It should be obvious

Two illegal immigrants were charged in the killing of three promising college students in Newark.

This should have an obvious solution. If you're not screening immigrants, and allowing anyone who bothers to sneak over the border illegally and then live in this country through criminal means - either through direct criminal means like theft, drug dealing, and prostitution, or through identity theft, governmental fraud, or tax evasion - you're going to be unable to prevent criminals from entering the country.

Certainly, illegal immigrants are no more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. That isn't the point. The point is that by screening for criminals and those with violent pasts or lacking in job skills, we can eliminate some of the imported violence and that's something we're not doing.

We need immigrants coming into this country to make it work. However, if we're allowing immigrants into the country and immigrants desperately want to come here, why aren't we being selective about the ones who get here and keeping the violence ones out?

Newark Crime Spurs Immigration Debate
ABC News

Melvin Jovel, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, was arraigned this morning for the shocking execution-style killings of three promising college students in Newark, N.J., this month.

Fellow illegal immigrant Jose Carranza, from Peru, is already in custody for the shooting, and was arrested twice before this incident.

Their residency status has pushed this crime into the national debate over illegal immigration, with conservatives pointing to Newark as a sanctuary city that is hospitable to illegal immigrants. "Newark and it's political leadership share a degree of culpability...their actions have directly contributed to the deaths of these promising American kids," stated presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado.

"There is no excuse for city, county, and state governments to not have a rule that when you pick someone up for a felony, you automatically check to see if they're here illegally, or if, in fact, they are illegally in the United States," said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.