WILL GONZALEZ CASE QUALIFY AS DOMESTIC TERRORISM?

By Juan Montoya

For nearly seven hours, Marco Antonio Gonzalez – a former corrections guard at Rucker-Carrizales Detention Center – shot it out with local law enforcement officers as he held a woman hostage and the corpse of a fellow corrections officer he had shot and killed was on the floor.

During that time, authorities locked down a nearby elementary school and evacuated the children to prevent them from getting hit in the shootout. Gonzalez – armed with a high-powered rifle – had three 40-bullet magazines and shot at officers, striking several police vehicles. The brother of the woman he held hostage tried to stop the gunman, only to become a target himself, and barely escaped with his life when Gonzalez's shots missed him

As time went by, Gonzalez eventually gave up, faking a suicide attempt.

Now, the parents of the dead corrections guard, Ivan Reyes, hope that Texas Senator Ted Cruz will broaden the definition of terrorism and pass legislation that would make Gonzalez, a naturalized citizen from Mexico, come within its scope as a case of domestic terrorism and make him subject to deportation.

Cruz has periodically renewed his call for Congress to pass legislation that would revoke the citizenship of any American who tries to join the Islamic State or other terrorist groups. But now, the Reyes hope he will include individuals like Gonzalez within its scope.

Cruz thinks the federal government also needs to worry about U.S. citizens who may try the same thing that Islamic State is attempting in the Middle East.

"If an American citizen travels abroad and joins a terrorist group waging jihad on America, attempting to murder innocent Americans, this legislation would strip that individual of their U.S. citizenship, so that we would not have terrorists returning to America using U.S. passports," Cruz has said in the past.

Currently, the only way that the federal government strips a naturalized citizen of their right to be in this country is if the person lied during the application process. Selling naturalization papers is the other.

"This legislation is a common sense step to recognize that people can (wage) war against America in more ways than one," he said. "You don't need to be a member of a nation-state military to be a terrorist at war with America."

To the Reyes, including acts like the ones perpetrated by Gonzalez should be considered acts of domestic terrorism.

"This man continues to be a danger to the community and should not be released," they wrote Morgan Graham, local chair of the Cameron County Republican Party. " Ideally, there should be a way to allow the state or federal government to deport him from this country. As we said before, he took an oath to obey the laws of this country and has not held up his promise. He also took an oath as a corrections officer to uphold the U.S. Constitution, an oath he clearly violated when he took the life of a fellow corrections officer.

"We hope that through your efforts we can do something to prevent people like our son’s killer from being able to continue to terrorize our community and hurt innocent people. Toward that end, we stand ready to assist you in any way we can."

Graham said she had forwarded the Reyes request to Cruz's chief of staff to see whether the definition of terrorism could be broadened to include criminals like Gonzalez.

"If history serves as a trend mark, they'll leave enough room to cover those instances where "lone agents" is broad and vague enough to allow for relief in cases like this," she said. "I hope the scope of it can bring some relief and remedy if passed."