Thread: Death by illegal alien: Two teenagers taken away from their families

Death by illegal alien: Two teenagers taken away from their families

ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIME
MARCH 30, 2013
BY: DAVE GIBSON

On March 30, 2007, in Virginia Beach, Va., Allison Kuhnhardt, 17, and Tessa Tranchant, 16, were stopped, while waiting at a red light. They were killed by Alfredo Ramos, 22, who was drunk and traveling at a high rate of speed.
The Mexican national had a nearly .24 blood-alcohol level and could barely see the police officers in front of him. The two high school students had to be cut from their crumpled car and both later died after being taken to the hospital. Ramos suffered only a busted lip.

Ramos had been living in Virginia Beach for quite a while and worked at local a Mexican restaurant known as Mi Casita. Ramos had been previously convicted of three separate charges of public intoxication, identity theft, and even a DUI, but continued to live in the area. He speaks only Spanish and required an interpreter at all of his court proceedings.
When he was arrested, he was carrying a fake drivers’ license and a Mexican ID card he purchased from a company in Florida.
While Ramos had already been convicted of a DUI, Virginia Beach policy dictated that an illegal alien be convicted of three DUI's before police would report them to federal immigration authorities. Virginia Beach police have since taken a more active role in determining the citizenship of those they arrest.
Since that needless tragedy, I have come to know Tessa’s parents, and am proud to call both Ray and Collette Tranchant my friends. Never does a Mother’s or Father’s Day pass that my my heart does not ache for those two. Their strength and grace throughout the loss of their beautiful daughter is an inspiration to all who know them.
A few years ago, Ray contacted me with an open letter on his daughter’s tragic death, and the ongoing travesty that is our current immigration system.
That letter follows:

MY 16-year-old daughter, Tessa, was killed by an illegal immigrant in Virginia Beach three years ago while sitting at a stop light. Her friend Ali Kunhardt, 17, also perished instantly. Beautiful girls with tons of future plans, they had just stopped at a convenience store for a pack of gum at 10 on a Friday night. I can imagine that they were giggling about something as they waited for the red light to turn green. Tessa was in the passenger seat. I’ll never forget her laugh.
The explosion was so loud that witnesses said it sounded like a bomb going off, hit from behind by a black Mitsubishi going more than 70 mph. They were tiny, skinny little girls stuffed somewhere in the floorboards when the police and EMT crew arrived.
When I got to the hospital in what seemed like a dream sequence, Tessa’s bed was lying next to Ali’s, separated by a privacy curtain. Both girls were perfectly still, skin cold to the touch.
Tess was covered with a hospital blanket, and her clothes lay in a bag by her bedside, cut off by the EMT and the ER doctor who tried to revive her, to no avail. I looked at her large brown eyes, pupils dilated, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. She still had a mask taped to her mouth with a long rubber tube. The center of the tube was filled with bright red blood. Amazingly, she had only a little bruise on her forehead, and her big toe was bleeding. I noticed that she had had a couple of her nails done with glitter, probably had just enough money to do two. She worked at the Golden Corral; Ali worked at The Fresh Market.
I hadn’t seen Tessa in a few days, and I had to laugh at her forearm. Hard to believe you can laugh with such horror around you, but I did. She had previously told me that she suffered from the “Tranchant curse” — dark hair on her skinny little perfect arms — and apparently she had shaved it all off (her way of getting even, I guess).
Alfredo Ramos, a previous DUI offender and alcoholic, seemed invisible in a system that was good at looking the other way. Virginia Beach and Chesapeake were being accused of the term “sanctuary city” as Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera screamed at each other during the national news hour. O’Reilly was right. Yesterday, the Director of Homeland Security said she would get to the bottom of why the Illegals are not deported when they are repeat offenders.
Ms. Napolitano, where was ICE in 2007 when these girls died? I know what sanctuary means more than most ever will.
Ramos was actually smug at the trial and took his lumps: 40 years in prison. There was nothing I could do but forgive him; forgiveness cleanses the soul. He was an uneducated foreigner patronized by local merchants who needed cheap labor. Hundreds of thousands of Illegals in Virginia do the same. We don’t share a border with Mexico, so the awareness here isn’t as great as Arizona or California.
But the dilemma in Arizona is more important to Virginians than it seems.
On Monday, Sister Denise Mosier was killed in Prince William County. An illegal immigrant from Bolivia with two previous drunken-driving convictions is charged with killing her and critically injuring two other nuns while driving drunk. As with me, her friends say they have forgiven him and hold no grudges.
We know it’s not the people but the system that fails Americans again and again. There have been hundreds of similar stories in America since Tess and Ali died.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez from Illinois reminded me personally in a Congressional hearing that the solution lies with a comprehensive plan that includes amnesty.After all, he said, “they pick your grapes, clean your hotels and are then victimized.” Luis should worry about protecting US Hispanics and not counting on perspective Hispanic votes.
But waving a magic wand over 14 million people will not solve this immigration problem. It worries me that we would even consider giving foreigners legal rights to Social Security, health care and school in a time of 14 trillion dollar deficits.
Consider that when 14 million get citizenship, 10 million of their relatives will migrate legally. Of course citizenship will make them pay into the system, but the amount won’t be realized for many years. I don’t believe the current system can process this many people and verify that some are not criminals or terrorists, let alone pay benefits to new Americans.
My advice: While securing the borders, America must somehow identify everyone, Americans and Illegals, using a certifiable national system and without violating constitutional rights.
We do this every day with passports, fingerprints and national crime databases. Somehow, they all need to be part of a credible inter-relational database so criminals can be deported or incarcerated (the first step toward a solution) and law-abiding citizens can be protected anywhere in America. Otherwise, people will not be punished or held accountable, and more mistakes, more deaths and injuries will occur.
On my trip home from visiting Rome, my passport was touched by nine officials, some carrying Uzis. I was not offended; it was the price I had to pay to see the Ancient City.
And I don’t feel violated when an official checks my driver’s license or passport here. It sure beats the funeral procession that I was a part of.
My great grandfather immigrated from France in 1920. He later went back home. He’d had enough. Poor working conditions in the coal mines here, everyone made him speak English for safety reasons, his son and wife died, etc.
His only remaining son stayed and thought it was worth the effort. After working hard, that son — my grandfather, Romain Pierre — became a legal citizen.
I can still remember the old Frenchman’s laugh. He thought citizenship was worth the trouble.
I’m glad he did!”

Every year, as this somber date approaches, this writer cannot help but wonder what these two girls would be doing, had their lives not been snuffed out in such a needless tragedy...
Today, Tessa would be 22-years-old and Ali would be 23, and I imagine these two would be doing the things most smart young women do...finishing-up with college, starting careers and getting married, perhaps even planning families of their own.
In short, they would be living their lives and their parents would be visiting their tiny apartments, rather than their graves.
Unfortunately, Tessa’s and Ali’s story is one which is becoming all too familiar in this country. The next time someone tries to tell you that illegal immigration is a ‘victimless crime,’ you need do no more than remind them of these two girls, whose lives were ended before they really began.


http://www.examiner.com/article/deat...their-families

I'm always amazed at the media who have went after firearms in the aftermath of Sandy Hook but fail to do same when illegal drivers kill hundreds, so the point is a few at a time does not matter, the liberal press once again fails America.