Trump immigration crackdown in Missouri and Kansas makes us safer | Opinion
Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown gets bad press seemingly every day, much of it well-deserved. When his masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement thugs aren’t arresting U.S. citizens and throwing them in Department of Homeland Security holding centers, they’re deporting the parents of brave immigrants who served honorably in the U.S. military or stalking people in Democrat-run cities based on little more than the color of their skin.
Trump’s near total disregard for limits on his power doesn’t change the fact that Americans voted for an immigration crackdown, if not one this brutal and incompetent. However, in the courtrooms of Missouri and Kansas federal courts, the Justice Department is delivering on Trump’s promises both within the law and in a fashion that targets the criminals we all agree don’t belong here.
In all, over the last three months, dozens of criminal immigrants, many of them undocumented, have been targeted by U.S. attorneys here. I hope they’ll pick up the pace in coming weeks as new Trump-appointed leadership takes over.
Lee’s Summit, Kansas City, St. Louis arrests
The Friday before Christmas, convicted Mexican drug smuggler Severo De La Torre-Sanchez was sentenced to more than three years in prison after conviction for being a felon in the country illegally. It was his third time, having entered the country previously during Trump’s wall-promising first term and again twice under Joe Biden’s lax border policies. He was arrested in Lee’s Summit after being served a protection order.
The day before, another Mexican, Tomas Alejandro Yanez-Fraide, previously convicted of a Jackson County robbery and deported in 2022, soon returned to reside in Kansas City where local police arrested him with a Glock, an extended magazine and ammunition. He will serve four years for being a felon in possession of a firearm and then deported again.
Earlier in the month, a third Mexican, Andres G. Angel-Martinez, was convicted of reentering the country after being previously deported. The judge sentenced him to time already served and he will be deported again. His return trip to Kansas City was facilitated by the porous Biden border and he was arrested only weeks into the Trump administration.
In St. Louis, the week of Christmas, an undocumented immigrant arrested for abusing a child pled guilty to child pornography charges after hundreds of images were found on his phone. Francisco J. Ocana-Talamantes faces 20 years in prison before he will be deported.
The week before, another immigrant here illegally, Ica Munteanu from Romania, pled guilty to illegal reentry and wire fraud after stealing $211,000 from retailers.
Earlier in the month a Nigerian man, Mercy Ojedeji, was sentenced to three years in prison for fraudulently obtaining a student visa and acceptance to a University of Missouri Ph.D. program for which he was offered nearly $50,000 in financial aid. While in the United States, Ojedegi was part of a scheme that bilked Missourians out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and wired it back to Nigeria.
In Kansas this month, undocumented immigrant Diego Barron-Esquivel, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for trying to strangle an ICE agent during the course of his arrest in Wichita.
Biden border security the problem
Trump and his Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security associates have repeatedly lied about just how many criminal undocumented immigrants there are in the United States right now, and who is responsible for allowing them to remain in the country. Hundreds of thousands predate Biden’s time in office, with some having entered the United States under Trump himself during his first term.
Yes, it is true that immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to commit a crime, but it is also a fact that if our borders had been more secure under Biden, fewer of these criminals would have been here at all. The math is of little solace to immigrant criminals’ victims when the predators never should have been able to get to them in the first place.
In any case, there are solid numbers placing the number of undocumented criminals at nearly 1 million and maybe more. Getting them out of the country makes us all safer and whatever Trump’s crimes, we should support his U.S. attorneys who work within the law to keep undocumented criminals off the streets.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published December 31, 2025 at 6:08 AM with the headline "Trump immigration crackdown in Missouri and Kansas makes us safer | Opinion."
