Contrary to what President Bush often claimed, family values do often stop at the Rio Grande for many illegal aliens. In addition to suppressing wages, bankrupting our hospitals, and over-crowding our jails and public schools, illegal aliens are preying upon our children.
In Operation Predator sweeps across the country conducted between 2003 and 2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents nabbed over 10,700 foreign national child molesters. Many of these predators had been previously convicted of other crimes, and many had already been deported once. The number of predators apprehended in the sweeps actually only represent the tip of the iceberg.
In fact, a study conducted by the Violent Crimes Institute reports that between 1999 and 2006, there were nearly 1,000,000 sex crimes committed in the United States by illegal aliens.
Using U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration, as well as state and local law enforcement data, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute determined that there are no less than 240,000 illegal alien sex offenders currently inside the United States.
The growing epidemic
A very cursory search on the subject of illegal aliens committing acts of child molestation turned up countless examples of the growing problem. The following are but a few of the more recent ones:
• On August 9, 2012, Eagle County (CO) sheriff’s deputies arrested Ismael Lopez-Alvarez, 24, after he reportedly sexually assaulted a 4-year-old girl. He gained access to the victim after being invited to dinner at the home of her parents.
The little girl’s parents quickly reported the assault, according to Public Information Officer for the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office, Jessie Mosher.
Lopez-Alvarez has been charged with sexual assault on a child and is being held in the Eagle County Detention Facility on an ICE detainer.
• On August 12, 2012, police in Pascack Valley, New Jersey, arrested Gonzalez Ramirez-Martinez, 50, two weeks after he allegedly molested a 7-year-old Hackensack girl.
According to Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, his office was notified by the state Division of Child Protection after she reported being sexually assaulted, at which time a warrant was issued for the illegal alien’s arrest.
The Cliffview Pilot reported that Ramirez-Martinez is married and unemployed.
Ramirez-Martinez has been charged with sexual assault and child endangerment and is currently being held in the Bergen County Jail on an ICE detainer.
• On August 6, 2012, Reymundo Hernandez, 25, was arraigned in Greene County Circuit Court after he reportedly had multiple sexual encounters with a 12-year-old girl.
The victim’s mother contacted police after her daughter told her that she had sex with Hernandez at a local park.
The girl was then taken for a medical exam where it was determined that she was pregnant.
Greene County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Casey Clark told KY3News that Hernandez began a relationship with the girl through social networking websites.
Clark said: “Through online contact, there was a decision to meet in person.”
“She disclosed to her mother and to law enforcement that she had had intercourse with the 25-year-old defendant,” Clark added.
Hernandez has admitted to having sex with the girl, according to court documents.
Hernandez has been charged with statutory sodomy and statutory rape and is currently being held in the Greene County Jail on an ICE detainer.
Hernandez was already in jail on assault charges, as he allegedly attempted to run over someone with his vehicle. He also has a previous conviction for DUI in California and has been deported at least once before.
• On June 4, 2012, police in Oxnard, California, announced the arrest of Juan Francisco Gonzalez, 39, whom they believe is responsible for molesting several young boys in recent months. All of the victims are between 7 and 10 years of age.
In a press release, Oxnard police stated: “Detectives believe there are about 20 young boys who were sexually assaulted by Gonzalez.”
Gonzalez was taken into custody on May 26 after he was allegedly identified in a store surveillance video sexually assaulting a young boy in the electronics section at the Walmart on N. Rose Avenue.
According to police, five victims have been identified so far, with assaults occurring at that same Walmart as well as inside Caballeros Circus on Saviers Road, and the Game Stop on Rose Avenue.
The young victims have all been playing video games at the time of the sexual assaults.
Oxnard police spokesperson Monica Munoz told NBC Los Angeles: “Their attention is focused on the game and then he would have physical contact with them while they’re playing the game.”
Gonzalez has been charged with two counts of lewd act upon a child and is currently being held in the Ventura County Jail on an ICE detainer.
Of course, this is not the first time someone who has entered this country illegally has been accused of such a crime.
