gonzalez is the head of the Congress of Day Laborers, an organization that supports undocumented immigrants. She says the wave of anti-illegal sentiment that led to strong laws in Arizona and Alabama is already impacting reality in Louisiana.
“I think many residents want people to be part of the community but it seems like the only institution in the city that’s really receiving them is the criminal justice system,” Gonzalez says. “We’re really seeing an upsurge in people that are being arrested and that are being kept in the jails for very minor incidents”
At the day laborer site where Guzman hangs out, the tension is clear. Just as a CNN crew arrived on the scene, a security guard from a local business was chasing them off the grounds. A day later, a police car was parked in a lot overlooking the workers.
So far Guzman has been able to avoid arrest. It’s easier to do that in Louisiana than Alabama, he says.
“I don’t understand, I don’t understand over there what the reason is that they bother us so much, because here…here in New Orleans, it’s not said that the laws have to be the end of you,” he says.
For now he’s glad to be out of Alabama and looking forward to helping New Orleans rebuild.
“A lot of people look at it and say, ‘Look how ugly New Orleans is,'” Guzman says. “But I hope that one day more people will understand how beautiful it is here. And it’s with our [Latino] hands that this city will move forward.”
In Alabama, Dan Mattle has begun to speak out in favor of his state’s restrictive immigration law, which has been called tougher than Arizona’s. [...]]]>
A parent’s pain of losing a child never goes away, and even more so when the death could have been prevented by government doing its basic job of protecting public safety.
In Alabama, Dan Mattle has begun to speak out in favor of his state’s restrictive immigration law, which has been called tougher than Arizona’s. His 19-year-old son Tad was killed by a previously arrested drunk-driving illegal alien who crashed into the Mattle car at a stoplight as the speeding Mexican fled from the police. Tad’s girlfriend Leigh Anna Jimmerson, 16, was also killed in the collision.
(See my article “Diversity Is . . . Drunk Driving” for background showing how hispanic culture celebrates inebriated vehicle operation as a desirably macho behavior. Even NPR agrees that “Latinos are responsible for a disproportionate number of DWI arrests and alcohol-related car accidents.”)
The couple is shown in the photo at right; the inset picture is of Felix Ortega, the habitual criminal who killed them.
Dan Mattle has spoken on talk radio and wrote an opinion piece (below) supporting immigration law enforcement:
Alabama Voices: Alabama’s new immigrant law needed, Montgomery Advertiser, August 6, 2011
As the father of Tad Mattle, killed along with his girlfriend in a horrific accident in Huntsville two years ago caused by the illegal immigrant Felix Ortega, I experienced first-hand results of unrestricted illegal immigration.
The driver was not just seeking a better life in the United States. He was a repeat offender with at least four DUIs, was wanted in at least four other states for both misdemeanors and felonies, had five different aliases, and was supposed to have been deported in 2001.
Because I support Alabama’s HB 56 to enforce laws against illegal immigration, I have been accused of not being Christian. I can no longer maintain silence.
Where in Jesus Christ’s teachings did he advocate flagrant violation of a nation’s laws? How is violating immigration laws and flaunting it in front of those who followed the legal process Christ-like? The willingness of HB 56’s detractors to overlook unfettered illegal immigration is just the sort of mindset that allows hardened criminals into our country.
I ask how Christian is it to allow evil men into our country to rob, maim and/or kill innocent, law-abiding citizens just to demonstrate your pious compassion? Where’s the compassion for innocent victims? (continues)
Dan Mattle’s sensible response to preventable crime was featured recently:
]]>For Huntsville couple still grieving son’s loss, illegal immigration debate is deeply personal, AL.com, by Steve Doyle, Huntsville Times, August 15, 2011
Dan Mattle and his wife, Terri, don’t consider themselves especially political.
But when critics hammered Alabama’s new immigration act as mean-spirited and racist, the south Huntsville couple decided to speak up in support of the Republican-sponsored bill.In late June, Dan Mattle made his first appearance on talk radio and wrote his first letter to the editor.
GOP legislators are “making up for the fact that the federal government is derelict in its (immigration enforcement) duty,” he said this month. “None of these laws would have passed if they’d been doing their job.”
Immigration became a deeply personal issue for the Mattles just before 9 p.m. on April 17, 2009.
Their oldest son, Tad, was stopped in traffic at the busy intersection of Whitesburg Drive and Airport Road when Felix Dominguez Ortega, an undocumented resident fleeing from Huntsville police, slammed into the back of Tad’s Toyota Supra.
Police estimated Ortega’s pickup truck was traveling nearly 70 miles an hour; no skid marks were found.
Tad, a 19-year-old Eagle Scout who had just earned a full academic scholarship to the University of Alabama in Huntsville, died in the fiery crash along with his girlfriend, Grissom High School sophomore Leigh Anna Jimmerson.
Ortega, with a blood-alcohol content more than three times the legal limit, survived.
