Illegal aliens and sex criminals

Fred Burton:

A good case study of the criminal alien problem is that of Angel Maturino Resendiz, a serial rapist and killer who illegally entered the United States several times. Resendiz, a Mexican national, is more commonly known by one of his aliases -- Rafael Resendez-Ramirez -- or as the "Railway Killer," a nickname bestowed by the press because he rode trains across the country and his crime scenes were near the tracks. He raped several women and, between March 1997 and June 1999, murdered at least 11 people -- many of them in Texas, but in Florida, Kentucky and Illinois as well. He surrendered on July 13, 1999, and is scheduled for execution next month, pending an appeal.

Maturino Resendiz's record of immigration violations is as long or longer than that of his other crimes. Federal records show that between 1976 and 1999, he was barred entry from the United States once, formally deported three times, and permitted to voluntarily depart from the country on 11 occasions, after being stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol. Six of those apprehensions and voluntary departures occurred between the three murders he committed in the summer of 1997 and his fourth murder, in October 1998. He was again apprehended and allowed to return to Mexico before committing a fifth murder, in December 1998. The pattern was repeated a final time in June 1999 -- six months after an arrest warrant had been issued for him on murder charges, and before he killed four more people.

Between 1976 and 1998, Maturino Resendiz had been arrested in Michigan, Mississippi, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and California. In 1980, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for a brutal assault and burglary in Florida, but was released after five years. He also had federal convictions in Texas for making false representation of U.S. citizenship in 1985 and 1986, and a 1989 federal conviction in Missouri for Social Security fraud. During the time he spent in the United States, Maturino Resendiz reportedly used up to 30 different aliases. He also found work as a migrant farm laborer, as a handyman and -- somewhat surprisingly -- as an algebra tutor.

Other high-profile criminals also have been illegal aliens; Lee Boyd Malvo (also known as John Lee Malvo), who confessed to a role in the 2002 sniper attacks in Washington, D.C., entered the United States illegally from Jamaica; Abdel Basit (more widely known as Ramzi Yousef) was an illegal alien who came from Pakistan in order to carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But, as illustrated by the GAO study and other cases, it is far more common for criminal aliens to commit less spectacular crimes; frequently, they are thieves, con artists or sex offenders.

The Victims Of Illegal Immigration

Railroad Killer Linked To 1991 SA Murder

Mexico Meddles in Mass Murder