Records Show Obama Lied to Congress About Released Illegal Immigrants By Rick Moran
http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/records_show_obama_lied_to_congress_about_released_illegal_immigrants.html
Records obtained by USA Today contradict White House claims that the 2200 illegal alien immigrants released from custody last year in order to “save money” all had been charged with “minor offenses.
Instead, the paper discovered that several of the released illegals committed far more serious crimes, including drug trafficking, murder, and sexual assault:
The release sparked a furor in Congress. Republican lawmakers accused the Obama administration of setting dangerous criminals free. In response, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it had released “low-risk offenders who do not have serious criminal records,” a claim the administration repeated to the public and to members of Congress.
The new records, including spreadsheets and hundreds of pages of e-mails, offer the most detailed information yet about the people ICE freed as it prepared for steep, across-the-government spending cuts in February 2013. They show that although two-thirds of the people who were freed had no criminal records, several had been arrested or convicted on charges more severe than the administration had disclosed.
ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen acknowledged the discrepancy. She said “discretionary releases made by ICE were of low-level offenders. However, the releases involving individuals with more significant criminal histories were, by and large, dictated by special circumstances outside of the agency’s control.”
Lawmakers expressed concern. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it is “deeply troubling that ICE would knowingly release thousands of undocumented immigrant detainees – many with prior criminal records – into our streets, while publicly downplaying the danger they posed.”
Immigration authorities detain an average of about 34,000 people a day. Although the agency regularly releases immigrants who have been charged with serious crimes, it typically does so because their legal status has changed or because they cannot be deported — not as a way to save money. That distinction, combined with the fact that last year’s release happened abruptly and with no advance notice, fed the partisan firestorm that followed.
ICE pays an average of $122 a day for each immigrant it keeps in detention.
The detainees were awaiting deportation or hearings in immigration court. The release did not stop those proceedings; instead, most were released with electronic monitors or other forms of supervision.
In hearings last year, Republican lawmakers pressed then-ICE Director John Morton for specifics on the criminal records of the people the agency had freed. At one, Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-Va., asked Morton directly, “No one on that list has been charged or convicted with murder, rape or sexual abuse of a minor, were they?”
Morton answered, “They were not.”
You might recall that initially, the administration claimed they only released a few hundred inmates. That was lie number one as they finally admitted that they released a couple of thousand.
And I would love to hear the explanation for what is meant by “the releases involving individuals with more significant criminal histories were, by and large, dictated by special circumstances outside of the agency’s control.” What “special circumstances”? Why is it “beyond the agency’s control”? Who was in control? Whose decision was it?
Meanwhile, the administration and their open borders allies in Congress and business continue to endanger the American people with policies that are dangerous to citizens, and lies that are fully understandable if the goal is to hide the truth from the public.
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