“Everyone calls it an accident,” Mattle said. “But that was no accident – it was a murder scene.”
A native of Mexico, Ortega eventually pleaded guilty to reckless murder and is serving a 15-year sentence at Bibb County Correctional Facility.
Municipal court records show that Ortega had three prior drunk-driving arrests in Huntsville under another name, Juan Sanchez. Police say he also used the aliases Adan Herrera and Reynaldo Martinez.
Mattle, 46, said he hopes Alabama’s immigration law will deter criminals like Ortega from sneaking across the border.
“We’ve got enough criminals of our own that are legal citizens,” he said. “We don’t need to let a bunch more in.”
“There’s probably some fairly decent people coming across, but there’s a significant number of bad people, too.”
An aerospace engineer and Boy Scout leader, Mattle said he would welcome back any immigrant who returns home and applies for a U.S. visa.
“If they want to go back and file the papers and make all the sacrifices that millions of others have made, that’s fine,” he said.
Nation’s strictest
Co-sponsored by state Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, and state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, Alabama’s new immigration law is considered the strictest in the nation.It allows local police to detain people suspected of being in the United States illegally, requires public schools to inquire into immigration status of students, makes it a crime for an illegal immigrant to seek work, and also makes it a crime to knowingly transport or harbor an illegal immigrant.
Opponents challenging the law in court argue that it oversteps federal authority and violates the U.S. Constitution.
Plaintiffs include the U.S. Department of Justice, Mexico and 15 Latin American countries, the American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigration Law Center, bishops from the Episcopal, Roman Catholic and Methodist churches – and Huntsville resident Ellin Jimmerson, the mother of Leigh Anna Jimmerson.
A minister to the community from Weatherly Heights Baptist Church, Jimmerson is a longtime advocate for illegal immigrants.
She is in the final stages of editing a documentary film, “The Second Cooler/La segunda nevera,” that explores the reasons behind the surge of migrants into the United States. The title refers to a second body cooler that the Tucson, Ariz., morgue had to install because so many immigrants die attempting to cross the desert.
Jimmerson, who argues in court filings that Alabama’s immigration law could criminalize aspects of her ministry, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Mattle, who attends the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Byrd Spring Road, said he wanted to “lay low” during the immigration debate but had to respond to those who say the new law goes against religious teachings.
“I consider it unchristian to allow illegals to come into the country to kill and maim,” he said. “Where’s those leaders’ compassion for what we’ve gone through?”
‘I just knew’
Tad had things planned out.His 32 ACT score had earned him a four-year scholarship to UAH, where he would major in mechanical engineering. Afterward, he would open his own auto body repair shop, maybe go on a Mormon mission to Germany.
He and Leigh Anna seemed destined to marry.
“They were starting to make plans,” Dan Mattle said.
Tad and Leigh Anna spent the evening of the crash helping Mattle celebrate his 44th birthday at a church social. Before driving away, Tad gave his father a card.
He signed it, “Thanks for putting up with all the shenanigans.”
Later that night, the Mattles heard a knock at the front door. Terri figured Tad had forgotten his house key. Instead, it was two Huntsville police officers.
“They didn’t have to say anything,” Terri said. “I just knew.”
After the funeral, Mattle dealt with his grief by restoring a 1985 Toyota Supra that Tad bought just before his death. He finally got it running in October.
“Part of my therapy was rebuilding that car,” Mattle said. “I knew how excited he was about that car, and I just kind of took over where Tad left off.”
Ortega pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless murder on Aug. 30, 2010. Madison County Circuit Judge Dennis O’Dell sentenced him to 15 years for each count, but under Alabama law consecutive sentences – one after the another – cannot be applied to traffic death cases.
Ortega will be eligible for parole in 2024.
Although they did not oppose the plea deal, the Mattles say a life sentence would have been more appropriate.
“People see (Ortega) every day,” Terri Mattle said. “The only way we can see Tad is at Maple Hill Cemetery.”
“I wake up sometimes and think, ‘Oh, he’s coming home.’ But he’s not coming home,” she said, “and it hurts.”
The Mattles recently got some much-needed good news: son Andrew, 20, was awarded the same Presidential Full Scholarship to UAH that Tad had won.
Daughter Deanta, 15, just started her sophomore year at Grissom.
‘Good starting place’
State Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, said critics of the immigration law have “misinterpreted” its intent.A former state trooper, Ball sees the bill as a lifeline for Alabama’s working poor. Legal residents who aspire to jobs as brick masons and roofers can’t get a foot in the door because those fields are increasingly dominated by illegal immigrants, he said.
Ball operated a roofing company for several years but said he could not compete price-wise with contractors that avoid payroll taxes and insurance by using illegal workers.
“I understand the compassion for the immigrants, but what about our working poor that’s here?” he said Friday.
While Ball said he expects parts of the bill will have to be rewritten, he is hopeful that it will survive the legal challenges.
“This was not a magic wand that solves everything,” he said, “but it’s a good starting place.”