PRESTOPUNDIT

LA -- 1,200 illegals with outstanding warrants for homicide. "We've seen many examples of illegal aliens who were stopped by local police but set free, only to commit crimes instead of being deported. One such case is the notorious Dec. 19, 2002, gang rape in Queens, N.Y., of a mother of two by five illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America who had been arrested several times, but never turned over to the immigration agency.

The most famous example is Washington, D.C.-area sniper Lee Malvo, a Jamaican who was caught by local law enforcement in Bellingham, Wash. He was identified as an illegal alien who should have been deported, but instead was set free by federal authorities.

Three of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, had been stopped and ticketed for significant traffic violations, such as driving without a license and speeding at 90 mph. Thousands of innocent lives could have been saved had there been closer cooperation between local police and immigration authorities.

The Los Angeles police department is handcuffed by Special Order 40, which prohibits the police from asking anyone they arrest about their immigration status unless the suspect is already charged with a felony. The police cannot notify immigration authorities about an illegal alien picked up for minor violations, even though it is well known that enforcing laws against minor crimes often prevents major ones.

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act makes it unlawful for any municipality to restrict its employees from reporting illegal aliens to federal authorities. It also allows the federal government and local police to work together under specific written agreements. A few local agencies have reached such agreements, and Virginia just became the third state to give its state police more authority to detain illegal aliens.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, trying to defend his city's sanctuary policy, fought against that law all the way to the Supreme Court. He lost in court, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "don't ask, don't tell" rule continues to skirt the 1996 law.

There are 400,000 illegal aliens walking our streets who are under standing deportation orders, known as absconders, of whom 80,000 are criminal aliens and nearly 3,800 are from countries with a known al-Qaeda presence. The Los Angeles Police Department has more than 1,200 outstanding warrants for illegal aliens on homicide charges.

The foreign born make up 30 percent of federal prisoners. The big-city gangs are mostly foreign born, and their viciousness is illustrated by Valentino Mitchell Arenas, the 16-year-old who on April 21 is alleged to have shot and killed California Highway Patrol officer Thomas Steiner as the boy's admission ticket to the 12th Street Pomona gang, which authorities say has ties to the Mexican Mafia .. ". MORE Phyllis Schlafly. Posted by Greg Ransom