[Guest post by DRJ]

Following up on last week’s story on the Irving, Texas, 24/7 Criminal Alien Program and the subsequent pro-immigrant rally …

… the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the people of Irving, Texas, overwhelmingly support the deportation of criminal aliens:

“When pro-immigrant activists held a rally Wednesday against a police program that has led to more than 1,500 deportations this year, they told the crowd to call City Hall and demand an end to the program.

City officials said they were swamped with nearly 500 calls the next day. But the calls were overwhelmingly in favor of the police crackdown, called the Criminal Alien Program. “We received a ton of phone calls at City Hall, … and they have mostly been in support of our program,” Mayor Herbert Gears said. He said he also got 265 e-mails Thursday, only two of them opposing the program.

City Hall receptionist Edna Brown said she had about triple the number of calls she usually gets. “It was so many calls, I even had 45 calls on hold,” she said. “The majority of them were for it, and not that many were against it.”

Undaunted, pro-immigrant supporters claimed the City officials were lying and threatened to take over the City government through the ballot box:

“One of the organizers of Wednesday’s rally, Carlos Quintanilla, said he was undaunted by the city’s assertion and accused Gears and his staff of lying.

“They’re trying to rally their base,” Quintanilla said. “Their base is not as passionate as us.”

Quintanilla said he will focus on getting Hispanics elected to office in Irving. The City Council has no Hispanic members. “We’re going to shock Irving when we take power,” Quintanilla said.”

The story concludes with more information about the 24/7 Criminal Alien Program:

“The referrals are so numerous that immigration officials said Irving turns over more illegal immigrants than any other law enforcement agency in North Texas.

Ninety percent of people Irving police turned over to the immigration agency are from Mexico and Central America, according to a Star-Telegram analysis of Irving police data.
Ninety-three percent were men. Sixty-nine percent of them were from Mexico, and 15 percent were from El Salvador.

Gears said warrants were the No. 1 cause of arrests for people who were turned over to immigration authorities. Public intoxication was the second.”

Apparently Irving’s 24/7 Criminal Alien Program has deported more people than Dallas, Fort Worth, and other surrounding communities – primarily persons arrested for public intoxication and outstanding warrants for pending offenses. It’s not surprising that the people of Irving support this Program.

— DRJ