“When Will This End?” Another Teen Dead — and the Questions We Still Don’t Ask

A concerned look at a Queens murder, a Dallas beheading, and the gaps that let predators slip through

When I heard the news that yet another young teen’s life was shattered—this time, allegedly by an illegal immigrant—I felt a surge of frustration and grief. This has to stop. It isn’t just us; versions of this same story are playing out around the world, wherever systems fail to know who is entering, re-entering, or slipping through after serious offenses. Our broken process didn’t just buckle—it broke in ways that now threaten our children, our neighborhoods, and the trust that law-abiding families (including immigrant families) deserve. We need honesty about what went wrong and the resolve to fix it, so tragedies like this don’t continue as the new normal.