Illegal Immigrants Back On Sex Offender List
A previously convicted and deported illegal immigrant had to murder a Houston Police officer before the Texas Department of Public Safety realized it was a mistake to remove thousands of illegal immigrant sex offenders from a statewide database.
The Mexican national, Juan Quintero, fatally shot Houston officer Rodney Johnson last month during a routine traffic stop. Quintero was speeding and driving without a license and the officer proceeded to arrest him because he had previously been arrested for driving intoxicated and without a license.
More importantly, Quintero had been convicted of molesting a 12-year-old girl and in 2004 was deported from the United States. Convicted sex offenders in Texas are required to register with the state’s Department of Public Safety and their information is published on an internet site that is a useful source for the public as well as law enforcement agencies.
Quintero’s name did not appear on the crucial database because the state has a policy of eliminating the names of deported sex offenders like him. In all, about 46,000 names appear in the registry and about 2,500 are illegal immigrants whose names get erased after being deported.
Obviously, Quintero reentered the United States illegally after being deported, got a job with a local landscaping company and was even issued a Texas state identification card. Had his name appeared on the registered sex offender database, this violent illegal immigrant would have been detected and deported before murdering an officer.
Evidently, the Texas Department of Public Safety learned a valuable lesson from this tragic event and is in the process of restoring the names of deported felons. Officials claim that deported offenders were previously taken off the list because they were no longer considered Texas residents and no longer had an obligation to register with the state.
In other words, Texas officials depend on these horrific criminals who have already violated federal U.S. by entering the country illegally to suddenly do the right thing because a state law dictates it.
