DHS invites in, then releases criminal aliens
Another shoe has dropped in the Biden administration’s self-induced border crisis that’s ravaging the nation. The latest affront to common sense and national security is exceptionally galling.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit released data which revealed that from January 1, 2023, through the second week in May, more than 2,300 illegal alien convicted criminals have been released into the U.S. interior, along with more than 2,850 illegal aliens with pending criminal charges.
U.S. taxpayers are, for the most part, funding the criminal aliens and the suspected criminal aliens’ movements from the border into the nation’s interior. In other words, taxpayers are underwriting the release of criminals.
In all, over the last five months, nearly 51,000 illegal aliens have been released from ICE custody. The releases picked up significantly in April and May as Biden’s DHS ended Title 42, one of the last remaining controls at the U.S.-Mexico border. These statistics are exclusive of the approximately 1.5 million “gotaways” that pose heightened threats to the nation’s safety and security.
Releasing criminals, a policy that is likely to continue as long as Biden is in the White House, invites mayhem. The likelihood that criminal aliens will be deported is slim. ICE has suspended worksite enforcement, will not remove illegal aliens from the interior of the U.S. unless they commit a violent crime and often not even then. Furthermore, ICE won’t detain criminal aliens who have been arrested and identified by state and local law enforcement as having no lawful basis to remain.
For years, enforcement advocates have argued that if an illegal alien had not been present, then, logically, the crimes he perpetrated would never have happened. Secure borders, by definition, mean a safer nation. Victims of illegal aliens like San Francisco tourist Kate Steinle, Houston police officer Kevin Scott Will and one-year-old Rehma Sabir, all fatalities, would still be alive.
The deaths of Steinle, Will, Sabir and hundreds of other victims occurred during administrations that imposed at least a modicum of border enforcement and gave ICE officers leeway to carry out their sworn mission to arrest and deport unlawfully present aliens.
Today, a different, more alarming policy is in place. Among the asylum seekers are criminals who are being red-carpeted into the country and are unlikely to ever be removed. Their presence represents a threat to citizens and to legal immigrants alike, a stark reality that is of no consequence to Biden, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or Biden’s party.
Earlier this year, Biden announced that he would rescind amendments that the previous administration put into place to expand expedited removal, which has been established law for more than 25 years. Expedited removal is a procedure by which DHS can, without a formal proceeding, remove an alien who has entered illegally, or has sought entry without proper documents or through fraud.
Needless to say, expedited removal is a useful tool in discouraging the millions of illegal immigrants waiting outside the U.S. to surge the border. Biden has simply discarded it.
Under current invite-the-world conditions, crime has soared. Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that in fiscal 2021, the year when Biden and Mayorkas opened the border, the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the U.S. surged after declining in previous years. Homicides, assaults, domestic violence, illegal weapons possession and sexual offenses committed by illegal aliens all increased dramatically in fiscal year 2021 compared to fiscal year 2020.
In 2021, illegal immigrants committed 1,178 assault and domestic violence crimes, which represents a more than 400 percent increase from the 208 in 2020. DUI convictions rose 347 percent from 364 to 1,629, and illegal possession of drugs or drug trafficking rose 453 percent from 386 to 2,138. Sixty homicide or manslaughter convictions were attributed to illegal immigrants, a 1,900 percent increase from the previous year.
The dangerous, deadly results that open borders spawn aren’t an anomaly, but the exact end game that Biden, Mayorkas and their advisors always envisioned.