Missing persons

I enjoyed poking fun at Homeland Security yesterday as they try to identify the woman responsible for the deaths of four kids in a school bus in Minnesota. After all, there is sweet irony in the fact that our government is sifting through this soiled nest they created by winking at immigration laws.

But there is a much more serious side to this issue. I was going to just be cheeky and explain to my readers that I hope they have four years to wait for ICE to identify her, because that's how long it took to ID Yesenia.

But this is too sad to joke about. It DID take four years to identify her, but it is a tragic tale. For those four years she was known as Castro Valley Jane Doe. Her body was found in a duffel bag behind a diner in Castro Valley, California.

I have learned there are 6,000 unidentified victims in the US. Some have been on the list for decades.

It turns out that Yesenia left Mexico on her 16th birthday, entered the country illegally, and was found dead six weeks later with a rag stuffed down her throat. No one had reported her missing.

It was a $55,000 reward issued in 2006 that prompted her roommate, an illegal alien by the name of Miguel Angel Nunez Castaneda, to come forward with a lead. Miguel was also from the same area of Mexico.

So, armed with flyers and DNA samples, investigators headed to Mexico. After three days they found a mother who had a similar story to tell. The DNA matched. And so now we know her name is Yesenia Becerra Nungaray.

The killer has not been brought to justice.

Some would say this case is a good reason to bring illegals out of the shadows. I say it is a good reason to screen all foreign-born in custody, seal the borders, remove the attractions that bring illegals here, and deport as many as we possibly can.

Because legalization itself is a powerful magnet that will only draw the next generation of Yesenia's (and their killers) to the United States. Amnesty does nothing to deter illegal aliens; in fact it encourages them!