More than 30,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records were
released by federal officials last fiscal year — on top of the over
36,000 who were released the previous year, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement said Wednesday.
The agency, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security,
said it had released 30,558 criminal illegals in fiscal 2014. The
figure was down from the 36,007 criminals released in 2013.
The statistics were first reported by
The Washington Times.
The fiscal 2013 figures include more than 2,000 criminal illegals
who were released in February 2013 under planned sequestration cuts.
More than 600 were known criminals.
Sarah Saldaña, who took as head of ICE last August, said the latest
number "still concerns me," telling the Times that overcrowding
would no longer be the primary reason for releasing criminal
illegals.
All pending cases will now be approved by a top supervisor, she
said.
"I am determined to continue to take every possible measure to
ensure the public’s safety and the removal of dangerous criminals,"
Saldaña told the Times.
The illegals are required to have "supervised release" — monitoring
by federal authorities — but Saldaña said those efforts would be
toughened to try to prevent them from committing new crimes.
The agency said many of the illegals were released because of a
previous court order that prohibited authorities from holding them
indefinitely if their home countries would not take them back.
Republicans have sought to rewrite the law so that serious criminal
illegals could be held longer. They have also been unsuccessful in
getting the Obama administration to deny visas to leaders of
countries that refuse to take their citizens back, the Times
reports.
Law-enforcement officials have also long slammed the Obama's
administration's release of criminal illegals — regardless of the
reason — saying they endanger Americans and effectively tell
immigrants there are no consequences for their actions.
"The administration’s immigration lawlessness knows no bounds,"
Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, told
Newsmax of the new figures. The GOP senator has long battled the
White House on immigration reform.
No specifics on criminal offenses were included in ICE's breakdown
Wednesday, but the breakdown for the 36,007 released in fiscal 2013
includes: 193 convicted of homicide, 426 of sexual assault, 303 of
kidnapping, and 16,070 of driving under the influence of drugs or
alcohol.
The agency said most of the homicide convicts released were
court-ordered, the Times reports.
Jessica Vaughan, policy director of the Center for Immigration
Studies, said the problem rested with supervisors.
"It's the supervisors who are ordering the releases, and the intent
of the supervision is to make sure that officers in the field are
not detaining people, not the other way around," she told the Times.
"The problem is most definitely the policies, not the officers.
"Creating more levels of review and red tape is not going to solve
that problem," she said.
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