Remember Richie Martin

I’m going to weave together two topics I have previously written about — illegal immigration and Islamic refugees. Presidential candidate Donald Trump has addressed both topics extensively. He has noted that illegal immigration has produced social problems, including crime and drug smuggling. He also spoke out the need for a moratorium on Islamic refugees until we have a process in place to vet them.
The illegal situation hit home recently when I saw a local TV report on the arrest of Augustin Guzman-Medina, who was charged with vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of the crime in the death of Richie Martin of Summerville. What caught my attention was that the charges and a statement from Martin’s family had to be read to Medina in Spanish.
The original report did not reveal the suspect’s immigration status. I sent a tweet to the reporter and his station. To their credit, the follow-up report indicated that Medina was in fact an illegal alien. Another TV station reported that Medina has lived in the Summerville area for more than two years. Our daily newspaper chose to not even report on this story.
Too often, crime reports do not put a face on the victims and their families. Martin’s brother Brian made the statement, “Hopefully we can keep this guy (Medina) off the streets and keep him in jail and give Richie the justice he deserves. North Charleston Police victim advocate Jessica Rodriguez told Medina in his native language, “You took the one thing a seven-year-old boy (Martin’s son) loved and adored most in the world — his father.”
Crimes being committed by illegal aliens are on the rise. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently issued a report indicating that there are nearly 180,000 fugitive criminal illegal aliens who have been designated for deportation but whose whereabouts are unknown. Jessica Vaughn with the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that there are more than 2 Million criminal illegal aliens in the country, including members in the violent MS-13 gang.
There’s also the issue of deaths from drug overdoses. There has been an outbreak of heroine-related deaths, which was recently documented on the CBS program 60 Minutes. Most of the heroine and cocaine in America is smuggled across our porous Southern border. Securing that border will put a dent in the criminal activity, illness, suffering and death associated with the drug trade.
The Islamic refugee crisis is having a disastrous impact on Europe. I absolutely reject the notion that all Muslims are violent or involved in terrorism. When I was on temporary assignment in Bahrain with the Mine Warfare Command, I met hundreds of kind, friendly and hospitable Muslims. Many of them went to college in America and embraced our values and culture.
However, Muslims who strictly adhere to Islamic law (sharia), do not respect the laws and cultural norms of the Western World. There have been thousands of sexual assault charges filed in Europe involving Islamic men. Under sharia, men are justified in attacking women if they deem that they are immodestly dressed. Several European countries have issued conduct manuals using cartoon images to show Islamic men what is not acceptable.
There is a lot of pushback within Europe to the refugee program, with more than 100,000 deportations being reported in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Throughout Europe, there is a rise of nationalist parties that wish to restrict immigrants from Islamic countries. The European nations don’t share America’s culture of assimilation. Germany now has generations of legal immigrants from Turkey who don’t speak German and subscribe to Turkish satellite TV.
European countries are also learning more about the true identities of the refugees, most of whom are not coming from Syria and Iraq. European Union (EU) statistics show that most of the refugees are coming from North Africa, Albania, Kosovo, Pakistan and Somalia. The EU is sending those refugees back to their native countries on charter flights. An EU spokeswoman said, “People who do not have a right to stay in the EU will need to be returned home.”
Tying this back to hit-and-run suspect Augustin Guzman-Medina in the Charleston area, assimilation is needed in our immigration process. He is reported to have lived in the area for more than two years and doesn’t speak English. America is a nation of immigrants who blend together. We need an orderly, legal immigration process which welcomes people from all over the world who learn our language, respect our laws and embrace our culture..
John Steinberger is the former chairman of the Charleston County Republican Party, a leading Fair Tax advocate, and a West Ashley resident. He can be reached at John.steinberger@scfairtax.org.