A father who lost his daughter in a hit-and-run accident hopes to convey a message to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about border security, according to an interview on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom” on Feb. 13.
Dan Ferguson, an angel dad and a retired educator from El Paso, Texas, told the news program that he was frustrated over the circumstances surrounding his daughter’s death and believes that immigration reform would have prevented it.
Ferguson’s daughter, Amanda Weyant-Ferguson, was killed in November last year when an illegal alien, went on a drinking spree, ran two red lights, and ran over the 28-year-old school teacher while she was on the crosswalk.
Joel Velasquez, 24, is currently facing charges for manslaughter, accident involving death and tampering with evidence.
Ferguson said the accident wouldn’t have happened if ICE was notified about Velasquez earlier after he assaulted his neighbor in 2017, where the 24-year-old knocked his neighbor’s two front teeth out.
“He was arrested … deported in 2012. He entered the country again illegally which made him a felon. He was then arrested on aggravated assault charges and put in jail. But he was released on bond before they notified ICE,” Ferguson said during the interview.
“I’m a firm believer if they would have notified ICE and they would have picked this guy up after his assault on his neighbor, he knocked his neighbor’s front teeth out… ICE would have had a detainer on this guy,” Ferguson also said.
He said that he hopes to meet with Pelosi on Feb. 13, with other “angel moms” and “angel dads.”
“We want to show her we’re not a bunch of crazy people,” Ferguson told America’s Newsroom. “We are the American citizens that President Trump is trying to protect.”
He also wants to share his experience living in El Paso before and after a wall was built.
“I’ve lived in El Paso for 45 years. I’ve seen the results before the wall and after the wall,” he said. “When I was in school in El Paso there were gangs rampant throughout our city.”
“I use to watch border patrol agents chase down illegal aliens and tackle them in the playground of our school. That was before the wall. After the wall, all these incidents had stopped.”
In a previous interview with Fox and Friends, Ferguson said, “if Ms. Pelosi’s or Mr. Schumer’s daughter or son were hit and killed by an illegal alien, I can guarantee you that funding would have been there months ago for this wall and security for our border.”
A Texas man whose daughter was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant is challenging Congress to fund border security, enforce immigration law and protect American citizens.
Gepostet von Fox News Insider am Montag, 11. Februar 2019
Ferguson also said that he was “100 percent behind” the president “on the wall and securing the border.”
“You know, he also needs to look at cutting off all the money for sanctuary cities, because all that does is let these illegal aliens back into our society to commit more crimes,” he said during the interview.
“I know President Trump has looked into the eyes of angel dads and angel moms like me. He knows the pain.”
El Paso Fence
President Donald Trump previously highlighted El Paso as an example of the success of border fencing, as the crime rate went down after the fence was erected.
“[T]hanks to a powerful border wall in El Paso Texas, it’s one of America’s safest cities now. You’re talking a few feet away,” Trump said at a rally in El Paso on Feb. 12.
“Last year Juárez had 1,200 murders. El Paso, right next door, had 23 murders. Walls work. We want to stop drugs, we want to stop criminals from coming in. Walls save lives.”
Reuters reported in March 2008, before the El Paso fence was expanded that, “the El Paso barrier—two parallel chain link fences over 15 feet in height spaced 30 feet apart along the bed of the Rio Grande—helped cut the number of illegal border crossers and curbed crime in the city, residents say.”
El Paso metro area crime rates dropped precipitously in the 1990s, from more than 800 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 1995 (pdf) to less than 660 in 1999 (xls), FBI data shows.
The rate kept decreasing, down to about 437 in 2008 and 356 in 2017—less than the national average of nearly 383.
It’s hard to quantify, though, how much of the decrease can be attributed to the fence.
