The one thing you don’t want to do if you’re a legal immigrant and naturalized citizen is act like a real American around illegal aliens trying to commit employment fraud. Proving loyalty to your new home will get you murdered.
Eliud Montoya, who reported an illegal-alien employment scam in Georgia, found that out the hard way.
And that proves again, for the umpteenth time, President Trump’s point: Among illegal aliens in the United States and those who jump the border each and every day are numerous criminals, some of them murderers.
Get Rid of Him
Montoya’s end came at the hands of three illegal aliens.
“Three men, all illegal alien residents of the United States,” the U.S. Justice Department reported, “have been indicted for plotting the murder of a whistleblower who exposed a scheme to fraudulently employ other illegals.”
Democrats might call these folks DREAMers, but the only thing they were dreaming about was making it possible for more border jumpers to work illegally in the United States:
Brothers Pablo Rangel-Rubio, 49, and Juan Rangel-Rubio, 42, both residents of Rincon, Ga., and Higinio Perez-Bravo, 49, of Savannah, were charged in a federal indictment unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Savannah, announced Southern District of Georgia U.S. Attorney Bobby L. Christine.
Pablo Rangel-Rubio and Juan Rangel-Rubio are charged with Conspiracy to Retaliate Against a Witness; Conspiracy to Kill a Witness; Conspiracy to Conceal, Harbor and Shield Illegal Aliens; and Money Laundering Conspiracy. Pablo Rangel-Rubio and Perez-Bravo are charged with Conspiracy to Commit Murder for Hire. Pablo Rangel-Rubio also is charged with three counts of Money Laundering Transactions Over $10,000.
Montoya, 41, was found dead near his home in Garden City, Georgia, on August 19 last year, the department said. He was shot to death.
“Two days before his death, Montoya, a naturalized United States citizen employed by a Savannah-area tree service,” the department reported, “had filed a formal complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Pablo Rangel-Rubio ran a scheme to employ illegal aliens at the tree service, profiting from the company while also skimming pay from the illegal workers. Four months earlier, Montoya also had reported the scheme to company officials.”
Pablo Rangel-Rubio paid Perez-Bravo to help Juan Rangel-Rubio kill Montoya because he told the truth about the crimes, the indictment says. The employment scam earned the Rubio brothers more than $3.5 million over 10 years.
“Eliud Montoya was a naturalized citizen of the United States who worked hard and raised a family,” said U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine. “He went to the proper authorities to report a federal crime and for that he was murdered. Our office is committed to ensuring justice for Eliud Montoya, a man killed for doing the right thing, by those intent on protecting their illegal profits.”
The squad of law-enforcement officials who cracked the case included the FBI, U.S. marshals, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). a local police department, and two sheriff’s offices.
“This case is an extreme, but clear, example of how far certain criminals seeking to illegally exploit the U.S. labor market will go to protect their ill-gotten gains, and illustrates why worksite enforcement will continue to be a major priority for HSI,” one federal agent rightly said.
ICE Efforts
The indictments coincided with the release of a report from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detailing the numbers of illegal-alien criminals the agency removes from the United States every year.
The agency and its affiliate, Customs and Border Protection, removed 256,085 illegal aliens in fiscal 2018, 145,262 of whom had criminal convictions. More than 1,000 were convicted of some form of homicide. About 5,000 were sex criminals, and nearly 4,000 were sex-assault convicts. Authorities removed nearly 55,000 illegals guilty of drunk driving.
Just last week, authorities in New York indicted MS-13 gang members for their role in a foiled murder plot, and before that, an MS-13 gangbanger was sentenced for his part in a machete murder in Albemarle County, Virginia.
In June, an immigration judge, appointed by President Barack Obama, freed an illegal alien whom local police identified as a MS-13 member. Federal authorities were ready to deport him, but the judge listened to the illegal’s sob story.
He stabbed someone to death less than six weeks later.
Image: mbbirdy via iStock / Getty Images Plus
