The murder of police Corporal Ronil Singh in Newman, California, has inspired at least one fellow law enforcement officer — this one on the other side of the country — to tell the unpleasant truth: Thomas Hodgson (shown), the sheriff in Bristol County, Massachusetts, avers that Singh might still be alive but for the inaction of Congress on border security.
An illegal alien connected to the Sureño street gang, police allege, murdered Singh during a traffic stop, and the sheriff in the county where the local policeman was killed blamed the state’s sanctuary law for the killing.
Hodgson supported that view with a nearly 700-word letter posted to his department’s Facebook page.
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The Crime
Singh, an Fijian immigrant who fulfilled his dream of coming to America and becoming a policeman, pulled over twice-deported illegal alien Gustavo Perez Arriaga the day after Christmas.
Arriaga, an habitual drunk driver, pulled a gun and murdered the officer, police allege. The officers arrested Arriaga, as well as his accomplices, as they tried to flee to Mexico.
Arriaga should not have been in the country, which inspired Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson to point the finger not just at Arriaga, but also at the state’s sanctuary law that likely permitted him to stay in the state after two convictions.
“This is a criminal illegal alien with prior criminal activity that should have been reported to [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” the sheriff told reporters. “We were prohibited; law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws and that led to the encounter with Singh.”
“The outcome,” he continued, “could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted, prohibited or had their hands tied because of political interference.”
When Arriaga was still on the loose and a serious danger to the community, President Trump tweeted the obvious: “There is right now a full scale manhunt going on in California for an illegal immigrant accused of shooting and killing a police officer during a traffic stop. Time to get tough on Border Security. Build the Wall!”
Bay State Policeman Weighs In
Hodgson of Bristol County agrees with Trump and Christianson.
“It is time for the American people to hold their elected lawmakers accountable for each and every crime from minor to murder, committed by illegal aliens and our country” because Congress won’t act “to secure our border and protect American families,” he stated.
Elected officials, he wrote, “use Congress as their personal political playground. This is not about being a Democrat or Republican, this is about America and our individual responsibility to provide a safe and prosperous future for our children and our children’s children. If the recent murder of Officer Singh does not make a call for us to demand Congress fund border security, what will?”
Attacking incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Senate, he wrote that “Congress has no intention of stopping this crisis and addressing the real issues that matter to us and our families.”
“Enough is enough!”
“Congress must act now on the funding for the border wall…. Almost every day, someone dies at the hands of an illegal alien…. It’s time for members of Congress to put aside their political agendas…. It’s time for members of Congress to fund the border wall.”
Enemy of the Left
Hodgson has invited the ire of the leftists who oppose his strong stand on illegal immigration.
Last year, an illegal alien sued the sheriff with the help of the usual leftist legal torpedoes. The illegal claimed that Hodgson detained him solely because he is an illegal alien, which is against the law.
The illegal alien’s lawyers claim he was in jail on a “minor non-violent charge,” WBUR reported.
Hodgson, the radio station reported, said the illegal alien was “never held on an ICE detainer, but rather was held by a judge in the New Bedford District on bail pending trial for Domestic Assault and Battery, a violent crime.”
Also, magistrates denied bail for the border jumper, and “no one at the Sheriff’s Office ever told him or anyone he could not be released due to ICE paperwork.”
The Boston Globe doesn’t like Hodgson either.
In a poorly written, poorly reasoned, and virtually evidence-free editorial about his testimony before a committee of the state’s House of Representatives, the leftist newspaper accused the sheriff of “malignant rhetoric” and, unsurprisingly, of resembling Senator Joe McCarthy, the unfairly maligned patriot of the 1950s.
The American victims of illegal-alien crime do not likely share the Globe’s opinion.
Photo of Sheriff Thomas Hodgson: Bristol County Sheriff’s Office
