Chris Odette — father of Chrishia Odette — spoke to a crowd at a Fund the Wall protest in front of the White House on Saturday morning in Washington, DC. He and other speakers called for the construction of a border wall to protect American citizens.
Partial transcript below:
September 12, 2014 … I let my 13-year-old daughter Chrishia spend the night at a friend’s house. The friend’s mom allowed her daughter and my daughter to walk to the grocery store to buy some soda pop. On the way, my daughter and her crossed the street at a non-crosswalk and dropped her cellphone. She ran back on the road to grab her cellphone. The side of the traffic that she was on was able to stop. They slammed on the brakes and stopped about 20 feet short of her. The opposite side of the road was a man driving a truck, a white 2004 Nissan Titan.
He’d been in the country for 15 years illegally. He had no license. The man who killed my daughter had two warrants. One was for driving without a license, and one was for speeding. [The warrants] were four years old. He hit my daughter and he killed her. When I got to the emergency room, they told me that they believed that she died instantly. But her death certificate said that she took minutes to die. She died from severe head and neck trauma. Part of her head was basically crushed in.
When they arrested him, he didn’t run. He didn’t flee. He just pulled over and he stopped. When they arrested him they took him to jail. They gave him a blood and urine test to test for drugs and alcohol. According to the county arrest records, he was booked in at 1:00 a.m. He was released at 1:36 a.m. for his bonds. Because he didn’t commit a violent felony, as they put it, they didn’t charge him with any crimes. They didn’t report him to [ICE].
I had to push the issue with my lawyers to get it to go to a grand jury to even consider charging him with anything beyond getting a ticket. But the grand jury, as I was told, said that because he had no drugs or alcohol in his system, there was no proof of negligence in his ability to operate the truck that he was driving, therefore he wouldn’t be charged with any felonies. The city said that unless you commit a violent felony, they wouldn’t even check someone’s citizenship status, even though they already knew he was in the country illegally. So they didn’t report him to immigration. That’s what a sanctuary city is.
It took two years of fighting, and I finally chose to settle out of court with my lawyer from the accident I had trying to get to my daughter before I was allowed to speak out. I started writing to politicians, trying to get someone to get involved and help me find some sort of justice for my little girl. Congressman Michael Burgess, from my district, was the only one that responded. I met with him at his office, and he opened a congressional inquiry, contacted DHS and wanted to know why they didn’t go after this man, and they told him … they were never notified of the incident.
So they arrested him in January of 2016 for his immigration status. I was contacted and told that he was considered a flight risk and said they had requested he not be given bail, and his warrant came from DHS headquarters here in D.C. So I spent all of 2017 and 2018 understanding that he was in jail, but I found out last year that wasn’t the case. Apparently someone decided — a federal judge in Dallas — that is wasn’t necessary to hold him even though he was stated as a flight risk. And they gave him bail when he was bonded out a month after he was arrested. He also got a letter at the beginning of September of [2018] telling him that he had 30 days to turn himself in [and] that he had lost his immigration battle.
At the end of that 30 days, they sent him a letter and said they had misspelled his name, so they added an additional 30 days to turn himself in. He didn’t turn himself in, so they went to arrest him at the end of October, and they found that he was gone. He ran with his illegal wife. So now he’s a fugitive somewhere in the U.S. ICE is actively looking for him, and as they explained to me, they’re overwhelmed with the amount of illegals they have to find. They’re undermanned. So essentially, he has to commit a crime again in an unsympathetic city to be captured just to be deported. Doesn’t count for the fact that he’s never been charged with killing my daughter.
My daughter would have turned 18 on the 12th of February. She never got to graduate high school. She was extremely gifted. She had just started high school when she was 13. She didn’t even get to go to college like she wanted. I didn’t get to help her finish learning how to drive. I’m never going to see my grandchildren. I’m never going to get to enjoy watching her get married. The permanent separation that I have to endure, the lack of justice for my daughter’s death, I cannot comprehend how anyone can say it’s unfair to separate a person who negligently brings their child across the border into the U.S. illegally — through deserts, harming their family members — and then complains about being separated by due process. I am living proof of what permanent separation is, not some illegal who brings their kids irresponsibly here.
