Criminal aliens the government released, rather than deported, went on to be charged with 124 homicides within a five year timeframe, according to a new analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
ICE data obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee and analyzed by Center for Immigration Studies expert Jessica Vaughan reveal criminal aliens released from custody following convictions of hundreds of crimes went on to be charged with more crimes from 2010-2015.
“The criminal aliens released by ICE in these years — who had already been convicted of thousands of crimes — are responsible for a significant crime spree in American communities, including 124 new homicides. Inexplicably, ICE is choosing to release some criminal aliens multiple times,” Vaughan, CIS’s director of policy studies, wrote in her analysis, noted that prior to their release the criminal aliens had at least 464 criminal convictions.
Vaughan’s analysis further revealed that since 2013, at lease 156 criminal aliens were released twice by ICE. Prior to their first release, the aliens had been convicted of at least 1,776 crimes.
“Of the 156 recidivists that ICE released at least twice, fewer than half (67) were released because their home country would not take them back, 16 were released on bond by an immigration judge, and 73 were released by ICE’s choice,” Vaughan wrote. “ICE says it tried to contest only one of the releases ordered by an immigration judge — meaning that ICE essentially consented to more than half of these releases.”
Vaughan’s analysis also showed that of the 30,558 criminal aliens released in 2014 — convicted of 92,347 crimes —1,607 went on to be convicted of 2,560 additional crimes after their release.
“These 2,560 new crimes by aliens ICE released instead of deported in 2014 include: 298 dangerous drug offenses, 185 assaults, 40 weapons offenses, 28 sex offenses, 10 sex assaults, four kidnappings, two arsons, and one homicide. There were 1,044 traffic offenses included in the list.”
In addition to the recidivism data, Vaughan revealed that few criminal aliens released by ICE have been deported. Just three percent, Vaughan highlighted, of the 30,558 criminal aliens ICE released in 2014 have been deported.
“Only a tiny percentage of the released criminals have been removed — most receive the most generous forms of due process available, and are allowed to remain at large, without supervision, while they await drawn-out immigration hearings,” she wrote. “They are permitted to take advantage of this inefficient processing even though they are more likely to re-offend than they are to be granted legal status.”