An Arizona sheriff is sounding the alarm about three violent criminal aliens released into the state, and charging the Obama administration with not doing enough to keep such offenders off the streets.
“You don’t have to be a sheriff to realize that this is going to end very badly for people. You don’t release murderers into the state of Arizona and somehow think that they are just going to go about their business and try to find a job,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said at a press conference highlighting the releases Tuesday, according Fox News.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement notified local law enforcement of the releases via its new Law Enforcement Notification System, in which ICE offers local officials a heads up that they are releasing such individuals into their area.
According to reports, Babeu argued Tuesday that a notification is not enough, such immigrant offenders should be deported.
The three offenders released into Arizona include: Dennis Valerievitch Tsoukano, an illegal immigrant from Russia who killed a police informant by burning him alive; Musa Salah Abdelaziz Abdalla, an illegal immigrant from Sudan with multiple assault arrests; and Nasser Hanna Hermez, a legal permanent resident from Iraq who killed his 7 week old daughter.
“Our system is broken,” Babeu said according to Fox. “Our laws don’t apply, it appears, to these individuals when it comes to immigration and our process. What the sheriffs have said unanimously in the state of Arizona, what I am calling for the president, the United States Congress, to do, is to fix this immediately.”
While the convicts ICE released appear to qualify as enforcement priorities under the administration’s guidelines, ICE said it did not have the legal authority to continue to detain them, as it could not verify the citizenship of the two illegal immigrants and Hermez is a lawful permanent resident.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under current law can no longer legally hold the three individuals,” ICE said in a statement according to Fox. “To further promote public safety and transparency, ICE notified local law enforcement agencies of the release of the individuals.”
“To be clear, the backgrounds of the individuals in question would generally make them enforcement priorities for ICE. However, ICE has no legal basis for continuing to hold these individuals. One individual is a lawful permanent resident whose current conviction record does not make him legally removable,” it added.
Last fiscal year ICE released 30,558 criminal immigrants convicted of 79,059 crimes.
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