Democrats Work to Defund Police Program So Criminal Illegal Aliens Can Evade Deportation

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 26: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members (L-R) Re
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A group of House Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Presley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), are asking House appropriators to defund a police program in order to help criminal illegal aliens evade deportation from the United States.

The 31 House Democrats, led by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), have sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee requesting that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 287(g) program be defunded.

The 287(g) program allows local law enforcement agencies to sign agreements with ICE to seamlessly identify criminal illegal aliens and turn them over to federal agents for arrest and deportation.

The program is highly effective. In January, for example, local police in Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and South Carolina successfully helped turn criminal illegal aliens over to ICE agents.

Some of the criminal illegal aliens arrested by local police and subsequently turned over to ICE agents included those charged with drug trafficking, child rape, domestic violence, carrying a firearm without a license, aggravated assault, and felony embezzlement.

The group of House Democrats, though, write that the 287(g) program ought to be defunded, claiming it “degrades community trust in local law enforcement…”

“As you begin to craft the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill, we write to ask you to eliminate funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s 287(g) program,” the House Democrats wrote to House appropriators:

We are pleased that the 287(g) program did not receive any significant increases in funding from FY 2017 to FY 2020. However, with the lack of oversight, no clearly defined strategy for the 287(g) program, and a continued degradation in public trust of local law enforcement, it would be irresponsible for the federal government to continue funding this program. As such, we ask that all funding for the 287(g) program be zeroed out for FY 2022. [Emphasis added]

Read the full letter here:

Democrat Letter on 287(g) p… by John Binder

Defunding of 287(g) agreements would likely mean that law enforcement agencies in 26 states — including the Department of Corrections in Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Massachusetts — would be kicked off the program, making it increasingly difficult to cooperate with ICE, even when the most violent criminal illegal aliens are arrested.

The effort is only the latest by Democrats to eliminate ICE’s 287(g) program.

Last month, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), along with a handful of House Democrats, sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking him to end the program.

Already, Mayorkas is preventing law enforcement agencies from turning over most criminal illegal aliens to ICE agents after they are arrested on local charges. With a series of “sanctuary country” orders, ICE agents are only allowed to arrest and deport illegal aliens who are recently-convicted aggravated felons, terrorists, or known gang members.

As a result, this has likely allowed thousands of criminal illegal aliens to be released into American communities who would have otherwise been deported, one report states. Those illegal aliens include sex offenders.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.

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