For the last few years, advocates of immigration controls have claimed, with all seriousness, that migrants who enter the United States illegally are “invaders.” Whenever I receive an email from them, I give them free legal advice: Don’t kill the “invaders.”
After all, in a war in which one nation has invaded another nation, under international law the people in the invaded nation have the right to kill the invaders. Consider, for example, Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had the right to defend against the invasion by killing Nazi soldiers. Or consider the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Iraqis had the right to defend against the invasion by killing U.S. soldiers. Or consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians have the right to defend against the invasion by killing Russian soldiers.
So, the reasoning goes, since illegal migrants are “invading” the United States, Americans have the right to defend against the invasion by killing the migrant “invaders.”
That was certainly the mindset of 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius, who walked into a Walmart store in El Paso in 2019 and killed 23 people and injured 22 others. As far as he was concerned, he was doing what he felt he had a right to do — kill “invaders.” Of course, in his warped mind, the fact that the people he killed, who were predominantly Mexican-Americans, looked like illegal migrants made it okay for him to kill them. A federal court gave Crusius 90 life sentences without the possibility of parole. He is still facing the death penalty under murder charges brought by the state of Texas.
As I always remind proponents of immigration controls, the flood of illegal migrants into the United States is not an “invasion.” An invasion is what Nazi Germany did to Czechoslovakia, what the U.S. did to Iraq, and what Russia has done to Ukraine. Bombs, missiles, bullets, soldiers, planes, drones, violence, death, destruction, assassinations, and devastation.
Migrants are engaged in a purely peaceful act of crossing a border illegally. There are no guns, bombs, missiles, soldiers, death, or destruction — except, of course, for the deaths of migrants from drowning, thirst, dehydration, asphyxiation, or bullets fired by Border Patrol agents.
I always tell proponents of immigration controls who lament this “invasion” that if they kill the “invaders,” they will be charged with murder and criminally prosecuted. The judge will not permit them to defend against the charges by claiming that they had the right to kill “invaders” under international law.
A good example of the validity of my free legal advice is the case of George Alan Kelly. He is currently on trial in the state of Arizona on criminal charges of having unlawfully shot and killed an illegal immigrant on Kelly’s farm. Both the prosecution and the defense have now rested their cases. The outcome will soon be in the hands of the jury.
The prosecution presented evidence that Kelly shot and killed the migrant, who was trespassing on Kelly’s farm. Kelly rested his case without taking the witness stand. But before the trial in unsworn statements, he claimed that he never shot the migrant but instead simply shot over his head. He claims that the migrant was killed by someone else. The bullet that hit migrant went straight through him and could not be recovered. Therefore, the prosecution could not tie the bullet to Kelly’s gun. The prosecution’s case is based on circumstantial evidence.
Therefore, it is entirely possible that Kelly will be acquitted simply because the jury concludes that the prosecution has not proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard of proof in a criminal case. Nonetheless, even if Kelly is acquitted, the acquittal will not contradict the point I am making — that one cannot kill an illegal immigrant as an “invader.” If one does do so, he will be criminally prosecuted, as Kelly has been. If Kelly is acquitted, it will not be because Americans can kill migrant “invaders.” It will be because the jury concluded that the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Kelly had actually did the killing.