In April 2010, Mexican national Santana Batiz-Aceves, 39, known as the “Chandler rapist,” was sentenced in Maricopa County Superior Court to 168 years in prison for a string of sexual assaults committed against several girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
On January 11, 2008, police in Chandler, Arizona, arrested Aceves, and based on DNA evidence, charged him with 47 various counts. The string of child rapes took place between June 2006 and November 2007.
At the time of his arrest, he had already been deported twice for drug charges in California.
Though an illegal alien, Aceves was working as a heavy equipment operator and lived very close to two junior high schools.
Aceves admitted to stalking his victims, preying upon young girls in single-parent homes. He would wait to attack the girls, after the adult in the home left for work. In one case, he raped a girl while her grandparents were outside.
So, is it just a coincidence that so many child sexual assaults have recently taken place at the hands of Mexican nationals?
In 2007, Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC) tracked child sexual assaults committed by illegal aliens. In a 30-day period, they recorded 27 assaults by foreign nationals illegally inside the United States. The results are as follows:
July 28, 2007
Milwaukee, Oregon
Charged: Alejandro Emetrio “Alex” Rivera Gamboa, 24, and Gilberto Javier Arellano-Gamboa, 23
Charges: rape and murder
Victim: Dani Countryman of Texas (15 years old)August 6, 2007
Trenton, N.J.
Charged: Jose Carranza, 28
Charges: child rape (later charged with murder of Newark teenagers as well)
Victim: child’s name withheldAugust 16, 2007
Huron, Ohio
Charged: Lucio Sanchez-Martinez
Charge: gross sexual imposition of a minor
Victim: 8 year old girlAugust 20, 2007
Oregon City, Oregon
Charged: Alejandro Hernandez-Flores, 19, and Mario Alberto Flores-Estrada, 20
Charges: rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse
Victims: two girls ages 14 and 15August 21, 2007
Franklin County, Alabama
Charged: Alvaro Vargas, 38
Charge: rape, sexual abuse
Victim: 11 year old girlAugust 23, 2007
Bryan County, Oklahoma
Sought/Charged: Jose Retana
Charge: rape by instrumentation
Victim: 4 year old girlAugust 24, 2007
Indianapolis, Indiana
Charged: Jesus Valenzuela, 19
Charges: child molestation and burglary
Victim: 5 year old girlAugust 27, 2007
McAllen, Texas
Charged: Jorge Alberto Escobar
Charge: aggravated kidnapping
Victim: 5 year old girlAugust 27, 2007
Rockville, Maryland
Sought/Charged: Mahumbo Kanneh, 23
Charges: rape, sexual assault, and molestation (Dismissed due to lack of interpreter!)
Victims: 18 month and 7 year old girlsAugust 15, 2007
Indiantown, Florida
Charged: Ruben Hernandez-Juarez, 52
Charge: battery on a child for molesting
Victim: 6 year old boyAugust 8, 2007
North Hollywood, California
Charged: Chalearmchai Nopthaisong, 41
Charges: kidnapping and lewd acts on a child
Victims: seven children (Police have since discovered six more victims ranging from age 4 to 8 years old.)July 20, 2007
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Charged: Daniel P. Ramirez, 39
Charges: sexual battery
Victim: 16 year old boyAugust 14, 2007
Portsmouth, Massachusetts
Charged: Marvin Hernandez, 27
Charges: sexual assault
Victim: 14 year old girlAugust 20, 2007
Gaston County, North Carolina
Charged: Ramon Zamora-Solano, 41
Charges: kidnapping and sexual assault
Victims: 5 and 6 year old girlsAugust 9, 2007
Poway, California
Charged: Jesus Mora Nava, 30
Charges: sexual assault
Victim: 13 year old boyAugust 22, 2007
Palm Bay, Florida
Charged: Dwayne Modeste, 19
Charges: rape (armed with a machete)
Victims: 13 year old girl and 20 year old womanAugust 20, 2007
Manchester, New Hampshire
Charged: Alan Hernandez, 18
Charges: sexual assault and criminal threatening
Victim: 14 year old girlAugust 18, 2007
