To Protect and Serve 

Bill O'Reilly
January 11, 2003

Chances are the 42-year-old mother of two who was allegedly gang-raped in New York City by five illegal aliens did not know that Article Four, Section Four of the Constitution says that the federal government will protect each state against "invasion" and "domestic violence."

If she had known that, her horrible ordeal would have been made worse, because she would have understood that the people who run the United States and New York City failed to protect her by not enforcing the Constitution.

With an estimated 10,000,000 illegal aliens currently in the United States, and thousands more arriving each week, there is no question that we are being invaded by foreigners. Most are seeking a better life; some want to hurt us.

The federal government has long been aware that Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) are overwhelmed and cannot keep the "invaders" out. The feds have looked the other way for a couple of reasons. Cheap immigrant labor fuels profits, and immigrant-rights groups can hurt a politician who is considered "unfriendly."

So even after the attack on 9-11, where 15 of the killers were in this country illegally, many authorities still refuse to take steps to stem the invasion. President Bush, for example, could order the military to back up Border Patrol. He will not and will not explain why not. Does it make sense that 37,000 American troops guard the South Korean border, yet not one can guard the homeland border?

In the cities of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco and many others, the local authorities are simply ignoring federal law. It is illegal for any person to enter the United States without a valid passport or visa. Yet in New York, Executive Order 124, signed by Mayor Koch in 1989, discourages and, in some cases, prohibits city workers, including police, from reporting any known illegal alien to the INS, even after he or she has been arrested .

Former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir told me: "The thinking is that if you make the police the surrogates of the INS, then the communities that you police will not trust you ... I'm not suggesting it's right."

But it is policy, and Mayors Dinkins, Giuliani and now Bloomberg have championed it.

So what is this poor raped woman to think? Four men from Mexico and one from Ecuador were roaming around Queens unsupervised, even though four of those men had been arrested and two convicted of serious crimes. That woman's life is shattered because politicians simply would not do what was necessary to protect her.

In California, there are currently 19,000 illegal immigrants in state prisons for serious crimes -- 12 percent of the total prison population in the Golden State. And when those alien criminals are paroled, most of them will not be deported because of lack of will on the part of politicians. This is simply disgraceful.

So what can be done?

The answer is very little, because the elite media will not aggressively cover this harrowing story. How many editorial pages have you seen demanding that the U.S. military be sent to secure our borders? How many stories on the network news have you watched pointing out that people like Mayor Bloomberg will not enforce federal law?

Many in the establishment press see themselves as "champions" of the underdog, and they put illegal aliens in that category. This is an emotional issue, and it is true that millions of illegals are good people seeking a better life.

But when law enforcement breaks down, chaos usually ensues, and people get hurt. The United States government on all levels exists for one primary reason: To protect Americans from criminals and enemies who would hurt them.

There's one woman in New York City who was denied that protection. And no pandering politicians can deny it.