The President’s “Get Out Of Jail Free” Card

On Monday The Washington Times reported that in 2013 immigration officers released 36,000 immigrants from custody.

The article describes these immigrants:

Among the 36,000 immigrants whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released from custody last year there were 116 with convictions for homicide, 43 for negligent manslaughter, 14 for voluntary manslaughter and one with a conviction classified by ICE as “homicide-willful kill-public official-gun.”

The immigrants were in deportation proceedings, meaning ICE was trying to remove them from the country and could have held them in detention but released them anyway, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which published the numbers Monday. The Washington Times also obtained the data.

…The 36,007 criminal aliens counted in the data had more than 87,000 convictions among them: 15,635 for drunken driving, 9,187 for what ICE labeled “dangerous drugs,” 2,691 for assault, 1,724 for weapons offenses and 303 for “flight escape” — a category that would seem to make them bad candidates for release.

I will admit that I am having trouble figuring out the rationale behind releasing them rather than deporting them. Releasing these prisoners puts the safety of American citizens at risk. They should have been deported.

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