More: Sure. The murder rate has been improving here recently. But the violent crime rate in D.C. is at a 30-year-low, and you are still helping them. So why not us?
Our situation is worse than numbers suggest. Our top cop, Attorney General Alan Wilson, has declared it is legally OK for men to get into a road rage incident, chase down the man they'd argued with for nine miles, get into a shootout and claim self-defense.
Not only that. A police department official in Horry County, one of our largest counties, helped the shooters afterward and one told the other the official had told him to "just be thankful that he wasn't Black."
Horrific. Just horrific.
You read that right, sir. Wilson has made it more likely for hot heads wielding guns to shoot at each other on our roads.
Sir, we are already a top 10 state for gun deaths. Save us like you're saving D.C.
Only seven states have a violent crime rate worse than ours.
Our homicide rate is nearly double the national average. Our aggravated assault rate is well above the national average " higher than that in the nation's capital. We are in the top 12 states for property crime. We suffer a high rate of drug overdoses, a scourge I know you are fighting by considering sending the U.S. military after Mexican drug cartels.
One analyst said aggravated assault, robbery, and murder "are common" here.
Our rate of rape is about the same as D.C's.
South Carolina's violent crime rate is higher than most blue states.
It's just not fair for you to be more concerned with the safety of residents of cities who voted against you than for residents who have repeatedly voted for you in overwhelming numbers!!
Sorry, sir, for sounding angry. I never want to disrespect a great man who has done so much good for this great nation. I just want fellow South Carolinians protected.
Even Rep. Nancy Mace, one of your most obedient foot soldiers, says it's too dangerous.
"In South Carolina, criminals are treated like victims " and victims like criminals," she recently tweeted in reference to disgusting dog fighting. "The attorney general is afraid to fight crime. He won't prosecute murder. He won't prosecute rape," Mace said in response to Wilson's declaration about self-defense laws, echoing criticisms he has denied as the two candidates embark on gubernatorial campaigns in South Carolina. "He won't prosecute human trafficking. He won't prosecute pedophiles."
I don't know how much longer we can hold on in a lawless, violent hellhole like this.
Only you can save us. I know we were the first state to secede from the union to try and destroy the United States. But that was so long ago. Send in federal troops. Now.
Please.
Sincerely, A proud (terrified) South Carolina native
More: Noem's remarks understandably spooked a lot of people. Vanessa Crdenas, executive director of the immigrant-rights group America's Voice, said details about ICE's plans should send a chill down every American's spine.
"Take a teenager with more testosterone than wisdom, arm them with guns and masks, fast cars and"to top it off"dangle cash incentives for indiscriminate and speedy arrests," she said. "Mix in an ICE culture of impunity and overreach. Now, what could go wrong?"
And there's precedent for a move like this creating problems. Deb Fleishaker, who served more than a dozen years at DHS, told me that in previous cases when standards were relaxed and hiring spiked, corruption among Customs and Border Patrol agents went through the roof. One study found that arrests of CBP employees rose 44 percent from 2007 to 2012. A New York Times investigation found that over a ten-year period, CBP employees and contractors took $15 million in bribes.
"We've seen with DHS when they've reduced hiring requirements it's gone very badly," Fleishaker said. "I think standards and training are hugely important to doing the job appropriately and carefully. This is further evidence that the Department cares about the numbers of bodies and numbers of arrests, without counterbalancing what the impact of those bodies and arrests will be."
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Chris Newman, the general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and a lawyer for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, said that, with the huge ramping up of recruiting and the dropping of age limits, he fears ICE may end up composed of agents who were rejected from every other law enforcement agency. Consciously or not, he warned, the administration was giving people from the fringes of society power over those with less power.
"It's a commonly known fact that recruiting efforts in the past have attracted the bottom of the barrel in terms of talent," he said. But now, he added, "it's no laughing matter to think of the type of disturbed individuals that they are attracting."