Schanna Gayden's 2007 death raised in Gonzalez hearing

Young Schanna Gayden was shot to death at a neighborhood playground while walking with her grandmother in 2007.  Accused of ordering the shots fired that struck 13 year old Schanna, Mwenda Murithi roamed freely on Chicago streets despite being arrested 27 times prior.  Although he had illegally overstayed a student visa, the 26 year old Kenyan never faced deportation.   

Chicago's "sanctuary city" law protects undocumented suspects from police questioning about their immigration status.  Illinois state law requires judges to warn convicted felons as to the ramifications of admitting illegal immigration status, but does not require them to ask what the convicted's immigration status is.  HB 5756 would require the question to be asked and answered.

Illinois should protect other potential Schanna Gaydens from certain, unmerciful, mistaken death by getting criminal illegals off our city streets. 

Senator Jeff Sessions mentioned Schanna Gayden's death during a questioning with fomer U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez last year.  The questioning went like this:

SESSIONS: And I was recently reminded of a serious problem we have with regard to aliens who have been convicted of crimes in the United States. Mr. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, recently told us and this committee within the last year, I believe, that 27 percent of the federal prison population is foreign-born.

We have laws that I think authorize the removal from our country of persons who are convicted of crimes immediately upon the completion of their sentence, as I recall the statutes. . .

I would note the article by Michelle Malkin (ph) quoting some of the examples we've had here, where Mr. Adhahn was convicted of -- relating to his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of 12-year- old Zina Linnik in Tacoma, Washington, on July 4th.

He had been convicted, apparently, of incest in 1990 and had sexually assaulted his 16-year-old relative, got that pleaded down to second-degree rape.

Two years later, he was convicted of intimidation with a dangerous weapon, and the law calls for -- says that anyone convicted of a weapons offense is deportable. But he wasn't deported, and that's how, apparently, this murder occurred.

Another instance was Mwenda Murithi, arrested 27 times without deportation before being arrested in the shooting death of a 13-year- old innocent bystander, Schanna Gayden, last month in Illinois.

So I guess I'm asking you about this whole policy, whether or not you have taken a lead to see that it's carried out. Do you believe it should be systematically and regularly carried out? And if there are any statutory weaknesses, do you have any suggestions about how they should be improved?

Comments

[Rick Jones]

It's hard to understand why our government officials are so lax about providing for the public safety. It is base common sense to remove an illegal alien after the completion of a sentence.