In response to the tragic murders earlier this year in Montgomery City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas, U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) introduced legislation to empower law enforcement to crack down on illegal immigration.

The legislation, H.R 5853, the Empowering Local Law Enforcement Act, would force the Director of Homeland Security (DHS) to train willing local law enforcement officers to carry out federal immigration actions such as arresting and detaining illegal aliens, and it would provide local law enforcement with information on the most dangerous illegal aliens and provide them with the authority to detain these individuals.

“After the horrendous murders that took place earlier this year, I had to take action to try and prevent this from happening in our communities again,” Luetkemeyer said. “This legislation aims to solve two specific problems that were evident when I questioned DHS and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials about these murders. First, by forcing DHS to train local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration actions, this legislation would allow appropriately trained law enforcement officers the ability to actively seek out these dangerous individuals who are in our communities illegally. Second, by providing all local law enforcement with information on the most dangerous illegal aliens and giving them the authority to detain these individuals, we would eliminate any clerical errors and loopholes between local law enforcement agencies and ICE that would allow dangerous illegal aliens to remain on our streets. Since it is evident that this administration is not taking the necessary steps to secure our borders to keep these individuals out of our country and off our streets, I believe it is necessary to provide local law enforcement the authority to protect our communities from these dangerous individuals.” 

On March 8, 2016, Pablo Serrano-Vitorino was captured by police after killing four individuals in Kansas City, Kansas and one individual in New Florence, MO. Serrano-Vitorino is an illegal immigrant who was deported from the United States for conviction of a felony, re-entered, and committed these acts. He was in police custody on multiple occasions in the months prior to this crime and he was not deported.