An Ohio sheriff supported renewing the death penalty for certain crimes as the state battles criminal activities stemming from the porous southern border, according to an interview with Fox News Digital.
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones linked President Biden’s border policies to an increase in crime by illegal immigrants, costing his taxpayers $4 million for incarceration.
“I am angry,” Jones said, expressing his frustration over the destruction caused by illegal immigrants. “People are fed up, and we want something done. I don’t know that we can stand President Biden being here. This is just a sample of what he’s done. Lord, help us all.”
Over the past three years, Jones reported jailing 1,000 illegal immigrants for committing 2,000 crimes, many violent.
“We had one guy deported eight times. He was in my jail under eight different names,” Jones told Fox News Digital. “He’s committed murder, and we believe it’s not his first. We’ve had people killed by vehicles and stabbings. The crime is increasing.”
Jones recalled incidents haunting him, like an illegal immigrant molesting a 9-year-old and another hitting a paraplegic with a vehicle and fleeing the scene.
To those arguing that citizens also commit crimes, Jones responded, “I don’t need any extra crime coming from other countries emptying their prisons.”
Jones is teaching his county to use guns for self-protection. “What would happen if Biden was reelected? Our country is in danger. We are training civilians to protect themselves,” he said.
Jones believed President Biden actively blocks Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from performing their duties.
“They block the federal government,” he said. “I am the government, and I’m embarrassed by our leadership. Other countries laugh at us. Our president can hardly talk.”
Jones added, “When you’re president, you don’t go to the grocery store. I keep my ear to the ground and talk to people. They’re fed up, disgusted, and scared.”
The White House announced executive actions to stop illegal immigrants claiming asylum if crossings hit certain levels before the November election. The order will temporarily suspend non-citizen entries across the southern border if encounters exceed 2,500 a day over seven days, officials said.
However, sources told Fox News the day after President Biden’s executive order restricting asylum for most illegal immigrants had no immediate impact on the number of migrants crossing the border. There were roughly 5,600 CBP encounters, including 4,000 illegal crossings and CBP One App releases at ports of entry.
Jones previously called on state lawmakers to pass legislation allowing law enforcement to file felony charges against illegal immigrants in Ohio, similar to a controversial Texas measure, Fox 19 reported.
“Our approach here is far from gentle. I’m not a very gentle approach person,” Jones said of his no-nonsense attitude.
“I believe if you murder somebody, the death penalty. If you molest children or hurt children, the death penalty. Terrorism, the death penalty. Selling drugs causing death, the death penalty. But I don’t make those rules,” he said.
Jones was particularly concerned about drugs trafficked into Ohio.
“Everybody [in Ohio] knows somebody who died because of that. It affects us all. It sends chills down my spine,” the sheriff continued. “It doesn’t seem our president cares. He’s more concerned with global warming and making us buy electric cars and get rid of gas stoves.”
Ohio had the fifth-highest death rate from drug overdoses in the nation, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 5,144 deaths in 2022 and 5,397 in 2021.
“I would tell the president: Close the damn borders, get our communities back, let Americans go to work,” Jones said. “We got 5,000 people dying yearly because of drugs from Mexico.”
In recent years, the Ohio attorney general’s office seized over 2,000 pounds of meth and over 1,000 pounds of fentanyl. Ohio AG Dave Yost’s office reported spikes in drugs seized in 2023, especially cocaine and psilocybin mushrooms.
The damage to Ohioans from Biden’s failure to secure the Southern Border keeps Jones up at night.
“The people who see me, whose loved ones were killed by illegals behind the wheel, intoxicated, or overdosed from border drugs… I lose sleep over that,” Jones told Fox News Digital.
For those who think the sheriff is politically incorrect, he explained it’s his job to tell it like it is and to unapologetically incarcerate criminals.
“Am I soft and cuddly? No,” said Jones. “I dislike criminals… Don’t come to this county because you’ll go to prison. That’s my job.”
