WEBVTT
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Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson show.
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At the risk of suggesting something truly radical, consider this.
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If somebody is already illegally in America and gets arrested for a serious crime, maybe not every crime, maybe we would exclude rape and murder, but all the other crimes, why should taxpayers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting those people and imprisoning them instead of simply sending them on their way out of the United States of America?
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I thought we'd consider that with John Lott, who made the suggestion broadly in a piece that he wrote for the New York Post.
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:44.000
He's founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of, among other books, More Guns, Less Crime.
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John, welcome back.
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So tell me about this idea that if somebody is already in the country and you you characterize one case in particular, Isaac Melendez Carranza, who was selling fentanyl to two students in, I believe it was Loudoun County, Virginia, and the two students OD'd Narcan saved their lives.
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But then the cost of prosecuting this Joker and then locking him up, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, aren't we?
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Yeah.
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Well, I mean I pick that it's not as costly to go through the legal system for for that particular crime, uh, as heinous it as it is, would be as compared to any type of uh violent uh felony like rape, robbery, murder, aggravated assault, all those are much more costly to go through.
00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:47.120
And the the reason for looking at this was just if when you listen to the debate, so much of it is, well, we should only deport, and maybe not even always then, but only those who have been convicted of crimes.
00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:57.120
Uh you have a huge percentage, maybe 40% of those who have been deported have been charged, but yet not convicted of a crime.
00:01:57.359 --> 00:02:06.959
And I I just want people to understand what the huge costs are involved to go the rest of the way through the legal system once you've charged somebody to actually convict them.
00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:17.680
And and also, just as a point, over 90% of those individuals who are charged with crimes end up being convicted.
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So, you know, you're bearing a much larger cost for something which, you know, you pretty much already know what's going to happen with these individuals.
00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:33.360
But it's they're, as you say, they're illegally in the country to begin with.
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We can deport them even without a crime.
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But so you take this individual who is selling uh fentanyl to uh to high school kids in northern Virginia.
00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:48.479
Um you have a couple of options.
00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:51.199
One, if he could just accept a plea bargain.
00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:59.120
In that case, you're probably talking about legal costs that are going to be running something at least$150,000 or so.
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:14.800
Uh you know, you have the prosecutor's costs, you have the court costs, you have uh the cost for the public defender for the individual, you have the time that he's gonna be held in jail while he's awaiting for the case to be uh adjudicated.
00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:18.960
Uh, you know, 150,000, that's still substantial.
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But if he fights it, if you actually have to have a trial for something like that, uh, and the individual has to spend some time in jail because a state like Virginia isn't going to uh isn't gonna turn them over to ICE until uh, and maybe not even once he gets the sentence finished, they may not even turn them over.
00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:45.840
Uh you're talking about something that's gonna be well over six hundred thousand or so.
00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:50.080
And by the way, by the way, John, I want people to do the math.
00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:52.159
So you you're saying, well, that's one case.
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Okay, what if there are a thousand of those cases that you deal with?
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We might easily have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, but just a thousand.
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If it's six hundred thousand for this one guy, then a thousand people like him is six hundred million dollars.
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That's an extraordinary sum of money to spend on people that at the end of the day, they're gonna simply ship back home to their home country after you spend all this money.
00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.000
So why not just ship them home now?
00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:20.800
Because we already have them illegally in the country.
00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:23.120
We don't need to convict them of fentanyl.
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:30.000
Send them home, and we know that the borders are very tightly closed now, and it will be almost impossible for them to come back.
00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:31.120
Right.
00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:31.920
Oh, exactly.
00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:36.720
And look, you know, if you're talking about a murder trial, you may be talking about two or three million dollars.
00:04:36.879 --> 00:04:45.839
You're talking about a trial for rape, it could be almost two million dollars the total costs that are there for uh you know all the different parts of the legal system.
00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:52.720
For even things like robbery and agbayed assault, you're frequently talking about something that can be well over a million dollars.
00:04:53.040 --> 00:05:10.000
And so, you know, but even if you just take these fentanyl cases and kind of multiply it by the number of individuals who were arrested by ICE but had only had criminal charges, uh, you're talking about something at least$37 billion.
00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:26.000
And if you were to take the higher costs of$600,000, again, just for these fentanyl type cases, assuming you know you didn't have anybody with these violent crime type cases, uh, you'd be talking about something that's almost$150 billion.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:41.680
Now, is anybody considering this kind of policy option to say, okay, on for certain levels of cases, and I would even ask this, John, which one is greater punishment for somebody who's an illegal alien illegally in the country and then doing things like selling drugs?
