“I’m totally opposed to amnesty,” Bill Hartzell, an Angel Family member whose 93-year-old grandmother-in-law was raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant from Mexico in 2013, told Breitbart News Tonight co-hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on Wednesday.
“If they’ve been here as long as most of them have and they have not been able to apply legally through the system to become citizens, then they don’t belong here,” said Hartzell of illegal aliens previously eligible for enrollment in the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. “I’m completely and totally against it.”
DACA’s eligibility criteria pertaining to the ages of applicants and the dates of their illegal entries into the homeland is unverifiable, noted Hartzell and Mansour.
“It’s virtually impossible to tell whether someone was brought here illegally that would qualify for DACA, simply because of the records that are kept in Mexico,” said Hartzell. “Also, their first instinct will be to lie: ‘Yes, My parents brought me here.’ There’s no way to prove it.”
“It’s all sort of based on the honor system anyways,” said Mansour of the inability to verify a DACA applicant’s claims of his or her age and date of illegal entry into America. “When they report on the time they came here, their eligibility is determined by a date: if they were in the country at a certain date and if they were born after a certain date. They have to just tell us, and we trust their word for it because that’s the only way we can know.”
Granting amnesty to DACA recipients, or those previously eligible for DACA, amounts to rewarding theft, stated Hartzell.
“That’s like your parents taking you to Disneyland, and they don’t pay for you, and once inside, you get caught,” said Hartzell. “Is Disneyland going to say, ‘No problem. Stay. Enjoy the park?’ I think it’s ludicrous to offer amnesty.”
Hartzell speculated that the murderer of his grandmother-in-law might have been eligible for DACA.
The blame for decades of negative consequences of illegal immigration lies with Congress, according to Hartzell.
“Amnesty is not President Trump’s fault,” said Hartzell. “What happened to my wife’s grandmother is not the president’s fault. It’s not Obama’s fault. It’s not Bush’s fault – and all the way back. When President Reagan signed the [1986 amnesty] legislation, Congress was tasked with the job of funding border security, and they completely and totally dropped the ball. It’s my contention that had Congress funded President Reagan’s immigration [bill] properly, that not only would my wife’s grandmother still be alive, but countless thousands and thousands of other Americans whose lives had been taken at the hands of illegals – through crimes such as murder, drunk driving, all of it – they would all still be here.”
Pollak invited Hartzell to opine on Trump’s approach to immigration and border security issues.
“What do you think of the leadership President Trump is providing on this issue?” asked Pollak. “Do you think that he’s heading in the right direction … [and] do you think that he’s put forth a good faith effort to get to the heart of this issue?”
Trump can and should do more towards securing the southern border, said Hartzell. “Do I think Trump is doing everything he can to ensure that our borders are secure? No. I honestly don’t think he is. I think [he should] contact the governors of the states on our southern border and tell them, ‘Look, this is a national security issue, but it’s also a state’s issue. You need to secure your borders. I don’t know how you’re going to get it done. I don’t care how you’re going to get it done. Just get it done.’”
Donald Trump “was able to defeat ISIS,” continued Hartzell. “He was able to get tax reform passed. He has accomplished a number of things that, to me, it was quite surprising. I did not vote for Donald Trump. I voted for the Constitutional Party candidate because my conscience just would not allow me to vote for someone who came off the way President Trump did during the campaign. That being said, I am amazed at some of the things that he has gotten done. So do I think he’s doing all that he can to get the borders secure? No, I don’t really think he is.”
Hartzell described the Democrats’ response to Trump’s State of the Union address as appalling.
“I was totally appalled watching the State of the Union when the Democrats booed the families of the two girls who were raped and murdered by members of MS-13,” said Hartzell. “If they truly feel that they’re Americans and they represent Americans, then I’m sad to say I’m an American because I was completely appalled that they would boo those family members. Completely and totally inexcusable.”
Hartzell’s grandmother-in-law, Louise Sollowin, legally immigrated to America from Italy in the 1920s. On July 21, 2013, she was raped and beaten by an illegal alien who had been previously deported several times. She died in the hospital of her injuries on July 24, 2013.
“He beat her so brutally that he broke both eye sockets, knocked several teeth out, broke her nose in three places, cracked her jaw, broke three ribs, and raped and sodomized her,” said Hartzell, sharing details of the rape and murder of his wife’s grandmother.
Hartzell recalled the crime scene, which was his grandmother-in-law’s bedroom. “It’s about a fourteen-by-fourteen-foot bedroom with ten-foot ceilings in an older house,” he said. “There was literally not a square foot on all four walls or the ceiling that didn’t have blood splattered. That’s how brutally he beat her.”
Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).
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