As the battle over so-called “sanctuary” laws heats up, Fox News reported Tuesday that an illegal alien who had already been deported 15 times has now allegedly been involved in a hit-and-run car crash while he was driving drunk.
A man identified as Constantino Banda-Acosta, 38, is now in custody. A Mexican national, Banda-Acosta was most recently booted out of the United States back on Jan. 18, Fox News reported. The crash, in San Ysidro last Saturday, seriously injured a 6-year-old boy who was with his family, on the way home from Disneyland.
The San Diego Union Tribune reported that Banda-Costa allegedly was speeding along Camino de La Plaza and ran a stop sign. The Chevrolet Silverado he was allegedly driving slammed into a car carrying the family of Benjamin Lake and his son, Lennox, who suffered head injuries.
Banda-Acosta is now in being held in jail on $100,000 bail. This is not his first time at bat for such charges. He was arrested back in 2006 on a driving under the influence (DUI) charge, and his license was suspended at least three times, Fox News said.
This happened just hours before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation Sunday evening that bans so-called “sanctuary cities” in the Lone Star State. Abbott’s action ignited a firestorm, and it was quickly followed this week by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s filing of a lawsuit against jurisdictions in that state that allegedly do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
It is cases like the one in California that fuels the outrage over illegal immigration, which seemed to explode under the Obama administration. The slaying of Kate Steinle in San Francisco three years ago, allegedly by an illegal alien who had also been convicted of crimes in this country and deported several times, perhaps became the most high-profile incident.
Paxton’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, names Travis County, the City of Austin – which is the Texas capital – and several officials as defendants, Fox News reported. The attorney general dismissed arguments that the new Texas law is unconstitutional.
“SB 4 is constitutional, lawful and a vital step in securing our borders,” Paxton said about the bill Gov. Abbott signed.
Enactment of the Texas law just might set in motion an inevitable confrontation over immigration and enforcement of the law. For some inexplicable reason, liberal politicians and activists seem eager to have every local, state and federal gun law enforced to the letter, yet they are not so keen about enforcing laws about immigration or illegal drug use, for example. One is either for law and order, or against it.
To argue that only a handful of illegal aliens commit crimes here, so other “undocumented immigrants” should not be penalized loses all traction when someone starts arguing that we need stronger gun laws for all firearms owners, simply because a relative handful of people use guns illegally and irresponsibly.
The case involving Banda-Acosta is a symptom of a larger problem. The solution will not be found so long as people in positions of responsibility ignore the law when it pleases them, and only enforce the law when it is to their advantage.
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