WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans are pointing to newly released immigration enforcement data to bolster their argument that the Biden administration is letting immigrants who have committed serious crimes go free in the U.S. But the numbers have been misinterpreted without key context.<\/p>\n
Immigration and Customs Enforcement released data to Republican Representative Tony Gonzales in response to a request he made for information about people under ICE custody who have either been convicted of crimes or are facing criminal charges. The Texas Gonzales area includes an 800-mile stretch that borders Mexico.<\/p>\n
Gonzales posted the numbers online and they immediately became a flashpoint in the presidential campaign between former President Donald Trump, who has vowed to carry out mass deportations, and Vice President Kamala Harris. Immigration – and the Biden administration’s record on border security – has become a key issue in the election.<\/p>\n
Here’s a look at the data and what it does or doesn’t show:<\/p>\n
What are the numbers?<\/p>\n
As of July 21, ICE said 662,556 people under its supervision were either convicted of crimes or facing criminal charges. Almost 15,000 were in his custody, but the overwhelming majority\u2014647,572\u2014were not.<\/p>\n
Included in the figures of people not detained by AAA were people convicted of very serious offences: 13,099 for murder, 15,811 for sexual assault, 13,423 for weapons offenses and 2,663 for stolen vehicles. The single largest category was for traffic related offenses at 77,074, followed by assault at 62,231 and dangerous drugs at 56,533.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, later clarified that the numbers span decades – including the Trump administration and other presidencies – and that those not in its custody could be held by the state or an agency local. It’s a distinction ICE did not make in its report to Gonzales.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we talk about someone who is not detained, we mean that we are not detained in ICE custody. The individual could be in Folsom State Prison, for example,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday.<\/p>\n
There are millions of people on ICE’s “detained docket,” or people under the agency’s supervision who are not in its custody. Many are awaiting the results of their cases in immigration court, including some wearing monitoring devices. Others have been released after completing their prison sentences because their countries will not take them back.<\/p>\n
What do both sides say about the numbers?<\/p>\n
Republicans pointed to the data as proof that the Biden administration is letting immigrants with criminal records into the country and is not doing enough to kick out those who commit crimes while they are here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is clear – illegal immigrants with a criminal record are coming into our country. The data released by ICE is beyond disturbing, and should be a wake-up call to the Biden-Harris administration and cities across the country hiding behind sanctuary policies,” Gonzales said in a news release, referring to promises by local officials to limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n
Trump, who has repeatedly portrayed immigrants as bringing lawlessness and crime to America, tweeted multiple screenshots of the data with the words: “13,000 CROSSED THE BORDER WITH MURDER VETERANS.”<\/p>\n
He also claimed that the numbers matched Biden and Harris’ time in office.<\/p>\n
The data was being misinterpreted, Homeland Security said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the last 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose detention decision was made long before this Administration,\u201d the agency said. “It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.”<\/p>\n
Mayorkas said it was “unfortunate” that the information did not come with a proper explanation, saying it was “open to misinterpretation, either intentional or otherwise.”<\/p>\n
The department also emphasized what it has done to deport those without the right to remain in America, saying it has removed or returned more than 700,000 people in the past year, which it said was the number highest since 2010. Homeland Security said it has removed 180,000 people with criminal convictions since President Joe Biden took office.<\/p>\n
What’s behind the figures?<\/p>\n
The data not only lists people who entered the country during the Biden administration but includes people going back decades who came during previous administrations, said Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was the predecessor of ICE.<\/p>\n
They are accused or convicted of committing crimes in America rather than committing crimes in other countries and then entering the United States, said Meissner, who is now director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.<\/p>\n
“This is not something that is a function of what the Biden administration did,” he said. “Sure, this includes the Biden years, but this is an accumulation of many years, and certainly goes back to at least 2010, 2011, 2012.”<\/p>\n
A 2017 report by the Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General says that as of August 2016, ICE had about 368,574 people on its docket without detention who were convicted criminals. By June 2021, shortly after Trump left office, that number was up to 405,786.<\/p>\n
Can’t ICE just deport criminals?<\/p>\n
ICE has limited resources. The number of people he supervises has increased dramatically, while his staffing has not. As the agency noted in a year-end report in 2023, it often has to send staff to help at the border, taking them away from their normal duties.<\/p>\n
The number of people ICE oversees but is not in its custody has increased from 3.3 million shortly before Biden took office to just over 7 million last spring.<\/p>\n
“The simple answer is that as a system we have not allocated enough resources to the parts of government that deal with monitoring and ultimately removing people who are deported,” Meissner said.<\/p>\n
ICE also has logistical and legal limits on who they can detain. Its budget allows the agency to hold 41,500 people at a time. John Sandweg, who was acting ICE director from 2013 to 2014 under then-President Barack Obama, said that catching people accused or convicted of the most serious crimes is the top priority every time.<\/p>\n
But once someone has a final removal order \u2014 meaning a court has found they don’t have the right to stay in the country \u2014 they can’t be detained forever while ICE works out how to get home The Supreme Court ruling in 2001 essentially prevented AAA from detaining those people for more than six months if there is no reasonable chance to expect that they can be sent back.<\/p>\n
Not all countries are ready to take their citizens back, Sandweg said.<\/p>\n
He said he suspects that a large number of those convicted of manslaughter but not being held by ICE are people who have been ordered deported but the agency cannot remove them because their home country will not take them back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a very common scenario. Even among the countries that take people back, they can be very selective about who they take back,” he said.<\/p>\n
The United States could also face problems in deporting people to countries with which it has close ties.<\/p>\n
Homeland Security did not respond to questions about how many countries will not take back their citizens. According to the watchdog’s report in 2017 there were 23 countries, along with 62 others that were cooperative but where there were delays in getting things like passports or travel documents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
\nsource link https:\/\/canadanewsmedia.ca\/trump-is-pointing-to-new-numbers-on-migrants-with-criminal-pasts-heres-what-they-show\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed. WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans are pointing to newly released immigration enforcement data to bolster their argument that the Biden administration is letting immigrants who have committed serious crimes go free in the U.S. But the numbers have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,6,3,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-199298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"category-entertainment","9":"category-health","10":"category-national","11":"category-sports","12":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/achinews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}