Judiciary Chairman Smith: ICE Releases Thousands of Criminal Immigrants Onto U.S. Streets Since 2001

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CNSnews:

Citing government statistics that show thousands of criminal immigrants have been released from federal custody into American communities over the last decade, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced legislation that would allow Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep criminal illegal aliens in custody past the six-month deadline established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The “Keep Our Communities Safe Act” is “desperately needed,” Smith said at a hearing about the bill on May 24 because of two high court rulings that said immigrants – and later illegal immigrants – could not be detained for more than six months, if efforts to return the immigrant to his or her home country failed.

The result, Smith said, are thousands of criminal illegal immigrants being released in the United States. Smith is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the hearing last week was of the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, concerning Smith’s legislation.

“In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General reported that thousands of criminal immigrants with final orders of removal were being released into our streets because some countries frustrate the removal process,” Smith stated in his prepared remarks at the hearing.