Thread: Harris Co judges raise bail amount for undocumented immigran

1/05/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) - People in this country illegally and charged with serious crimes will find it a lot harder to get out of jail. This major decision from Houston's criminal judges comes in the wake of a 13 Undercover investigation.

Jorge Villegas sounds like a peach of a guy. How many folks do you know who have been charged with four separate crimes in four months?

"He bears no bones as to who and what he is. He's a career habitual criminal," said Andy Kahan, who is the mayor's crime victims' advocate.

But a guy like Villegas will find it tougher to go on an alleged crime spree in the wake of our investigation.

"I don't think anybody should turn a blind eye to immigration violations," said Chief Judge Debbie Stricklin.

But that's what was happening in many courts when we hit the air last November. By law, everyone charged with a crime here gets a bond hearing within 24 hours.

But even when the courts knew they were dealing with someone who was in this country illegally, they were still often given a small bond -- even if they had criminal history, even a history of deportation, like the guy accused of murdering Reverend William Whang.

"Catching these criminals and putting them in our jails and letting them back in our society again to do harm again, it's disgusting," said the victim's daughter, Jade Whang.

Take non-citizens charged with the crime of indecency with a child. Using the district attorney's own computer system, we found 65 cases in 18 months. Most had bonds of $20,000 or less.

The DA said it wasn't his job to automatically ask for higher bonds.

"It's not my job to enforce the federal law, no it's not," said District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal.

Apparently our judges think it's time for a major change of philosophy. The DA has now been ordered to research deportation history of all defendants before filing charges. Checking crime computers, suspects will be probed by police and the courts on their citizenship.

In the last two years, nearly 8,900 accused criminals arrested in Harris County admitted they were here illegally.

If the suspects are not legal or have been deported before, they will now face a mandatory $35,000 bond for a felony charge. The bond could be a higher if they are accused of murder. There could be lots of fallout from this in the weeks to come. A more crowded jail may be one of the consequences. Our 13 Undercover unit began investigating the ties between illegal immigration and Houston crime last June, what they are now calling Crimmigration. We used the district attorney's own computer system that tracks the number of non-citizens and self-confessed illegals charged with crimes -- more than 12,000 in just 18 months, including some of Houston's worst murders.

It was the tragic murder of Houston police officer Rodney Johnson that brought the Crimmigration debate center stage. A decorated Houston cop was allegedly gunned down by a suspect sitting in the back of his patrol car. Juan Quintero had been deported before for alleged crime here. He is awaiting trial.

(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

Of course it upset some crybabies:

REACTION TO CHANGE
The change is already causing controversy among some members of the Hispanic community. They question whether the deportation of all defendants will be researched or just those who appear to be Hispanic. The new order requires the district attorney to research the deportation history of a person arrested before filing charges. A member of the League of United Latin American Citizens or LULAC, Johnny Mata, wonders if the rule will truly apply to all defendants.

"I wonder how many blue-eyed Anglo-Saxons that are here illegally from other countries other than south of the border in Mexico and Latin America," he said. "What are we going to do about those?"

Houston Councilmember Carol Alvarado says she does not have a problem with the change, as long as it is applies to everyone and is not abused.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?secti ... id=4909858

non-citizens and self-confessed illegals charged with crimes -- more than 12,000 in just 18 months, including some of Houston's worst murders.

I wonder how many of these were "blue-eyed Anglo-Saxons"??!!

How come La Raza, Mecha, the Puerto Rican Defense fund and ACLU (I could go on and on) don't come out and explain these statistics to the American people.

What do the Comprehensive Immigration supporters have to say? Houston is just a small part of a giant problem! Criminals are coming here to prey on our citizens! ENOUGH!! WE NEED A NEW PRESIDENT!! IMPEACH!

People need to find out about the real situation out there. It has started slowly but I think it will snowball once the people learn more about the cases out there and demand something done.
I am glad that the bond rate has gone up but I don't know how the overall success rate it would have as they can run to Mexico and even Dog won't be able to get them.

Duplicate. I deleted the original posted by me with no replies from active members. This thread will remain.