The argument about building a wall; I spent 12 years in the military, and my first job was combat engineer. A combat engineer’s job is mobility and countermobility; placing mines, and clearing minefields. [It] forces the enemy to go in the direction you want them to go or waste time trying to clear an area so you can actually capture them. A wall is no different. If you build a wall, then the person trying to cross it has to waste time trying to get over that wall, or go under that wall, or go around that wall, and that gives us more time to put resources in the area to capture him.
If they choose to go around the wall, it funnels them in to an area where we can actually capture them effectively. I find it really weird that the government can tell our president that he can’t have the money he asked for to build a wall, yet they’re willing to give money to other countries to better their development.
People want to come here and claim asylum. I don’t understand why they can’t use asylum claims in the embassies in their own countries. It makes no sense that the illegals have more privacy and protection in our country than we do as citizens. I’m not allowed to know the federal ID number that an illegal alien killing my daughter is issued because he has privacy. You can’t do anything other than know their name and know the status of where they are being processed in immigration, but I can’t know that.
It makes no sense to me that we have politicians that have spent their careers — 20, 30, 40 years — solely protecting illegals when we have American citizens being killed by illegals, and there’s no protection for that.
The argument about there being less crime by illegal aliens is false on its head because the crimes aren’t being reported. If [the crimes] are reported then they actually have to report them to immigration. If you commit a felony, you have to go into a database. In that database, they get flagged. They’re here illegally. So you think what is put out in the news, what President Trump talked about earlier this month about 4,000 people — U.S. citizens — being killed by illegal aliens; they’re sitting in federal jail. That’s 4,000 people that they knew of being charged with a crime. That doesn’t count all the American citizens like my daughter that was killed by an illegal alien and never charged. So that number is much bigger. The crime rate by illegals in this country is much bigger.
When you come to this country, you have to patriate. You have to learn the language. You have to learn the laws, understand the Constitution and American history so you have more invested in being here and following the laws. When you come here illegally, you have no reason to know any of that stuff. You don’t follow it. You don’t learn the language. You don’t become a part of the society. As a result, you don’t care about the laws. You come here illegally, you’ve already committed one crime coming here illegally. To get around, you either have to drive a vehicle or you have to get somebody to carry you around. Driving around, you’re committing another crime. And then you take the chance on killing somebody driving that vehicle that you’re not licensed for.
Laws need to be enforced. Immigration law states that if you’re caught here in the U.S. illegally, the first offense is to be a fine or possible deportation. Multiple offences, you get immediately deported. But it also states that if you’re here illegally and you kill or severely injure a U.S. citizen, you’re supposed to be held in jail for an undetermined amount of time. You’re also supposed to have your property taken from you. The guy that killed my daughter had the vehicle he drove — that he killed my daughter with — not even a month after my daughter’s death. He already had it in his possession. They knew he wasn’t legally allowed to have the vehicle. He had no license for it. They told me that the night of the accident, he told the police that he was borrowing the vehicle going to a soccer game. Two months later they tell me that they basically know he owned the truck, but because he didn’t have a license, he couldn’t put it in his name. But nobody charges the guy that basically sold him the vehicle a year before. They didn’t charge him for aiding him. And he still ended up with the vehicle again, committing the same damn crime, all over again driving without a license.
I had a surgery after my daughter’s funeral. While I was lying in bed trying to recover from that surgery, my sister took the accident report and drove over to the house — the address showing where he was living — what she found, she took a picture of that truck, and that picture happened to show a bump — a dent on the bumper — that dent matched the bruise that was on my daughter’s body as she was being taken in for her cremation. He was working on that truck to drive it again after killing my daughter.
