“Freindly Fire Zone”

I can't help but think that had the authorities done their job in the beginning, this might not have happened."

So said the cousin of one of the three soon-to-be college students who were ruthlessly gunned down, execution style, in Newark, N.J., last week.

She is wrong on one point. This definitely would not have happened.

Why? Because the alleged perpetrator was an illegal immigrant. However, he wasn't just any illegal alien. Jose Carranza had been indicted by grand juries twice already this year. Twice! And we're not talking misdemeanors. In April, the charges brought against him were aggravated assault and weapons charges. But it gets better. Last month, Carranza was slapped with a paltry 31 criminal counts, including child rape and endangering the welfare of a child. The child sexual assault began in 2003 when the girl was four, and it continued until he got arrested.

Illegal aliens never deserve bail, for reasons too obvious to state. However, when the judges did grant him bail, Carranza should have been thrown into an INS detention center the minute it was posted. Period.

This is yet another case where American citizens lost their lives at the hands of criminals who were in this country illegally - and whose status was known (or should have been known) to the authorities. One only has to flash back to Virginia Beach this past March, when two young girls' lives were snuffed out by an illegal immigrant driving drunk. An illegal who, like Carranza, had numerous prior arrests. For drunk driving, no less. How illegals get drivers' licenses is altogether incomprehensible.

By definition, anyone who is known to be an illegal alien should be immediately deported, no questions asked, no considerations given. Any illegal who is accused of a crime should be held until trial with zero possibility of bail and, if found innocent, immediately deported.

Which brings us to a key point. How is it that we do not give our law enforcement personnel a database whereby they can determine, in an instant, the legal status of someone they have reason to question? I do not advocate random searches and interrogations of people on the street just because they "look illegal." However, checking one's citizenship status should be mandatory procedure in all police actions. Should it be found that an individual is an illegal, he should be remanded to a holding facility until deportation can occur. And eliminate the bureaucracy -deportation should be within days.

Of course, we will have the bleeding-heart "America Second" corps sounding off that this New Jersey incident, while unfortunate, is not about illegal immigration at all but violence and murder. Geraldo Rivera led the chorus with the Virginia Beach tragedy, minimizing it to "just being about drunk driving."

It is time the American people stepped up on this issue.

The president, Congress and some local officials have let us down time and again, choosing political correctness and self-interests over enforcing existing law. Yes, existing law. Why not, for a change, try to execute the laws already on the books rather than legislating from the bench or throwing the burden of identifying illegal aliens on ill-equipped U.S. citizens? The government has made clear that it has willingly abdicated its responsibility of protecting the physical and economic well being of its citizens.

The threat of "terrorists" coming across our borders is not just from the likes of al-Qaida. The much more real threat is criminals coming to our shores with the lure of easy money. And what could be easier than robbing, and executing, three bright young minds?

Thank God the fourth victim lived to identify her attacker. Otherwise, Carranza would be continuing his reign of terror - with the full knowledge of our government.

Enough is enough.