More than 2,000 illegal immigrants were turned loose on American
streets after serving prison sentences last year - often because their
home countries refused to take them back - and many subsequently
committed crimes including rape and murder, a key lawmaker charged
Monday.
The claim, by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, comes a
week after a federal audit blamed the Department of Homeland Security
and an uncooperative Haiti for an illegal immigrant being freed to kill a
Connecticut woman.
Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee,
called on the Obama administration to put renewed pressure on countries
that won’t take back their own criminals after they have been ticketed
for deportation.
“Dangerous criminals, including murderers, are being released every
day because their home countries will not cooperate in taking them
back,” Grassley wrote in a June 27 letter to Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson.
“Many times, these individuals have criminal histories in addition to entering the country illegally or overstaying their visa.”
Illegal immigrants convicted of crimes typically must serve all or
part of their prison sentences in the U.S., and then are sent home under
diplomatic agreements between the U.S. and other countries.
In 2015, said Grassley, some 2,166 individuals were
released in the United States and not deported either because their
countries would not readmit them or the U.S. government did not even
try. In the two preceding years, more than 6,100 inmates slated for
deportation were released within the U.S., Grassley said.
Some 23 countries are labeled as uncooperative, with
the five worst being Cuba, China, Somalia, India, and Ghana, and U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is monitoring another 62 nations
where cooperation is strained, Grassley said.
“This is a serious problem that has been festering
for years, but is getting worse as countries realize that they can get
away with just refusing to accept back their citizens who are
criminals,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the
Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
“What is equally frustrating is that the Obama
administration has continuously refused to use the tools that Congress
has provided and the leverage that we have with many of the recalcitrant
countries, even as the roster of victims from these criminal aliens
grows longer every month.”
There are a number of horrific cases involving
victims of criminal aliens, Vaughan noted, including one highlighted by
The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General last week. That
report examined the circumstances that led to the murder of 25-year-old
Casey Chadwick by Haitian national Jean Jacques, and found the agency’s
overwhelmed Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau should have
booted Jacques from the U.S. prior to the killing.
In Jacques’ case, Haiti denied his entry three times
when Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to deport him, claiming
there was no proof he was a Haitian citizen.
Haiti refused to allow U.S. officials to obtain his
birth certificate, and a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision limits how
long immigration officials can detain people without deporting them.
Jacques, who was held for a total of 205 days, was released.
A second high-profile case highlighted by both
Grassley and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.,
demonstrates the Obama administration’s failure to deport criminal
illegal immigrants to cooperative nations. It occurred June 13, when
Johnny Josue Sanchez allegedly murdered five people in Los Angeles by
intentionally setting fire to the building where they were sleeping.
Border Patrol agents had apprehended Sanchez, a
Honduras citizen in the U.S. illegally, in November 2012, and
transferred him to the custody of ICE, but he was released a week later
after ICE noted Sanchez did not have a criminal history or previous
immigration violation.
Since entering the country, Sanchez has been arrested
on multiple charges, including in January 2016 for domestic violence,
and again in May and June 2016 just days before the murders, but ICE did
not detain him or place him in removal proceedings, Grassley and
Goodlatte said. Sanchez has been charged with five counts of murder and
could be sentenced to the death penalty.
Asked for comment by FoxNews.com, ICE Western
Regional Communications Director/Spokesperson Virginia Kice said,
”Following his arrest by local authorities earlier this week, ICE
conducted a follow-up review of Mr. Sanchez’s case. The review showed
that, for unknown reasons, Mr. Sanchez was never placed in immigration
proceedings, although the others arrested with him were. ICE’s inquiry
into to matter is continuing.”
“These are preventable, needless crimes that American communities should not have to put up with,” Vaughan said.
One of the worst offending countries is Cuba. More
than 35,000 Cubans, including 28,000 who are convicted criminals, have
been ordered deported but remain on U.S. soil, a higher number of
non-departed criminals than any other country except for Mexico,
according to Vaughan.
She suggested that DHA could work with the State
Department, which could withhold visas for offending countries until
they cooperated.
Keeping illegal immigrants who have already committed
violent crimes puts Americans at unnecessary risk, said Claude Arnold,
retired special agent in charge for ICE's Los Angeles bureau of Homeland
Security Investigations, who also was a deportation officer handling a
high volume of criminal alien cases involving countries that did not
want to take back their citizens.
“We have enough problems with our own criminals. We
should not have to hold on to criminals from other countries
indefinitely,” Arnold said.
Grassley said Congress addressed this problem when it
amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to require the Secretary of
State to discontinue granting visas to a country upon receiving notice
from the Department of Homeland Security that the country has denied or
is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or
resident of that country.
“This tool has been used only once, in the case of
Guyana in 2001, where it had an immediate effect, resulting in obtaining
cooperation from Guyana within two months,” Grassley said.
Grassley told Johnson he wants answers as to why the
DHS is not using the sanctions authority to get full cooperation, saying
he is frustrated with the “inadequacy” of the Department of Homeland
Security’s efforts to persuade recalcitrant countries to cooperate.
“Lives are being lost, the public’s safety is at
risk, and American families are suffering,” Grassley said. “It cannot
continue.”
“Although the majority of the countries in the world
adhere to their international obligation to accept the timely return of
their citizens, ICE has confronted unique challenges with those
countries that systematically refuse or delay the repatriation of their
nationals,” ICE spokesperson Jennifer Elzea told FoxNews.com.
“Despite ICE’s continued efforts, a number of factors
constrain ICE’s ability to improve the level of repatriations to those
nations. Such factors include: limited diplomatic relations with some
countries; the countries’ own internal bureaucratic processes, which
foreign governments at times rely upon in order to delay the
repatriation process; and foreign governments that simply do not view
repatriation as a priority.”
