Congressional Leaders Demand DHS Provide Information on Criminal Aliens

Press Release

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, U.S. Sen. and Judiciary Committee member John Cornyn (R-TX), and U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, today sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson requesting information regarding the dangerous criminal aliens arrested during Operation Cross Check VI earlier this month.

On March 9, 2015, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that, as a result of Operation Cross Check VI, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested 2,059 dangerous criminal aliens, some of whom had convictions for manslaughter, possession of child pornography, robbery, kidnapping, rape, and driving under the influence. According to information provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), at least 23 of the individuals arrested had previously been granted deferred action under the President's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

In their letter to Secretary Johnson, Sessions, Goodlatte, Cornyn, and Gowdy note that "arresting, detaining, and ensuring the removal of these dangerous criminal aliens--individuals ICE has deemed to be of the highest priority for removal--is of great importance to Congress and the American people." However, they point out that "costly operations to apprehend at-large criminal aliens would not be necessary if state and local jurisdictions would simply cooperate with ICE" and that "the need for these operations also would be considerably mitigated if this administration had not ended the successful Secure Communities program, and curtailed the ability of ERO to issue ICE detainers, which is at the core of ICE's mission to pick up and process removable aliens encountered by law enforcement."

Sessions, Goodlatte, Cornyn, and Gowdy request that DHS provide detailed information about the criminal aliens arrested during Operation Cross Check VI, such as immigration status, the agency or entity responsible for releasing the alien, the number of those who had prior encounters with ICE, the number of those who had obtained relief from removal in immigration court proceedings or by the use of prosecutorial discretion, and the number of aliens who are DACA beneficiaries.

Source