Today, we are all Laken Hope Riley. If the name does not move you, it should. We are losing young people at a record pace. Only in war do we lose more, maybe not then. Truth is, we are at war.
Laken Hope Riley was a hopeful, believing, cheerful, smart American woman, 22, who wanted to be a nurse, to help others. She believed in the American dream, worked for it, supported by her family, faith, and friends – was killed by a criminal alien, one of eight million, none of whom should even be here.
Laken’s story, in a way, is the American story, writ small. Filled with dreaming and doing, hoping and working, she aimed to serve others, had faith, and lifted all those around her. She never imagined she would die running on her college campus, brutally killed by an illegal.
If we are taught to understand that God’s will is mysterious, that every life is somehow complete as lived, it still hurts. Hers feels horribly incomplete, senselessly taken, and unnecessary evil bursting into her world.
She was killed by a 26-year-old illegal immigrant, a criminal, glibly waved in by senseless border policies, coddled by Democrats giving him “sanctuary” from detention and deportation. Caught twice, released twice, he bore no accountability for his acts – a jackal among the fowl, wholly immoral.
This illegal alien, coming from Venezuela via Mexico, where brutality is taught on the streets and by a communist government, had no interest in citizenship, assimilating, American history, or abiding by laws. He was an animal but learned quickly one lesson – In Biden’s America, there is no accountability.
That lesson, sadly, is being learned by millions, perhaps tens of millions, who cross our border illegally. They traffic more drugs annually than needed to kill the whole country, enslave thousands of girls for sex, then kill them and harvest their organs, yes, right here in America.
Mexican cartels, syndicates, and gangs are trafficking victims in unprecedented numbers, seeing a green light, while Chinese, Middle Eastern, and “terror watch list” entrants pour in, even up north – no effort to stop them, just paper-thin, overworked, and overwhelmed law enforcement.
We have leaders – most of them unrepentant Democrats – providing excuses for a thoughtless border policy, shipping unvetted illegals coast to coast, criminals in their midst, depositing them in states ill-equipped to manage their needs or high criminality.
Today, 64 percent of all federal crimes are committed by non-citizens, despite their prevalence of seven percent in the population. Thousands of crimes are committed by them annually, no accountability.
Rather than oppose these immoral policies, and distortion of asylum law, many Democrats favor the flood, placing citizens at physical, mental, and emotional risk, forcing horrors on them, like Laken’s death.
In Maine, unvetted illegals continue to arrive, many likely criminals – shipped up by the federal government and inexplicably “welcomed” as “New Americans” by Maine’s Democrat governor, then loosed to do what they may, some even accommodated in housing intended for homeless veterans.
Can it get any worse? Actually, yes. Many of those pushing illegal behavior, drug, and human trafficking, are tied to transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), Mexican cartels, and Chinese triads.
Once a state says, “Come in,” lawbreakers take root, setting up fentanyl distribution, mass “grow houses” for high-potency THC, trafficking drugs, girls, and fear, linked by a disregard for law, life, and normalcy.
What we are experiencing is death by a thousand cuts, the power of indifference to illegality, immorality, and citizen safety – which results in a vicious circle, ever more of the same, until the battlespace is won by lawless actors, not deterred in time, eventually in charge, just a larger version of Venezuela.
America’s leaders – in both parties – misunderstand the stakes, underestimate what we are up against, pretend the damage is acceptable, that these illegals want to be citizens, harm somehow small.
Wrong. While some may want citizenship the immoral gamble for illegal votes is self-defeating. America – the land of liberty, law-abiding, constitutional, safe, and freedom from fear – will change.
We are at war – right here at home – with foreign countries and ideologies, engaged in a great struggle for truth, stability, our individual freedoms, and the American way.
We are at war with cartels, TCOs, and terror aiming to destabilize us. We can win – if we step up and see the stakes. But not to see things as they are, pretending all is well, perpetuates an illusion of safety.
Today, we still have the power to put this right and exercise freedom for good, but time is short to properly assess the enormity of the risk and vulnerability of the country, and to acknowledge we are effectively at war.
Our common love of liberty means we need to start seeing things as they are, not as we wish them to be. We need – with unity – to stop the inflow of lawlessness and return to respect for law, America.
If Laken Hope Riley is America writ small, there is more to her death than mourning. This woman’s murder by a non-citizen was preventable and prophetic. Her fate, in some ways, is emblematic and tragic. Bottom line: If we cannot get ahead of this battle now, her fate will also be ours.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
