Sheriff To Obama: Immigration Reform Starts With Border Security, Not Amnesty [Video]

Sacramento County (Calif.) Sheriff Scott Jones in a YouTube video is making a personal appeal President Obama to prioritize immigration reform as a way to protect American citizens and non-citizens. He claims he’s even willing to fly to Washington to help out in some capacity.

According to the sheriff, amnesty for millions of illegal aliens — which the president reportedly plans to announce via an executive order in a speech tomorrow evening — is not the answer. The first step should be securing the border, he declared.

Prompting the video was the recent shooting death of one of Jones’ deputies, Danny Oliver, a father of two. The suspect is an illegal alien, apparently with a significant criminal record who had already been deported from the U.S. multiple times. The suspect also is accused of killing another officer in the same crime spree.

“The eight-minute video takes Congress and Obama to task for not passing immigration reform and for tying the hands of authorities trying to seal the border, but places most of the responsibility on the president,” the Sacramento Bee reported. Jones called on other law enforcement officials to make similar videos in favor of what he called meaningful immigration reform.

According to an assessment by the Center for Immigration Studies, about 167,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records are allegedly on the lose in the United States after being released by authorities. The report also indicates that possibly as many as 80,000 illegal aliens “with criminal histories… were able to escape deportation proceedings in 2014, even after being encountered by an ICE officer.”

In the run-up to the 2013 budget sequester, the federal government reportedly released hundreds of illegal immigrants charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, drug trafficking and murder after initially claiming that it only let go those individuals facing low-level, non-violent allegations.

Separately, the father of a motorcyclist killed by an unlicensed, illegal immigrant from Honduras who received what amounted to a slap on the wrist has also asked the president to think twice about executive action for undocumented individuals. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime, the grieving dad contended.

According to various reports, overall deportations have slowed to a trickle comparatively speaking, dropping by 20 to 34 percent over last year.

In his filmed appeal to the president (watch the video embedded below and draw your own conclusions) in which he chides the president for bearing responsibility for the hands-off policy of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection agents, Sheriff Jones stressed that he supports diversity:

“… I understand the integral role that the undocumented population plays in our national and state economies … in California, we have a very large and very productive undocumented population. Unfortunately, that also necessarily means that we have a large undocumented population that chooses crime as a way of life. That chooses to victimize others, including in many cases other undocumented persons who are often unwilling to call us for help. Like their American criminal counterparts, they commit murders, sexual assaults, kidnaps, thefts, engage in violent gang activity, and murder police officers. The problem I have is I can’t tell which ones are good and which ones are evil, and neither can you. By their very definition they are undocumented, untracked, untraced, and unaccounted for. There is no way to know which of the 12 million undocumented persons in this country are good or bad. Don’t you think there should be some way of knowing, or at least some way to track?…”

Continued Sheriff Jones: “So Mr. President, my request to you today can simply be stated, make immigration reform a priority… You… right now … I do not care which reform you choose … But deferred action or amnesty is deferring this crisis. It is not reform, it’s simply giving up. It does nothing to make America or the undocumented population any safer.”

Specifically about securing the border first in immigration reform, Sheriff Jones continued with his statement.

“And no matter what eventual pathway to immigration reform is chosen, there can be no conceivable resolution that does not involve securing our borders. No matter what else is done or decided, for any facet of immigration reform to work, our borders must be secure. So what possible reason could there be for not starting on this immediately? If nothing else, it would be a gesture of good faith for the American people that you truly care about immigration reform and keeping us safe from everyone. Not just Mexican nationals, but everyone who can choose to enter our country at will, secure in the knowledge that there can be no consequences if they are discovered.”

The sheriff also explained that issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens (as California and some other states do) is an ineffective means of identifying non-citizen criminals because “in most cases, they’re predicated on forged birth certificates or inadequate documentation.” He also noted that the DMV does not share information with immigration authorities either.

“An American patriot, Ronald Reagan, once told Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall,’ to preserve democracy and secure safety and freedom for a nation. Mr. President, I’m asking you to build up that wall for the very same reasons,” Sheriff Scott Jones concluded.

Do you agree or disagree with Sheriff Scott Jones’ views on immigration reform?

[Image via YouTube]