President Joe Biden’s order severely limiting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is already producing results, helping criminal illegal aliens evade arrest and deportation.
Biden’s order, issued by DHS on January 20, instructs ICE agents to only arrest and deport illegal aliens who are known or suspected terrorists, recent border crossers, or those who have been convicted of an aggravated felony — not including those convicted of drunk driving, simple assault, and various drug crimes.
The order, in practice, means that ICE agents are unable to arrest and detain most illegal aliens they otherwise would have taken into custody without first getting approval from top agency officials, a practice that one former official called “impossible.”
An illegal alien, for example, who has been charged with sexual abuse of a child is not eligible to be arrested, detained, and deported by ICE agents because the suspect has not yet been convicted, the order dictates.
A report out of Texas in recent days reveals that local law enforcement agencies are stuck with criminal illegal aliens in their custody as ICE agents are forced to drop detainers as a result of Biden’s order. An ICE detainer is when the agency asks local law enforcement officers to hold an illegal alien until they can take over custody.
The Associated Press reports:
ICE has dropped “detainer” requests against 26 people in Texas in recent weeks, said Jason Clark, chief of staff at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Immigration authorities issue detainers to local or state law enforcement agencies holding a person who is potentially in the U.S. illegally. When a person in the U.S. illegally completes their sentence for a crime, ICE can seek to take them into immigration custody. [Emphasis added]
In previous years, including under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, ICE would not drop that many detainers from the Texas prison system in a year, Clark said. [Emphasis added]
Most of the 26 were convicted of drug charges or drunken-driving offenses, according to state records obtained by The Associated Press. But two were convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager and a third was convicted of indecency with a child. [Emphasis added]
Analysis conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies, as Breitbart News reported, warned that the order would dismantle the streamlined process whereby local law enforcement turns criminal illegal aliens over to ICE agents.
Communities in states like Texas, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Illinois, and New York are expected to be the most impacted as illegal aliens are released back into their communities after criminal charges.
“Low-wage workers will suffer the most from these policies … as they see the labor market swamped with new workers, and their pay drop,” former immigration judge Art Arthur wrote in a post, calling Biden’s order “much worse than even Obama’s” enforcement policies.
“Finally, communities will be less safe, as they must deal with criminal aliens — some convicted of the most heinous of offenses — being returned to the streets instead of being removed,” Arthur wrote.
Today, there are anywhere from 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living across the U.S. At least eight million of these illegal aliens hold American jobs, illegally. Likewise, there are at least five million U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, commonly referred to as “anchor babies,” in the country.
Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers about $134 billion annually.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.