RUTHFULLY YOURS

On June 4, 2016 The Boston Globe published a report, “Criminal immigrants reoffend at higher rates than ICE has suggested” that focused on information the newspaper was finally able to obtain by filing a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act that sought to obtain the database of criminal aliens who were released by ICE.  The roughly five year odyssey finally yielded the information the administration attempted to conceal from the public- including, incredibly- even law enforcement agencies.

The article included the links to the Timeline of the Globe’s lawsuit – It’s nearly a five-year saga.

This eye-opening report began with this excerpt:

They were among the nation’s top priorities for deportation, criminals who were supposed to be sent back to their home countries. But instead they were released, one by one, in secret across the United States. Federal officials said that many of the criminals posed little threat to the public, but did little to verify whether that was true.

It wasn’t.

A Globe review of 323 criminals released in New England from 2008 to 2012 found that as many as 30 percent committed new offenses, including rape, attempted murder, and child molestation — a rate that is markedly higher than Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have suggested to Congress in the past.

The names of these criminals have never before been made public and are coming to light now only because the Globe sued the federal government for the list of criminals immigration authorities returned to neighborhoods across the country. A judge ordered the names released in 2013, and the Globe then undertook the work that the federal government didn’t, scouring court records to find out how many released criminals reoffended.

The Globe has also published, in conjunction with this story, a searchable database of the thousands of names that were disclosed to the news organization, so that crime victims, law enforcement officials, and managers of sex offender registries — who are often unaware of these releases — can find out if the criminals may still be in the United States.

The newspaper report then discussed a hearing conducted on April 28, 2016 by the House Committee on Investigations and Oversight on the topic, “Criminal Aliens Released by the Department of Homeland Security.”

The Boston Globe article noted:

Some members of Congress appear to be losing patience with ICE’s argument that it is powerless to stop these releases. Critics say ICE could seek civil commitment for mentally ill immigrants who commit crimes, arrest reoffenders, and ask the Department of State to use diplomatic means to punish nations such as Haiti, China, and Jamaica when they refuse to take back their own citizens.

At the House oversight hearing on April 28, committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, said ICE’s decisions to release criminals who can’t be deported are leading to thousands of preventable crimes, according to ICE’s own statistics. The recent reoffenses include more than 130 murders or attempted murders since 2010, according to a letter ICE provided in February to Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

“What’s going on with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of the most infuriating things I think I’ve seen in this government yet,” Chaffetz said. To Saldaña, he added, after referring to crime victims in these cases, “How do you look those people in the eye?”

The Globe’s review was limited to the 323 immigrants released in New England between 2008 and 2012.

This hearing paralleled the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security conducted on April 19, 2016 on the topic:  “The Real Victims of a Reckless and Lawless Immigration Policy: Families and Survivors Speak Out on the Real Cost of This Administration’s Policies” that provided the predication for my article, “President Obama: Accessory to the Crimes Committed By Illegal Aliens?”

ICE reported to The Globe that from 2008 to early 2014 ICE had released 12,941 criminals nationally, while during the April 28^th Congressional hearing stated that they had released 36,007 criminal in just one year- fiscal 2013 and that from 2013 to fiscal 2015 ICE had released 86,288 such criminals.

The Globe report noted that ICE had sent them an e-mail to explain the discrepancy, claiming that they only released to them the names of aliens they were forced to release under a Supreme Court decision that purportedly prevents ICE from holding aliens who cannot be deported, for more than six months.

ICE gave Congress a much larger number because of aliens who had been released because of budget issues, humanitarian reasons or when an immigration judge ordered a release.

The Globe article also noted:

ICE has also suggested in court records that “many” of the criminals they released were traffic violators or other nonviolent offenders. But the news organization’s analysis shows that nationwide, immigration officials freed more convicted killers (201) than traffic violators (116) from 2008 to 2012.

Here is what was not reported on in the Globe news article.

The Washington Times reported on Sarah Saldana’s testimony before a recent Senate oversight hearing on operations at ICE.  The title of the Washington Times article “ICE gives away $113 million, says not enough illegal immigrants to deport” was beyond astonishing.  So much for ICE suffering from a lack of funding to carry out one of its most important and primary missions.

As for the Supreme Court ruling cited in the article, although the Supreme Court decision referenced by ICE did, indeed, rule that aliens could not be detained indefinitely under the provisions of a case known as Zadvydas v. Davis 533 U.S. 678 (2001), subsequently regulations were promulgated that provided for the indefinite detention of aliens who cannot be removed from the United States and who pose a clear threat to public safety and/or national security under specific special conditions referred to as “dangerousness” that are, as follows:

§ 1241.14 Continued detention of removable aliens on account of special circumstances. 

(2) Factors for consideration. In making any determination in a merits hearing under this section, the immigration judge shall consider the following non-exclusive list of factors:

(i) The alien’s prior criminal history, particularly the nature and seriousness of any prior crimes involving violence or threats of violence;

(ii) The alien’s previous history of recidivism, if any, upon release from either Service or criminal custody;

(iii) The substantiality of the Service’s evidence regarding the alien’s current mental condition or personality disorder;

(iv) The likelihood that the alien will engage in acts of violence in the future; and

(v) The nature and seriousness of the danger to the public posed by the alien’s release.

Here are a couple of obvious questions:

How many times has the administration attempted to invoke this protection for the public when dangerous violent aliens are released because they cannot be deported?

How many times have appeals been filed by government attorneys when Immigration Judges ordered the release of criminal aliens?

The administration and the “open borders anarchists” vitriolically accuse those, who want our borders secured and our immigration laws enforced fairly and effectively, of being “anti-immigrant bigots,” “racists” and “nativists.”

In reality, as the news report highlighted, many of the victims of criminal aliens, including those who have been released by the administration were, themselves immigrants and not just from Latin America but from far-flung countries around the world.

Yet, incredibly, Hillary Clinton while out on the campaign trail, has complained bitterly that the Obama administration has been far too aggressive in enforcing our immigration laws.  Consider this CBS article, “Hillary Clinton faults Obama for aggressive immigration enforcement.”

The constant drum-beat of accusations by the open-borders advocates is almost invariably accompanied by calls to be “compassionate.”  How compassionate is the administration being when it releases predatory violent thugs into immigrant communities who then prey on members of their own ethnic immigrant communities- sometimes even attacking their own family members?

For many years criminologists have attempted to devise strategies to prevent criminals who upon release, commit additional crimes, addressing the serious problem of recidivism.  Prisons are optimistically often given the title, “Correctional Facilities.”  All too often these facilities fail abysmally in their efforts to “correct” the sociopathic behavior of those who are incarcerated and then released.  Deportation of criminal aliens solves the problem of recidivism.

Even in familial relationships, those determined to be at risk are given “orders of protection” ordering their violent family member to essentially, “keep their distance,” mandating that if they get within a designated distance from them, their homes or offices they will face arrest and prosecution.  This is how our courts demonstrate compassion for families fearful of violent relatives and others who pose a threat to their safety.

Deporting (removing) criminal aliens from the United States certainly forces such criminal aliens to “keep their distance” from their would-be victims, Americans and immigrants alike who want simply to live their lives in peace and safety in the United States.

Orders of removal are not unlike orders of protection.  It is a simple but easily understood analogy; the idea that if we can separate families from relatives who pose a threat to their safety and well-being through orders of protection, we must see in the removal (deportation) of criminal aliens a parallel effort designed to safeguard innocent lives.