Brewster, New York
Charged: Sergio Antonio Martinez-Garza, 32
Charges: two felony counts of sexual conduct against a child
Victims: two girls ages 10 and 11August 18, 2007
Brewster, New York
Charged: Pedro Sagastume, 21
Charges: rape
Victim: 13 year old girlAugust 18, 2007
Brewster, New York
Charged: Jeremias Perez, 22
Charges: rape
Victim 15 year old girlJuly 28, 2007
Tacoma, Washington
Charged: Terapon Adhahn, 42
Charges: rape, kidnapping, and murder
Victim: Zina Linnik, 12July 30, 2007
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Charged: Jesus G. “Egg” Garay-Barrientos, 18
Charges: aggravated sexual battery and rape
Victim: 6 year old girlJuly 27, 2007
Alto, Texas
Charged: Eleazar Posadas, 49
Charges: indecent contact with a child
Victim: 7 year old girlJuly 21, 2007
Village of Monroe, New York
Charged: Armando Sierra, 22
Charges: statutory rape
Victim: 14 year old girlAugust 16, 2007
Bentonville, Arkansas
Charged: Daniel Lopez Bibiano, 34
Charges: attempted rape, sexual assault, and rape
Victims: 5, 10, 12, 13, and 15 year old girlsAugust 18, 2007
Indianapolis, Indiana
Charged: Israel Baez
Charges: In custody on other charges. Approached a group of children and arrested with a ‘rape kit’ in his van.
Witnesses: 5 children
So why does the crime of child molestation seem to be so prevalent among illegal aliens from Mexico?
The answer may lie within the age-old Mexican culture of “machismo,” as well as within the actual laws of that country.
The crime of rape or child molestation is incredibly under-reported in Mexico, because there is so much shame placed upon the victim as well as the difficulty in proving the case.
A 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post article by reporter Mary Jordan detailed the case of a 16 year old Mexican girl who had reported being raped by three policemen in 1997. When Yessica Yadira Diaz Cazares and her mother went to the police station to report the rape, she was laughed at by the officers and actually jailed overnight.
Diaz was forced by police to undergo a medical exam as well as a total of eight blood tests. She was told that the blood tests would determine whether or not she had actually been raped. Prosecutors told the girl that she must physically put her hand on the men who raped her; courageously she proceeded even as the family received death threats.
The accused officer laughed at her and verbally abused the girl as she identified him as an attacker. Eventually, Yessica realized that justice would never be served and simply gave up. Sadly, she not only gave up her search for justice but her life as well. Despondent, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of prescription pills.
After Yessica´s death, the national human rights commission pursued the case, resulting in the conviction of two of the accused officers.
The crime of kidnapping a woman for the purpose of rape and marriage against their will, or “rapto” as it is known in Mexico, is actually a minor crime and rarely ever prosecuted. A Mexican legislator actually called the practice “romantic.” Of course, this crime if committed in the United States would elicit felony charges and a penalty of 20 years to life in prison.
While rape is a serious crime in the United States, many Mexican nationals cannot understand why they are prosecuted on this side of the border. Often, a small payment of $10 to $20 to the victim´s family will settle the matter back in Mexico.
Zimbabwe on the Rio Grande?
The most troubling and telling reason behind the growing epidemic of child molestation at the hands of Mexican illegal aliens is the fact that the age of sexual consent throughout the majority of Mexico is 12 years of age!
The only other nation in the world which boasts such a disregard for childhood innocence is Zimbabwe, where the age of consent is also 12.
