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Editorial: Releasing Criminal Immigrants

By Robert Kraft

An editorial in today's Dallas Morning News decries the decision by Harris County to release illegal immigrants who have been charged with felonies. This editorial is hard to argue with. Regardless of your position on immigration reform, surely no one believes our country is better off because we're releasing serious criminals because of paperwork delays. Here is the editorial:

Local authorities around the country are taking the lead to tackle illegal immigration because our leaders in Washington have failed to devise a workable enforcement system. Federal deficiencies are so severe that public safety is being compromised, as a Houston Chronicle report showed this week.

Regardless of where you stand on comprehensive immigration reform, it's hard not to be outraged by the failures the Chronicle exposed in Harris County's jail system. Hundreds of illegal immigrant inmates charged with felony crimes – murder, rape, drug dealing and child molestation – were set free because Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities didn't complete the paperwork to hold them for deportation.

ICE, part of the Homeland Security Department, failed to process detention orders for roughly 2,600 jail inmates who admitted they were illegal immigrants. In 177 cases, inmates committed additional crimes after being released. Hundreds had three or more prior convictions.

ICE officials say they're doing their best with limited resources, but we've heard that excuse before. A year ago, ICE officials were forced to temporarily curtail the Criminal Alien Program in Irving because their staff and facilities couldn't cope with the number of illegal immigrants Irving police were detaining.

Dallas County announced last week that it would participate in a new federal database project that is even more comprehensive than Irving's. With growing participation by local governments, the pressure on ICE is going to grow. But ICE says it would take years and up to $1 billion to bring a new screening system up to speed and ensure the most serious offenders are deported – not released.

The heated debate in Washington over comprehensive immigration reform no doubt will resume after the incoming Obama administration addresses other pressing issues such as the economy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ridding our cities of these most undesirable immigrants deserves top priority attention, too. Failing that, the Department of Homeland Security should consider a name change, because the criminals it is releasing onto our streets have no justification to be in this "homeland." And when they roam free, the notion of security for Americans becomes laughable.

Full post as published by Immigration Law Answers Blog on November 18, 2008 (boomark / email).