Illegal Immigrant Rapist Had Been Deported 9 Times

In what appears to be a growing national trend, an illegal immigrant with an extensive criminal record and multiple deportation orders remained in the U.S. long enough to commit yet another atrocious crime.

The tragic case in Washington State marks the latest of many examples illustrating the government’s inefficiency in keeping dangerous illegal aliens out of the United States, even when they have well-documented criminal histories and federal orders to leave the country.

In this case a Mexican national with an extensive criminal record and nine deportation orders raped a woman in Edmonds, a picturesque waterfront town famous for its views of the Olympic Mountains rising above Puget Sound. The illegal immigrant (Jose Lopez Madrigal) was first deported in California more than two decades ago and has since been convicted of a multitude of violent crimes, including armed theft, sexual assault and drug-related offenses.

The crimes were committed in different states—California and Colorado among them—and Madrigal had a staggering number of encounters with law enforcement in the last two decades, according to the local news report that broke the story of his multiple deportations. When he got arrested this last time, it took authorities longer than usual to learn his real identity because he had well over two dozen aliases.

The level of incompetence among federal immigration authorities in this case would be comical if Madrigal’s crimes weren’t so heinous. After the first deportation in 1989 for using a firearm to commit theft, Madrigal got deported several more times in the next few years. In 1999 he was deported three times in a four-month period after drug-related arrests. After a similar offense in 2000 he got deported yet again and in 2002 he got deported after pleading guilty to sexual assault in Denver. In 2003 Madrigal got deported three more times.

It would seem like a huge joke if the illegal immigrant didn’t brutally rape a woman last week. Evidently ashamed, officials at the Homeland Security agency (Immigration and Customs Enforcement—ICE) responsible for removing such thugs refuse to comment on the case. One criminal justice source quoted in the news report says Madrigal is a “poster boy” for the federal government’s ineffectiveness at keeping the most serious criminal aliens out of the United States.

It’s not like this is an isolated incident. In the last few years alone similar cases have rocked the nation. On Mothers’ Day last year a 17-year-old girl was murdered in Nevada by an admitted illegal alien gang member who had been convicted of a felony years earlier and deported.

A year earlier authorities in Arizona discovered that a serial rapist who targeted young girls was a twice deported Mexican who lived and worked in the U.S. despite his documented history of drug charges. He was caught only because the sheriff’s department in Arizona’s largest county (Maricopa) bothered to confirm his immigration status.