Article 261 of the Mexican Federal Criminal Code states: “Whoever, without the purpose of reaching copulation, performs a sexual act in a person under 12 or in a person that has no capacity of understanding the meaning of the act or that for any reason cannot resist, or demands that the act is performed, will be punished with a term of 2 to 5 years in prison”
In addition to Mexico City, the age of consent is 12 years old in the following Mexican states:
• Aquascalientes • Baja California Sur
• Campeche • Coahuila
• Guanajuato • Guerrero
• Hidalgo • Jalisco
• Michoacan • Morelos
• Nayarit • Oaxaca
• Puebla • Querataro
• Quintana Roo • San Louis Potosi
• Sonora • Tabasco • Tamaulipas
The age of consent is 13-years-old in Nuevo Leon, Yucatan, and Zacatecas; 14-years-old in seven other Mexican states, and 15-years-old in the state of Mexico.
Not surprisingly, the attitude towards having sex with little girls is obviously carried with many Mexican men as they cross into this country.
An example of this attitude can be found in Mexican national Diego Lopez-Mendez, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to sexually assaulting a 10 year old West Virginia girl. Through an interpreter, he told the court: “In the pueblo where I grew up girls are usually married by 13 years old….I was unaware of the nature of the offense or that it was a bad crime.”
In order to bring charges of rape in most Mexican states, the law requires that the charge of statutory rape be dropped if the rapist wishes to marry his victim.
Mexican brothels coming to a neighborhood near you
This country is currently experiencing an epidemic of sex trafficking, with children all too often being used as the commodity.
Most of these young girls are confined in locked rooms with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and frequently beaten. Of course, even if they are able to escape, they are afraid to, as they are often told that if they leave…their families will be harmed.
What follows are a few examples of this ongoing human tragedy:
• On May 30, 2012, Adulfo De Aquino-Cancino, 28, was charged with multiple counts of child sex-trafficking in Kentucky. The Mexican national allegedly recruited two underage girls and transported them to various locations for the purposes of sex, paying them $30 each for having sex, often with two men at a time, according to a federal criminal complaint.
In a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that De Aquino-Cancino ran a prostitution ring that operated in Taylor, Adair, Barren and Green counties between August 2011 and January 2012. The Daily News reported that the operation included adult women as well as minors and catered to Hispanic men.
One of the girls was reportedly only 15 years old and was enticed into the illegal activity with the gift of a cell phone.
• In September 2010, U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith sentenced Manuel Enrique Zelaya-Rodriguez, 32, to 15 years and eight months in federal prison for multiple sex trafficking charges, including the trafficking of an under-age girl for sex, coercing a minor to engage in prostitution as well as two immigration offenses.
U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said: “This defendant exploited the desperate situation of a child who he knew was in the country illegally and put her to work for him as a prostitute…Within two weeks, Zelaya-Rodriguez collected money from 40 to 50 men who paid to have sex with the child. This is human trafficking and it is a morally reprehensible crime. The message with today’s sentence is that the Department of Justice and my office will not tolerate crimes of human trafficking.”
Upon completion of his sentence, Zelaya-Rodriguez should be deported back to Mexico.
• In March 2010, Mario Alberto Laguna-Guerrero, 25, was arrested by deputies with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, on sexual battery charges, after he allegedly forced one mentally disabled girl into prostitution and raped another.
According to the affidavit, the Mexican national told investigators that he had been “dating” the 17-year-old girl, who has an IQ of 58, and asked her to become a prostitute for him. He also admitted that he took the girl to so-called migrant labor camps where she performed sex acts with men for a fee of $25.
The girl told ICE agents that she would regularly be with up to nine “johns” a night.
Laguna-Guerrero told detectives that he asked the 17-year-old to recruit her classmates into prostitution as well.
The girl said she tried to recruit a mentally disabled 16-year-old on her school bus. According to her mother, the 16-year-old has the mental capacity of a second-grader.
When the young woman refused to become a prostitute, an angry Laguna-Guerrero allegedly raped her in front of the other girl.
Laguna-Guerrero has reportedly been in the country illegally since 2002.
• In January 2010, three illegal aliens were arrested and charged with running two brothels in a South Philadelphia neighborhood.
According to the federal indictment, Jose Claudio Corona Cotonieto, 27, Raymond Gonzalez Salazar, 31, and Nicolas Gonzalez Salazar, 22, were trafficking Hispanic women from New York, New Jersey, and Delaware to work in the brothel for a week at a time.
