The Washington Post is reporting that investigators have uncovered a previously little-known, ongoing national crime spree involving illegal aliens from South America. Those aliens–dubbed by the FBI “South American theft groups”–are coming into this country, often from either Chile or Columbia, to burglarize high-end homes in urban areas around the country, such Washington, DC.
The “crime tourists” from Chile typically enter through a little-known program called the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which permits citizens of select foreign countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. Those travelers enter the U.S. with less scrutiny than those who have to obtain visas. Theft groups from Columbia, which is not a member of VWP, either sneak across the border or enter with forged documents identifying them as Puerto Ricans.
Once here, the groups link up into cells of two to eight persons and “travel from state to state carrying out scores of burglaries, jewelry heists and other crimes.” Recently, one ring was arrested after targeting high-end homes in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. The group had netted about $2 million before their arrests.
The groups specialize in non-violent crimes, for which any bail is apt to be low, permitting them to obtain release cheaply and quickly and allowing them to skip town for the next job. The crimes often fail to meet the threshold sufficient to involve federal authorities, and nowadays state and local authorities are busy with an epidemic of homicides. The gangs therefore take advantage of (1) lax border control and (2) indifferent or over-extended domestic law enforcement.
A supervisory special agent with the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Dan Heath, said the groups are a growing problem not only in the United States but worldwide, such as India, Britain and Australia. “They represent an enormous threat right now in our country,” Heath said. “They are tending to thread the needle in avoiding both state and federal prosecution.”
Despite warnings from investigators, the Biden administration expanded the VWP last year by adding Croatia to the approved list, which now includes the following: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
The addition of Chile in 2014 during the Obama administration resulted in a sharp increase in Chilean crime tourists. Every president since George W. Bush has expanded the program, however, including Trump, who added Poland in 2019.
Once again, short-sighted globalist fantasy threatens the safety of our lives and country.
For more, see the Washington Post.