The prosecutors knew. I told them that he was driving that vehicle again, and they told me they had to catch him in the act. He’s committed a crime. They won’t charge him with a felony. They don’t report him to [ICE]. Nobody knew anything about it. That is a sanctuary city.
In my job, I travel all over the U.S., and it blows my mind how I keep hearing from people saying, “Oh, I’ve never heard of a sanctuary city.” How do you not know what a sanctuary city is? How do you not hear [about them]? And the crazy part is, you find that a lot in Oregon, Washington, [and] California. I don’t understand how you can’t know what that is. Laws have to be enforced, and if the laws can’t be enforced, then there needs to be laws written to enforce them.
This wall needs to be built. Government has ways of funding stuff. Speaker Pelosi says walls are immoral, and then votes for a bill to give the president $1.3 billion. So, either she’s confused or she’s a liar. She lives in a house that has walls around it, but walls are immoral in her opinion. I asked Breitbart News when I tried catching her, and I sent her Twitter messages asking her to talk to me. I want to know if walls are immoral and if she’s willing to tear down her own walls around her house. I want to know if she wants to put in laws and legislation to tear down the walls that are currently existing. It doesn’t make any sense. How are they immoral? Her family’s protected. She’s not trying to keep anybody out any different than she’s trying to protect her own family. She voted years and years and years for adding more and more money to build walls, but as soon the president [is elected] — this president, the only president that’s had the fortitude to take this head-on — [walls are] suddenly immoral.
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When he got elected, and he had his inaugural speech, I cried again because he’s the first president that I’ve heard in my lifetime speak as openly about his faith in God for this country. I can’t remember ever hearing any other president talk about it. The previous president, within the first year of his office, chose to stop having fighter jet aircraft fly over a parade because he was concerned about how it would look. The National Prayer Breakfast, his concern about the way it would look if he was there for Christians. He didn’t want to seem like he was taking sides in faith. This president has taken a stand on faith. He’s taken a stand on life. He’s taken a stand on borders. He’s taken a stand on fixing our financial system. This is the only president that I’ve seen in my lifetime who’s actually done everything he said he has. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a president that has taken more heat and more negative press than this president, and he does everything he says he’s going to do, while you’ve got these poor politicians complaining about him doing what he says he’s going to do.
This country needs a whole lot of prayer. God truly; this country was made because of God. This president needs prayer because he has so many corrupt and bad people that are doing everything to tear him down.
A point about Kamala Harris and about Cory Booker, these people will say anything that they can because it’s politically efficient to get what they want. But they don’t really care about the people. They don’t care about the citizens. If you listen to Cory Booker, you’d swear he’s actually running for some sort of movie. He’s trying to get into a movie so he can give these amazing speeches, but it’s just flapping his teeth, air passing his mouth. It doesn’t mean anything. Kamala Harris, she’s another charlatan. Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t even have the fortitude to look Angel Families in the face and talk to us. But she doesn’t mind welcoming illegals.
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If you’re here on a visa overstay, get the hell out. Go to jail and get the hell out. If you’re coming here illegally, you’re telling every legal person that’s come here and migrated here legally, you’re telling them that what they did didn’t matter. Why are you going to spend thousands of dollars paying some Coyote or paying a drug cartel when you could have simply used that money and followed the normal process? Anyone who comes here illegally, they don’t really care about this country. They’re telling you they’re coming here for a better way of life. They’re lying. They’re not coming here for a better way of life. They’re coming here for an easier way of life.
We shouldn’t have people living on the street homeless. We shouldn’t have people suffering and going without food while we have illegal aliens being given all the social benefits by our taxpayer dollars. I don’t understand why the government can take money out of my check each week, [and] I can’t say where that money gets spent. It makes no sense. It’s not fair. The only way you’re going to get rid of these politicians that don’t do anything is vote them out. Educate yourself. Don’t vote party line, but educate yourself and find out what the politicians are doing.
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We need justice for all Angel Families.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
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