Investigators say the Mexican nationals had been running the brothels since August 2009, making about $9,000 per week.
A neighbor living near one of the brothels told Fox News Channel 29: “Two brothels — two of them? And they’re getting $9,000 in one week. OK.”
Grateful for the arrests, she continued: “I think that’s great because that would bring a lot of crime and, to me, it isn’t safe at all.”
• In July 2009, illegal alien and convicted felon Emma Tlacoxolal-Perez was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 33 months in prison for running brothels in eastern Virginia, in Chesapeake, Newport News, James City County, and Williamsburg.
The Mexican national was the head of a prostitution ring which employed women smuggled into this country from Mexico, and only catered to other illegal aliens.
Tlacoxolal-Perez, along with co-conspirator Felipe Vargas-Ortega, passed out business cards to advertise for the brothel known as El Nopal (The Prickly Pear).
Two more alleged co-conspirators, Francisco Sanchez-Martinez and Juan Carlos Vargas-Ortega, were also prosecuted.
Tlacoxolal-Perez, 37, who has operated brothels in Virginia since 2004, was deported in 2006, but easily found her way back across the largely unprotected border.
Customers paid $30 for 15 minutes with one of the prostitutes; the ring leaders kept half of it.
The Newport News location was in a suburban neighborhood and Mexican men typically went through the neighborhood at all hours, often knocking on neighbors’ doors looking for the brothel.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard J. Zlotnick told the court: “The poor people living on Eastwood Drive,” had to live with “strange men knocking on their doors looking for girls.”
All of those involved were illegal aliens from Mexico, El Salvador, and Ecuador.
• In February 2009, local police and federal agents raided a brothel run by Mexican nationals in Glen Burnie, Maryland.
• In September 2008, police in Baltimore, Maryland, shut down a Mexican brothel and arrested Carlos Silot, who ran the operation, along with two prostitutes; all were illegal aliens. Court documents show that at this particular brothel, the women would work for seven days and then be sent back to North Carolina, and exchanged for new prostitutes.
• In June 2007, police in San Antonio, Texas, arrested a mother and her two daughters for smuggling two minors out of Mexico to use them as prostitutes. Once in the U.S., the girls, ages 15 and 17, were told they would have to work as prostitutes for five years to pay off their smuggling fees of $3,000. They were threatened at gunpoint and told that if they did run away, that their families back in Mexico would be killed.
Isabel Ochoa, 60, received time served. Consuelo Ochoa, 34, was sentenced to 18 months for sex-trafficking and an additional 39 months for a separate drug case. Maria Ochoa, 32, was sentenced to 12 months and one day.
• In March 2007, police in Madison, Tennessee, raided a Mexican brothel in a residential area and arrested Mexican nationals Santos Perez and Jose Garcia who ran the operation, along with two Mexican prostitutes.
Again, the brothel charged $30 per customer. The women were forced to have sex with dozens of men every day.
A Madison Police detective told News Channel 5: “It’s pretty terrible. I don’t think these girls want to be there. These girls don’t want to be forced to do 30 customers a day.”
At the time of the raid, police told reporters that they were investigating at least 10 Mexican brothels in the Nashville area.
• In January 2006, police in Charlotte, North Carolina, raided two brothels run by Mexican nationals; both were crowded with women smuggled into this country and held against their will.
The Charlotte Observer reported that the leaders of these prostitution rings bring Mexican and Central American women in and out of Charlotte, exchanging them for women in Raleigh and Greensboro. One of these women could typically be sold between the pimps for $130 each.
Of course, when discussing the issue of illegal immigration, this dirty little secret is never mentioned by our politicians, nor is the impact that such an attitude towards the abuse of children could have on this nation by offering amnesty to millions of Mexican nationals.
The next time someone tells you that illegal immigration is a “victimless crime,” remind them of the children whose lives will never be the same.
Until our elected officials gain the political courage to actually defend our border…Keep your children close!