In a letter released Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acknowledged that 425,000 aliens released into the U.S. have criminal convictions and another 222,000 aliens have criminal charges pending. The letter, written by acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner, was released by Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales, who received it in response to requests for information he sent the agency six months ago.
The criminal aliens that Director Lechleitner referred to in his letter – the vast majority of whom are in the country illegally – are on ICE’s non-detained docket. That simply means even though the aliens are deportable, they were released into the U.S. (either by Customs and Border Protection or ICE) while their cases are pending. Their cases may be resolved in several ways, such as being approved for asylum or receiving a final order of removal by an immigration judge. However, until their cases are resolved, ICE tracks these non-detained aliens. The number of aliens on ICE’s non-detained docket has tripled since Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, growing from 2.6 million to 7.4 million in FY 2024.
In the letter sent to Rep. Gonzales, ICE made several shocking admissions about aliens released into the U.S. as part of the non-detained docket. Over 13,000 aliens have convictions for murder. Another 15,000 have convictions for sexual assault. If that weren’t bad enough, ICE’s letter contained even more detail: 56,000 aliens on the non-detained docket have convictions related to dangerous drugs, 62,000 have convictions for assault; 18,000 have convictions for larceny (theft); 14,000 have convictions for burglary; 13,000 have convictions for weapons offenses, and 2,500 have convictions for kidnapping.
Despite varying reports in the media, it is likely that many of these crimes were committed in the U.S. after the aliens were released. As FAIR has reported numerous times, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is responsible for apprehending illegal aliens at the border, rarely has a full snapshot of the criminal histories of the aliens it catches because it does not receive the relevant data from other governments. Furthermore, federal law generally restricts the government from releasing aliens who are known to have serious criminal convictions. Finally, CBP reports on a monthly basis the convictions it is aware of at the time of apprehension and those numbers are published on CBP’s website. Clearly, the number of convictions reported by CBP is much lower than the convictions reported by ICE, which again suggests that the crimes are committed after the aliens were released.
The question then becomes why isn’t ICE deporting these criminal aliens as soon as it learns of the convictions? The main problem is that once aliens are released and ICE subsequently learns they have been criminally convicted, ICE agents must go out into the communities (at great risk to themselves) to find them. The easiest place for ICE to find them would naturally be at the local jails or prisons at the moment they are being released. However, in many cities, open-borders advocates have successfully prevented ICE from intercepting these criminals. Indeed, as ICE’s letter to Rep. Gonzales points out, sanctuary cities shield illegal aliens from being picked up by ICE, typically by releasing them from jail without notifying ICE or releasing them before ICE can arrive at the jail to assume custody of them. According to ICE, from FY 2021 through June 2024, local jurisdictions rejected over 23,000 requests by ICE to hold criminal aliens until ICE could arrive.
Thus, between the Biden-Harris Administration’s determination to release virtually all illegal aliens and the determination of sanctuary cities to shield them – even when convicted of rape or murder – these criminal aliens are released back into our communities, living and working without fear of our immigration laws being enforced. While the Biden-Harris Administration calls this a “humane” immigration policy, it places the interests of criminals above law-abiding Americans. As, Rep. Gonzales said upon learning that over 647,000 criminal aliens are roaming free in the U.S., “Americans deserve to be SAFE in our own communities.”
