The Sheriff of Bristol County on the South Coast of Massachusetts, Thomas M. Hodgson, really, really wants to be important, if not by getting a position of importance in the Trump administration, at least by having the citizens of the county adore him and bask in the glow of his tough masculinity.

His big project, as he would put it, is to look out for the safety of county residents by getting them to fear a non-existent threat, undocumented immigrants, and, judging by some things he has said, documented ones too.

He can’t do this by sticking to the facts, so he likes to make them up even if it ignores real researchable ones, or dancing around reality like that is normal for an adult to do.

Recently, in an interview on a local Boston station, he repeated his claim that undocumented immigrants are responsible for an inordinate amount of crime, but when asked by the host to cite any statistics that would back up the claim, he simply informed the host that his claim was just common sense.

In response to the host’s question about what is wrong with Governor Baker’s suggestion on legislation that, rather than just rounding people up, local law enforcement only retain those for the federal people who have committed a violent crime, he stated that he supports giving power to arrest undocumented immigrants to local law enforcement based strictly on immigration status with the decision where and when to do this being up to the individual judgment of the arresting officer.

This in effect would make raids on establishments like clubs and sporting events, where there are many Brown people, a possibility because without guidelines and limits, a local police officer could decide that there may be undocumented immigrants in the crowd.

Basically, there would be no universal control, and raids and arrests would be subject to the individual political or personal beliefs of the officer.

This would mean profiling would replace probable cause

Unable to produce any evidence to back up his claim that illegal immigration means increased crime, something even ICE’s own report refutes, when asked if such a claim is an “urban legend”, the sheriff responded that it was a common sense claim because if someone doesn’t come in illegally they could not commit any crime here.

He then suggested that we ask the families of those killed by an “illegal” what they think. But, why not also ask all those families who have had someone killed by a natural born citizen or legal immigrant.

He attempted to go to the emotional justification for his outlandish attitude, but with thinking people, we want verifiable fact based reasons.

He can’t offer those.

When pressed if there is any statistical evidence that people here illegally commit crime at a greater rate than those here legally, Hodgson dodged it by immediately stating the questioned asked was not the question, but rather shouldn’t people be concerned about being subjected to additional crime.

What is the base number of crimes committed without the presence of the undocumented?

Without that number, how can anyone claim certain crimes are additional ones?

He then went on to conclude, in what appeared his contradicting himself, that we should not say that, because “illegals” commit less crime than those here by birth or legal immigration, those crimes the few commit should not be a concern.

So do they, or do they not commit more crime?

But the biggest gem he had laid was his opening line that supporting Sanctuary Cities and local law enforcement refusing to do the work of the federal government, especially as they already have work to do and we would be asking them to do more work than protecting and serving their local communities while not having the additional funds to afford to be able to do that, he used 9/11 as a disrespectful scare tactic when he stated that we don’t know that somebody who may not have committed a crime isn’t one of the 9/11 hijackers who slammed into the world trade center.

Get it?

The undocumented immigrants who came here for a better life, and, perhaps, to escape death by the drug cartels our Central American policies gave power to are terrorist time bombs and for that alone we should fear them.

It was grasping at a totally foolish attempt to scare by false comparison.

He implied that some, a few, or all of the hijackers of 9/11 were undocumented.

But they came here, not for the reasons that most undocumented people do; they came with a plan, and came legally.

All of the hijackers who committed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks entered the country legally on temporary visas, mostly tourist visas with entry permits for six months

Hani Hasan Hanjour obtained a student visa (F-1) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Khalid al-Mihdhar obtained a U.S. tourist visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in April 1999.

Nawaf al-Hamzi obtained a U.S. tourist visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in April 1999.
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Salem al-Hamzi obtained a U.S. tourist visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in April 1999.

Majed Moqed entered on tourist visa obtained in Saudi Arabia after May 2001.

Mohamed Atta obtained a visitor visa in Berlin Germany, May 2000.

Satam al-Suqami obtained a business visa in Saudi Arabia.

Waleed al-Shehri obtained a tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

Wael al-Shehri obtained a tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

Abdulaziz al-Omari obtained tourist visa in Saudi Arabia in June 2001.

Marwan al-Shehhi in January 2000, obtained a 10-year, multiple entry tourist visa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Fayez Ahmed Rashid Ahmed al-Qadi Banihammad obtained a tourist visa in United Arab Emirates.

Ahmed al-Ghamdi obtained a tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

Hamza Saleh al-Ghamdi obtained a visa in Saudi Arabia.

Mohand al-Shehri obtained tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

Ziad Samir Jarrah obtained five-year, multiple-entry tourist visa in Germany.

Saeed al-Ghamdi obtained a tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi obtained tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed Abdullah al-Nami obtained tourist visa in Saudi Arabia.

It should be noted that the sheriff supports the Muslim ban, but if you noticed, all the 9/11 hijackers, but two, got their Visas in a Muslim country that is not on the ban list.

He has no statistics to support his claims.

He has to rely on false equivalencies to scare people to his way of thinking.

If we are going to deal with increases in crime, we need look no further than the county jail this sheriff is too busy being a celebrity to run. He has the highest rate of suicides in any county jail in the state.

That is neither common sense nor urban legend.

That is a verifiable fact.

Perhaps if he were not the sheriff, these people who committed suicides in his jail, along with the two he mentioned in the interview that were killed by undocumented people, would still be alive today.

He becomes sheriff. More people die in the county jail than before or anywhere else in the state. Hmmmmm

And he was born in this country.

If he were not sheriff, these additional deaths may never have happened.