The recent killings of people in Houston show how the border problem is affecting the state’s biggest city. Reports say that criminal aliens have killed many people, but two recent killings show a worrying trend, according to authorities speaking to The Center Square.
He said earlier this week that President Joe Biden’s “open border policies” were having “a devastating impact on every community in our nation.” Gov. Greg Abbott warned about these policies.
On Sunday, Gov. Abbott met with 13 Republican governors in Eagle Pass, Texas, to talk about how committed they were to protecting the border and the right of states to self-defense under the Constitution. “We’ve seen what terrible results Joe Biden’s open border policies have caused.”
Last month, on a Friday night in southwest Houston, four teens went bowling. On their way home on the Southwest Freeway near Beechnut Street, a man fiercely followed them and fired shots into their car. Later, police found out that the person they thought did it was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who had been sent back twice for crimes.
Bullets missed the driver more than any of the two 18-year-olds and two 19-year-olds in the car. Otarion Lomax, who was sitting in the front seat, was shot in the head, and two women in the back seat were also hit. Lomax later died in the hospital, but the others were still alive.
“Within three hours, police had found the suspect’s car,” said Houston Police Sergeant John Stroble. An HPD officer arrested Vasquez-Guzman on January 29 for driving violations. He was then taken to the Harris County Jail to be questioned by HPD homicide officers.
Vasquez-Guzman, who was born in El Salvador, was deported in September 2010 but then illegally came back into the country at an unknown time and place. He was deported again in February 2020 but then came back into Texas illegally again, according to court papers.
This happened after another one by a thief from El Salvador who was also in the country illegally. Authorities say Oscar Rosales killed Harris County Constable Corporal Charles Galloway on Beechnut Street in southwest Houston last year and is now facing the death penalty.
After the alleged shooting, Rosales ran away, and various law enforcement agencies began a three-day manhunt. The Mexican government finally caught him in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, which is across the Rio Grande River from Del Rio, Texas. Two sheriff’s offices, one in Val Verde County and one in Harris County, took him and put him into the Harris County Jail, according to several news sources.
A statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Rosales came into the U.S. illegally “on an unknown date and at an unknown location without inspection or parole by U.S. immigration officials” before allegedly killing Galloway.
According to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Rosales had been out of court since June 1996 because of a move to adjudicate for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that happened on December 10, 1995. It’s not clear when he came into the country illegally or how long he had been living in Houston.
Vasquez-Guzman and Rosales are two of the millions of people who enter the U.S. illegally between ports of entry on purpose to avoid being caught. These people are called “gotaways.” Authorities told The Center Square that most of them are single guys of military age and many of them have criminal records. Border Patrol officers say that since January 2021, more than two million getaways have come into the U.S. illegally. The police don’t know who they are or where they are.
A number of retired FBI counterintelligence agents have warned about the threats they pose, such as the high chance that they will commit violent crimes or terrorist acts.
Police in Texas working on Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security mission can’t catch everyone, but this week the governor said that they’ve made a record number of arrests—more than 39,000—and filed more than 35,200 crime charges.