A report by the Department of Homeland Security says that more than 179,000 criminal illegal aliens eligible to be deported are still in the U.S. and immigration officials admit they don’t know where they are.
The report was delivered to the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration. As it turns out, there are nearly a million illegals who have been issued deportation orders who have not been sent home.
The level of criminal behavior by immigrants — both legal and illegal — has become a key part of the current political debate over immigration, border fencing and birthright citizenship.
But the federal government does not have any way of tracking the overall criminal behavior of immigrants, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains and deports illegal immigrants, admitted in the information provided to the Senate.
“ICE is unable to statistically report on the number of aliens who have been arrested for criminal offenses,” the agency said.
ICE did, however, say it is making headway on trying to get sanctuary cities to cooperate with its new slimmed-down deportation program, known as the Priority Enforcement Program, or PEP.
How can you claim you have a deportation program if no one gets deported?
Of 340 jurisdictions identified as sanctuary cities or counties, ICE says more than half have expressed interest in cooperating with the PEP.
What that means, exactly, is still unclear, because some jurisdictions have said they will only partially comply — yet are included on the government’s list of cooperators.
All told, there are 918,369 immigrants living in the U.S. who have been ordered deported. Some of them are here under special court rulings or administration decisions that prevent them from being sent back to specific countries, while others just aren’t deemed serious enough criminals by the Obama administration to worry about.
“Not serious enough criminals…”? Since the president’s immigration reform plan would have allowed illegals convicted of drunk driving to remain in the country, that’s a pretty good indication they don’t care much if thousands of illegals every year cause traffic accidents while under the influence — some of which result in deaths.
You have to wonder what other offenses that illegals were convicted of aren’t considered “serious.” I’m sure the answer would be interesting.
If someone is slated to be deported, there ought to be some mechanism that can ensure they follow the legal order to leave the country. Instead of allowing illegals to disappear, isn’t there some way to track them while they are appealing? It’s a tough problem but short of halting deportations altogether, at least some effort besides the half-hearted PEP program that can’t work anyway because of the non-cooperation of sanctuary cities should be made.