00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:54.560
Is it putting them in an American prison where they will have access to the judicial system, they may have access to a lawyer, they'll have three hots and a cot, they'll get decent medical care and everything else, or sending them back to their home country?
00:05:54.720 --> 00:06:03.279
I would argue that sending them back to their home country is the greater level of punishment if what you're looking for is punishment, and that's that's what I would want to favor.
00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:12.959
But you know, the thing is a large percentage of these individuals have criminal charges pending in their home countries.
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:13.519
Yep.
00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:32.079
So, you know, so not only do we have 70% of those who are arrested have either been convicted or have uh been charged with a crime in the United States, but and a large percentage of those have criminal cases in their home countries that they're waiting for.
00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:47.279
But even the 30% that haven't been convicted of crimes in the United States are charged with crimes yet, uh many of those, according to the Department of Homeland Security, have are facing criminal charges back in their home countries.
00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:53.839
So you you deport them, they're gonna face the legal system in their home countries.
00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:54.399
Yep.
00:06:54.639 --> 00:07:05.839
And by the way, I I know that in part of the piece that you wrote for the New York Post, you quote uh the the head of the Brennan Center, which is a left-wing center, uh, and they said, Well, a charge is not a conviction.
00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:08.240
People are innocent until proven guilty.
00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:11.680
They they are, if you choose to prosecute them.
00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:20.959
But if you already know for a fact that they're illegally in the country, and that's a civil matter, and you can quickly simply send them out of the country, then there's no need.
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:32.240
There is no right in the Constitution that says an illegal alien who's illegally in America has the uh right under the Constitution to stay in America until the criminal charges against him are heard.
00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:33.439
That is John Lott.
00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:37.120
He is the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
00:07:37.279 --> 00:07:37.439
Dr.
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:42.160
Lott is the author of More Guns, Less Crime, and a number of other good Second Amendment books.
00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:49.600
I am to serve without compensation on the board of directors of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and so I certainly have a dog in the fight.
00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:52.480
Time to get to your calls and emails in just a moment.
00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:58.480
You're listening to Monday on the Radio Northwest Network, and you're listening to the Lars Larson show.
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.240
Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson show.
00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:10.080
At the risk of suggesting something truly radical, consider this.
00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:31.600
If somebody is already illegally in America and gets arrested for a serious crime, maybe not every crime, maybe we would exclude rape and murder, but all the other crimes, why should taxpayers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting those people and imprisoning them instead of simply sending them on their way out of the United States of America?
00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:37.439
I thought we'd consider that with John Lott, who made the suggestion broadly in a piece that he wrote for the New York Post.
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:44.000
He's founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of, among other books, More Guns, Less Crime.
00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:45.359
John, welcome back.
00:00:47.840 --> 00:01:04.799
So tell me about this idea that if somebody is already in the country and you you characterize one case in particular, Isaac Melendez Carranza, who was selling fentanyl to two students in, I believe it was Loudoun County, Virginia, and the two students OD'd Narcan saved their lives.
00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:12.159
But then the cost of prosecuting this Joker and then locking him up, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, aren't we?
00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:13.519
Yeah.
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:33.120
Well, I mean I pick that it's not as costly to go through the legal system for for that particular crime, uh, as heinous it as it is, would be as compared to any type of uh violent uh felony like rape, robbery, murder, aggravated assault, all those are much more costly to go through.
00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:47.120
And the the reason for looking at this was just if when you listen to the debate, so much of it is, well, we should only deport, and maybe not even always then, but only those who have been convicted of crimes.
00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:57.120
Uh you have a huge percentage, maybe 40% of those who have been deported have been charged, but yet not convicted of a crime.
00:01:57.359 --> 00:02:06.959
And I I just want people to understand what the huge costs are involved to go the rest of the way through the legal system once you've charged somebody to actually convict them.
00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:17.680
And and also, just as a point, over 90% of those individuals who are charged with crimes end up being convicted.
00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:29.439
So, you know, you're bearing a much larger cost for something which, you know, you pretty much already know what's going to happen with these individuals.
00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:33.360
But it's they're, as you say, they're illegally in the country to begin with.
00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.080
We can deport them even without a crime.
00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:45.840
But so you take this individual who is selling uh fentanyl to uh to high school kids in northern Virginia.
00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:48.479
Um you have a couple of options.
00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:51.199
One, if he could just accept a plea bargain.
00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:59.120
In that case, you're probably talking about legal costs that are going to be running something at least$150,000 or so.
