ARRESTS IN FLORIDA: 24 ILLEGALS WITH CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS…..MICHAEL CUTLER RESPONDS
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1102/110225miami.htm
ICE operation in South Florida targeting at-large convicted criminal aliens nets 24 arrests
MIAMI – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers arrested 24 foreign nationals during a six-day enforcement action in South Florida targeting convicted criminal aliens identified in violation of U.S. immigration law.
The enforcement operation, which began Feb. 15 and ended on Thursday, Feb. 24, targeted at-large criminal aliens with convictions for drug trafficking, violent crimes and sex offenses.
Nineteen of the individuals had criminal records, including murder and drug trafficking, four were ICE fugitives with final orders of deportation and one had been previously deported……
Hi Gang:
I have provided you with a press release that was issued by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) yesterday, Thursday, February 24, 2011.
You could say that this press release could be called, good news / bad news.
The good news is obvious, special agents of ICE apprehended criminal aliens in what I used to refer to when I was a part of arrests of criminal aliens who posed a threat to the safety and well being of the communities in which they lived and, undoubtedly plied their criminal trades, the “Neighborhood Improvement Program!”
Every time a bad guy is taken off the streets he (she) is no longer able to victimize innocent people.
Now for the bad news, there are literally many more from where these 24 came from! Criminal aliens come from just about every country on our planet and our country is teeming with hundreds of thousands of aliens who are members of criminal gangs or who have convictions for a wide variety of crimes.
There are only a relative handful of special agents of ICE who are charged with seeking out these pernicious criminals and they are owed our gratitude for their long hours and dangerous work.
Here is a question that the news release did not address, however, and I am willing to bet you would like to know the answer to this question as much as I would, “Why are those criminal aliens out on the street?” After all, the press release noted that the 24 criminal aliens who were arrested were “at large.”
They all have criminal convictions- it would therefore seem reasonable to assume that at some point they were incarcerated after they were convicted. Why were they not simply taken into custody when they completed serving their jail sentences upon being convicted? Only one of those arrested was identified as having been previously deported from the United States, an individual who was identified as:
- A 44-year-old citizen and national of Honduras, residing in Miami, Fla. His prior criminal convictions in Miami-Dade County from 1990 to 2011 include simple assault, resisting officer without violence, cocaine possession, fleeing/eluding police officer, disorderly intoxication, carrying a concealed weapon, battery, drinking in public, trespassing, obstructing a police officer and cannabis possession. He illegally re-entered the United States after being deported in 1991.
None of the others were identified as having been deported and then subsequently reentered the United States without permission. Even the alien who had been previously deported was deported in 1991 as noted in the excerpt I attached above. Most of the crimes listed in his “resume” were apparently committed after he unlawfully reentered the United States.
These aliens, at least in theory, never should have been released into the streets of the cities where they were arrested. If the Institutional Hearing Program worked as it is supposed to, these criminal aliens who posed a potential threat to the safety of the communities in which they lived, should have gone directly from the jail where they served out their sentences to ICE custody where they should have had their deportation (removal) hearings and then expelled from the United States.
Clearly the system has serious flaws that enabled these criminal aliens to find themselves back out on the street where limited resources of ICE had to be marshaled in order to identify and locate these removable aliens. What if anything is being done to identify these “cracks” in the system?
Did the local or state law enforcement agencies fail to notify ICE? Did ICE fail to respond? Does anyone in our government know? Does anyone other than the victims or potential victims of these criminals even care?
Another question that needs to be asked is, “Were any people injured by these criminal aliens who were let out of prison and onto the streets?”
The folks who oppose the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws and oppose the 287(g) program often accuse those of us who demand that our borders are made secure and that our immigration laws are enforced as being “Anti-Immigrant.”
I am tired of that false accusation which, incidentally, I consider “hate speech!”
In my 30 years of experience with the former INS, the most likely victims of crimes perpetrated by criminal aliens are the members of the immigrant community where these individuals most often live and commit crimes!
The immigration laws are not “Anti-Immigrant!”
In fact, it is through the administration of those immigration laws that aliens are accorded lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship. These are the laws I was proud to enforce and administer during my career at the INS.
A final point you may want to give some thought to.
When citizens of the United States are arrested for various crimes, reporters often position their cameras at strategic locations to photograph and film those arrested doing what is known in New York as the “Perp Walk.”
I want you to remember that under our system of justice, defendants retain the presumption of innocence up until the moment that they are found guilty at trial or plead guilty to charges that are lodged against them. The citizens whose photos are splashed across the newspapers of the towns in which they live are still innocent even as they are brought into court for arraignment. These citizens are often the “stars” of the broadcast television news programs and may, ultimately, be found not guilty of the crimes for which they were accused. Yet there they are on the evening news!
Last night a teacher who had taught in my kids’ high school was on television attempting to defend her reputation. She and another teacher had been accused of having a sexual encounter in an empty classroom. She denied the charges but has been fired along with the other young woman. The teacher who was on the evening news yesterday talked about the impact that the allegations had on her personal life, she is a married woman with a young child. She and the other teacher are appealing the allegations. However, from day one, her name and photos were splashed across the newspapers and television screens.
I frankly have no idea what really happened but the point is that even though no criminal charges were ever brought against her or the other teacher, they quickly found that they had no expectation of privacy.
Citizens and resident aliens are protected by the Privacy Act, yet they certainly get not privacy when they are arrested and dragged into court with the camera shutters clicking away sounding like a flock of crazed crickets!
However, when illegal aliens who are convicted of felonies are arrested by ICE, there is an absolute reluctance to even provide the names of these law violators!
The Privacy Act does not offer illegal aliens protection- so what is going on?
That was just another question I would love to have an answer to!
Comments are closed.
