Killers, child sex abusers and drug traffickers – Homeland Security boss lists crimes of the illegals rounded up last week as Trump says ‘we’re getting the bad ones out’
- Federal immigration officers arrested nearly illegal immigrants in multi-state raids last week
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says 75 per cent who got arrested were ‘criminal aliens’
- The agency listed such crimes as homicide, sexual assault, drug trafficking, and DUI
- It didn’t say how the other 25 per cent who weren’t violent criminals got arrested
- The agency ‘conducts these kind of targeted enforcement operations regularly and has for many years,’ it said, raising questions about whether the raids represented a new policy
- There were raids in Southern California, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Texas and North Carolina
- ‘We’re actually taking people that are criminals very, very hardened criminals,’ said Trump
By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com
Federal immigration officials are laying out a range of crimes that have been committed by a undocumented immigrants snatched up in immigration raids around the country over the last week.
The raids were part of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) calls a routine enforcement action but President Trump calls ‘doing what I said I would do’ by tossing out ‘hardened criminals.’
After raids running through the week led to 680 arrests, ICE issued a statement announcing it had ‘launched a series of targeted enforcement operations across the country.’
‘Of those arrested, approximately 75 percent were criminal aliens,’ according to the agency.
This included those ‘convicted of crimes including, but not limited to, homicide, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual assault of a minor, lewd and lascivious acts with a child, indecent liberties with a minor, drug trafficking, battery, assault, DUI and weapons charges,’ according to the statement.
The release mentioned operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York City, although raids also were observed in Southern California and North Carolina and a total of 11 states.
‘These operations targeted public safety threats, such as convicted criminal aliens and gang members, as well as individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws, including those who illegally re-entered the country after being removed and immigration fugitives ordered removed by federal immigration judges,’ according to the release.
In this Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, foreign nationals are arrested during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens in Los Angeles
The release didn’t say how the other 25 per cent who weren’t violent criminals got arrested.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether or not the raids represented any kind of a change in policy. The Obama administration also had a policy of deporting criminal aliens, and President Obama earned the angry sobriquet ‘deporter in chief’ from immigration advocates for record deportations during his tenure.
Trump came into office vowing a crackdown, and signed an executive order that would expand the definition of criminals who would get prioritized for deportation.
‘We’re actually taking people that are criminals very, very hardened criminals in some cases, with a tremendous track record of abuse and problems,’ the president said, ‘ ‘and we are getting them out.’
‘And that’s what I said I would do. I’m just doing what I said I would do when we won by a very, very large electoral college vote,’ Trump said.
Trump signed an executive order reorder immigration enforcement in a way that would prioritize enforcement against immigrants who had committed ‘any’ criminal offense.
Other priorities for enforcement include those who ‘Have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved; Have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense; Have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency; Have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; Are subject to a final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; or In the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.’
‘They plan to do it,’ said Tamar Jacoby of Immigration works. ‘The president signed the order. So whether or not everybody on the ground is executing … Are there some on the ground who know about the new priorities who are in a cowboy mode anyway?’ she asked.