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:14.800
Uh you know, you have the prosecutor's costs, you have the court costs, you have uh the cost for the public defender for the individual, you have the time that he's gonna be held in jail while he's awaiting for the case to be uh adjudicated.
00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:18.960
Uh, you know, 150,000, that's still substantial.
00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:40.560
But if he fights it, if you actually have to have a trial for something like that, uh, and the individual has to spend some time in jail because a state like Virginia isn't going to uh isn't gonna turn them over to ICE until uh, and maybe not even once he gets the sentence finished, they may not even turn them over.
00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:45.840
Uh you're talking about something that's gonna be well over six hundred thousand or so.
00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:50.080
And by the way, by the way, John, I want people to do the math.
00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:52.159
So you you're saying, well, that's one case.
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.319
Okay, what if there are a thousand of those cases that you deal with?
00:03:56.479 --> 00:04:00.639
We might easily have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, but just a thousand.
00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:07.120
If it's six hundred thousand for this one guy, then a thousand people like him is six hundred million dollars.
00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:16.079
That's an extraordinary sum of money to spend on people that at the end of the day, they're gonna simply ship back home to their home country after you spend all this money.
00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.000
So why not just ship them home now?
00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:20.800
Because we already have them illegally in the country.
00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:23.120
We don't need to convict them of fentanyl.
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:30.000
Send them home, and we know that the borders are very tightly closed now, and it will be almost impossible for them to come back.
00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:31.120
Right.
00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:31.920
Oh, exactly.
00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:36.720
And look, you know, if you're talking about a murder trial, you may be talking about two or three million dollars.
00:04:36.879 --> 00:04:45.839
You're talking about a trial for rape, it could be almost two million dollars the total costs that are there for uh you know all the different parts of the legal system.
00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:52.720
For even things like robbery and agbayed assault, you're frequently talking about something that can be well over a million dollars.
00:04:53.040 --> 00:05:10.000
And so, you know, but even if you just take these fentanyl cases and kind of multiply it by the number of individuals who were arrested by ICE but had only had criminal charges, uh, you're talking about something at least$37 billion.
00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:26.000
And if you were to take the higher costs of$600,000, again, just for these fentanyl type cases, assuming you know you didn't have anybody with these violent crime type cases, uh, you'd be talking about something that's almost$150 billion.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:41.680
Now, is anybody considering this kind of policy option to say, okay, on for certain levels of cases, and I would even ask this, John, which one is greater punishment for somebody who's an illegal alien illegally in the country and then doing things like selling drugs?
00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:54.560
Is it putting them in an American prison where they will have access to the judicial system, they may have access to a lawyer, they'll have three hots and a cot, they'll get decent medical care and everything else, or sending them back to their home country?
00:05:54.720 --> 00:06:03.279
I would argue that sending them back to their home country is the greater level of punishment if what you're looking for is punishment, and that's that's what I would want to favor.
00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:12.959
But you know, the thing is a large percentage of these individuals have criminal charges pending in their home countries.
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:13.519
Yep.
00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:32.079
So, you know, so not only do we have 70% of those who are arrested have either been convicted or have uh been charged with a crime in the United States, but and a large percentage of those have criminal cases in their home countries that they're waiting for.
00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:47.279
But even the 30% that haven't been convicted of crimes in the United States are charged with crimes yet, uh many of those, according to the Department of Homeland Security, have are facing criminal charges back in their home countries.
00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:53.839
So you you deport them, they're gonna face the legal system in their home countries.
00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:54.399
Yep.
00:06:54.639 --> 00:07:05.839
And by the way, I I know that in part of the piece that you wrote for the New York Post, you quote uh the the head of the Brennan Center, which is a left-wing center, uh, and they said, Well, a charge is not a conviction.
00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:08.240
People are innocent until proven guilty.
00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:11.680
They they are, if you choose to prosecute them.
00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:20.959
But if you already know for a fact that they're illegally in the country, and that's a civil matter, and you can quickly simply send them out of the country, then there's no need.
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:32.240
There is no right in the Constitution that says an illegal alien who's illegally in America has the uh right under the Constitution to stay in America until the criminal charges against him are heard.
00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:33.439
That is John Lott.
00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:37.120
He is the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
00:07:37.279 --> 00:07:37.439
Dr.
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:42.160
Lott is the author of More Guns, Less Crime, and a number of other good Second Amendment books.
00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:49.600
I am to serve without compensation on the board of directors of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and so I certainly have a dog in the fight.
00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:52.480
Time to get to your calls and emails in just a moment.
00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:58.480
You're listening to Monday on the Radio Northwest Network, and you're listening to the Lars Larson show.
