On Thursday’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” on the Fox News Channel, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) blasted the Department of Homeland Security for releasing illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, stating, “you name the violent crime, they have released them back out in the public,” that DHS wants to house fewer criminal illegal immigrants than they have the capacity for, tried to “reprogram” money that is allocated for deportations, and even wanted to give that money back rather than deport people.
Chaffetz said that the illegal immigrants released have committed “everything from homicide, to DUIs, to assault, to sexual battery, to — I mean, you name the violent crime, they have released them back out in the public, rather than either detaining them, or even better yet, deporting them.”
He added that DHS “tried to reprogram over $100 million that Congress had allocated for these deportations, they wanted to do give that money back, rather than do it. There is a minimum of 34,000 beds for these types of people. Yet, the department only wants to house about 30,000. And what they’ve done is they’ve released them out into the streets, and more than 200 of those people, that were in our detention, that had committed a crime, were released back out in the public, and committed homicide.”
Chaffetz further stated, “One of the excuses is, well those countries won’t take them back. Don’t give them any more foreign aid, and do what the law says, and that is, make sure the secretary of state does not give those countries any more visas, so more people can come to this country, get their attention.”
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