Let the bank robbers stay!

We’ve been bombarded with stories about the poor illegal immigrant families who will be split up without immigration reform. We’ve been told that these people just want a shot at the American dream, that they are good for our economy, that they are hard workers, and that we’re heartless and insensitive if we expect them to follow the laws of our land.

I feel very safe in saying that you won’t see those fighting for immigration reform holding up (no pun intended) Luis de la Garza as an example, even though they’ve done so many times before. In fact, Luis, himself, has been on the frontlines demanding fairness for those who don’t play fair themselves. Unfortunately, we also caught Luis at the front of several bank teller lines making unauthorized withdrawals (armed robbery).

Luis is the infamous Mesh Mask Bandit, so-named because of the strange mask he wore. Luis is an immigrant rights activist, and he’s admitted to robbing 18 banks. Who knows how many others he’s knocked over.  Luis’s friends say he came here with nothing and made something of himself. “He seems to be a good businessman,” says Hector Flores. I guess most anybody can be successful if they can just run down to the bank and withdraw as much money as they want from other people’s accounts.

Public records on Luis tell a little different story about his success. He has had several federal tax liens and judgments against him. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to failing to file a corporate tax return. He was given probation on that conviction. In 2009, a $25,844 federal tax lien was filed against him. In 2007, a bank foreclosed on a house he owned. Then he lost his Farmers Branch home (valued at more than $331,400). Kind of makes you wonder what he did with all that money he stole.

“Mesh Mask Bandit enters guilty plea.” The Dallas Morning News; November 20, 2013; p. 1B.