Last night, Congressmen Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) and Bob Beauprez (R-CO-7) introduced a bill that would prohibit directing federal tax dollars as foreign aid to countries that fail to extradite criminals suspected of killing police officers.

The bill’s language will also be offered as an amendment when the larger foreign operations appropriations bill is considered by the entire U.S. House next week.

The McHenry-Beauprez legislation was written after several cases where police officers were allegedly murdered by illegal aliens who then fled abroad, and will not face extradition due to foreign laws that prohibit extradition when capital crimes are involved. One case involves the murder of Denver police detective Donald Young, whose alleged assailant Raul Gomez-Garcia, is being held in a Mexican jail. Another case involves a convicted felon, now in Mexico, who had been deported three times before allegedly killing Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David March three years ago.

“Murdering law enforcement officials is one of the most serious crimes in our justice system,” said Congressman McHenry, “and countries that won’t extradite cop-killers are not friends of the United States. Illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes in this country have to be brought to justice swiftly, and it is a mind-numbing absurdity that it can take up to three years to extradite this type of criminal. A country’s failure to extradite over capital crimes actually creates the perverse incentive to commit capital crimes, and this is what we’re trying to prevent with this legislation.”

The bill would prohibit foreign aid to any country that fails to extradite suspects accused of killing federal, state and local law enforcement officers – including police officers, judges, parole officers, or any officer in the criminal justice system.