U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested 76 criminal aliens, including 57 with criminal records reflecting violent felonies. The arrests come days after a report revealing that the Obama Administration allowed 2.2 million deportable aliens to remain on the streets during the end of his term.
The 57 felons arrested last week had criminal records which included sexual battery, child sex crimes, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, weapons charges, drug violations, and lewd and lascivious behavior.
Nineteen of those arrested had been convicted of larceny, fraud, driving under the influence, and less serious crimes like petty theft and driving without a driver’s license. Thirteen of the criminal aliens had been previously removed from the country. These criminals may now be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the crime of felony re-entry after removal.
Last week, Breitbart Texas reported that a new report from the ICE Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed that the Obama Administration allowed 2.2 million deportable aliens to remain on the streets during the end of his term. Illegal aliens with criminal records numbered almost 400,000 of the 2.2 million left on “supervised” status. ICE Inspector General (IG) John Roth detailed that the Obama Administration created a tremendous backlog for deportation officers.
In January 2015, Breitbart Texas reported that the previous administration’s “Priority Enforcement Program” (PEP) amounted to a program coined as, “catch and release 2.0.”
During the first year of PEP (FY 2015), ICE removed or returned only 235,413 aliens–including 139,368 criminal aliens. Now, ICE deportation officers are supervising more than 2.2 million aliens as of August 2016.
The ICE report encompassed the period in which massive numbers of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and Family Unit Aliens (FMUA) were crossing the border in 2014. Breitbart Texas obtained leaked internal federal government images that revealed that children were warehoused in crowded cells and were overwhelming border patrol officers in processing centers.
In a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas after the arrest of the 76 criminal aliens in Florida, Marc J. Moore, Field Office Director for the Miami Field Office of ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) said, “ICE is committed to making our communities safer by removing threats to our public safety.”
The field office director added, “Communities across Florida and Puerto Rico are safer today because of the hard work of our ERO officers.
The Miami Field Office oversees all of Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
On April 18, Breitbart News reported that arrests of illegal alien have risen by 32.6 percent in just the first weeks of the Trump administration. ICE arrests of non-felon illegal aliens have doubled. As reported, ICE arrested 21,362 illegal aliens, most of those convicted criminals, from January to mid-March this year. Last year during this same period, 16,104 were arrested.
On March 31, Sessions announced a new program that accelerates the deportation of illegal aliens that are imprisoned in the U.S. As reported by Breitbart News, the goal of the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP) is to reduce the bureaucratic processes involved in deportation. After a criminal alien has served their time, video-conference hearings will be used to determine the next step to removal. The IHP empowers the Bureau of Prisons contract facilities to start deportation proceedings, install technology, and devise an intake policy between a DOJ office and ICE.
U.S. Homeland John Kelly Secretary, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and an official spokesperson with ICE, have all stated that anyone who is in the United States illegally can be deported.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
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