At a House Judiciary Committee hearing today, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., disclosed new information showing the Obama Administration released from detention 1,423 criminal aliens in fiscal year 2014 who were later convicted of more crimes. These new crimes included assault, burglary, robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping, various types of homicide and manslaughter, and driving under the influence of alcohol.
The new data Chairman Goodlatte obtained from DHS show that in just fiscal year 2014 the Administration released 30,558 criminal aliens who were convicted of 79,059 crimes. Over 1,400 of these aliens went on to commit additional crimes. He had earlier reported that as of March 2, there were a total of 168,680 convicted criminal aliens with final orders of removal plus another 179,018 convicted criminal aliens in deportation cases who were out on our streets. But the new data show that the number of non-detained convicted criminals increased 28 percent since fiscal year 2012.
“Despite DHS’s pledge to prioritize the removal of serious criminal aliens, in the last year the number of administrative arrests of criminal aliens has fallen by a third and the department continues to release thousands of such aliens onto our streets. [This has resulted in] “all too tragic results,” Chairman Goodlatte said during the hearing according to a report in The Hill. He went on to say “The clear answer to this problem is for DHS to mandate compliance with detainers and for this administration to defend the mandatory nature of detainers in federal court.”
The Obama Administration has come under criticism for caving in to the demands of special interest groups that sought non-detention alternatives and an end to successful programs like the Section 287(g) federal/local partnership and the Secure Communities program. They were replaced with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which allows significant numbers of criminal aliens to remain in the United States.
Read more in The Hill.
