Nearly a third of the convicted criminal aliens who the government failed to deport and instead released in New England went on to commit addition crimes— including rape, attempted murder, and child molestation — according to a Boston Globe investigation.
From 2008-2012 the Globe’s analysis of immigration data found that of 323 criminal aliens who were released in the New England area, 30 percent went on to commit more crimes following their release.
The Globe reached its results after suing the federal government for the names of criminal aliens released into neighborhoods in the U.S., data that government has argued is private. In 2013 a judge order the names be unsealed and provided to the Globe. The paper’s analysis and searchable database of the names, is the first time the list of names has been made public.
As the Globe notes, the 30 percent recidivist rate it uncovered in New England alone is higher than the rate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement, has touted in the past.
“To Congress, ICE officials suggested that reoffenders were rare, less than 10 percent,” the Globe report reads. “But the reoffender rate among the immigrants on the Globe’s list is clearly much higher, at 30 percent.”
The Globe’s analysis of the previously sealed data comes amid recent outrage over the murder of 25-year-old Casey Chadwick in Norwich, Connecticut by Jean Jacques, a Haitian national who was released from prison for attempted murder but never deported because his native Haiti refused to take him back.
“There’s a serious question of who ICE represents. Who do they work for?” Chester Fairlie, a lawyer Chadwick’s mother, said according to the Globe. “Public safety should trump any claim of privilege or confidentiality. It doesn’t come from statute. It doesn’t come from law. It comes from ICE deciding that that’s how it’s going to do things.”
ICE has repeatedly pointed to a 2001 Supreme Court case which prevents law enforcement from indefinitely detaining aliens if they are unlikely to be deported after six months. In cases in which the aliens’ home countries refuse to accept them back, these criminal aliens are often simply released back into the U.S.
And while ICE released thousands of names to the Globe, the sample it provided was limited to those criminal aliens released pursuant to the 2001 Supreme Court case, tens of thousands more have been released for other reasons.
“ICE has also released tens of thousands of criminals in the United States — and in far greater numbers than they have disclosed to the Globe. ICE told the news organization that the agency freed 12,941 criminals nationwide from 2008 to early 2014,” the Globe report reads.
These numbers stand in stark contrast to the total numbers ICE has provided to Congress. For example in fiscal year 2013 it released more than 36,000 criminal aliens and more than 86,200 from FY 2013 through FY 2015.
“ICE officials said in an e-mail that the agency only provided the Globe the names of criminals they were forced to release under the Supreme Court decision; the additional releases were for other reasons,” the Globe reports. “They did not elaborate, but ICE has told Congress it has also released criminals because of budget constraints, humanitarian reasons, or when an immigration judge ordered a release.”
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