From Robin Hood to Al Capone to former North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, it didn’t matter how much good they each did for the community, they were still considered guilty of crimes along the way and treated as criminals by the legal system of the day.

So why, for goodness sake, are illegal immigrants in the United States being given a break by far-left liberals and groups who claim they bring something positive to the country?

Should our court system consider what charity a drug dealer donates to when deciding on his or her penalty? Should a judge work into the equation the scholarships made available by a convicted murderer before announcing consequences? Should a prosecutor lessen a charge for an armed robber because the individual regularly volunteered at the soup kitchen? Should a sexual predator be excused for his crimes because he neutered his pit bulls?

Of course not.

But illegal immigrants — and almost nowhere are they ever regarded or referred to as anything but illegal — seem to fall outside the realm of logical thinking.

According to The Fayetteville Observer recently, it is estimated by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national nonprofit organization, that illegal immigration into the United States costs taxpayers about $2 billion per year. That comes out to roughly $580 per legal American household. In today’s prices, that’s about 257 gallons of gasoline or 162 Big Macs or more than 170,000 gallons of water usage in Bladen County.

Breaking the $2 billion price tag down further, the FAIR claims illegal immigration costs American taxpayers $1.3 billion on education for grades K-12; about $232 million for health care; $216 million for law enforcement and courts; $212 million for general government services; and $79 million for social services.

In North Carolina the numbers outdistance the national average. Nationwide, illegal immigrants represent 3.9 percent of the population, while in North Carolina that number is 4.3 percent — ranking the Tar Heel State No. 11 on the most-impacted list.

Despite those numbers, there are challenges to the affect illegal immigrants are having — such as the one from The Latin American Coalition, which claims the numbers should include the perceived benefits these illegals bring to country.

Those kinds of claims are nothing short of hooey, aimed at clouding an issue that has been allowed to get too far out of control for far too long.

The definition of illegal is “contrary to or forbidden by law.” That means an illegal immigrant is a criminal — and whether they are a modern-day Robin Hood, as dastardly as Al Capone or somewhere in between, their community “good” doesn’t change that fact.