WASHINGTON — Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents recently revealed that tens of thousands of convicted criminal aliens were freed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year. Additionally, nearly one million individuals who authorities have ordered to be removed from the country remain in the U.S. unlawfully, many of them as fugitives and absconders.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today concerning the newly-released DHS documents:
The preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that immigration enforcement in America has collapsed. Even those with criminal convictions are being released. DHS is a department in crisis. Secretary Johnson must reject the President’s demands to weaken enforcement further and tell him that his duty, and his officers’ duty, is to enforce the law — not break it. As Homeland Secretary, Mr. Johnson is tasked with ensuring the public safety and the rule of law. But Secretary Johnson is not meeting these duties.
American citizens have a legal and moral right to the protections our immigration laws afford — at the border, the interior and the workplace. The Administration has stripped these protections and adopted a government policy that encourages new arrivals to enter illegally or overstay visas by advertising immunity from future enforcement. Comments from top Administration officials, such as Attorney General Holder’s claim that amnesty is a civil right, or Vice President Biden’s claim that those here illegally are all U.S. citizens (apparently including someone whose visa expired yesterday), demonstrate the Administration’s increasing belief in an open borders policy the American public has always rejected.
The Administration’s lawless policies have not only impaired public safety but increased economic suffering for millions of vulnerable Americans by depriving them of their jobs and wages.
Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats continue to empower this lawlessness. Republicans must work to end it.
DHS considers an individual to be a criminal alien only if they have a criminal conviction (excluding traffic offenses). So the actual number of illegal aliens released with a criminal record is undoubtedly even larger than the document reveals.
Individuals released by ICE include those with numerous arrests and multiple convictions. In some cities, nearly half of all criminal aliens encountered were released. In some, more than half were released.
Overall, there was nearly a 30 percent drop from 2012 in the number of charging documents issued. Of ICE’s entire caseload, less than 2 percent were in detention at the end of Fiscal Year 2013. Approximately 870,000 aliens ordered removed had not departed. Roughly 3 in 4 non-citizens encountered were released for one reason or another.
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