Report: 1,800 Released Immigrants Rearrested For Various Crimes
In more than 1,800 cases, immigrants that the federal government wanted deported from the United States were freed from local jails only to be later rearrested for various crimes, a recent study shows.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report, which was published on Monday, noted the rearrested migrants were among 8,145 people released between January and August 2014 despite requests from federal agents that they be held for deportation.
Many jurisdictions across the United States routinely refuse to honor so-called "immigration detainers" and hold immigrants beyond their scheduled release dates. State laws in California and Connecticut, meanwhile, formally limit the use of such detainers.
Some 200 so-called "sanctuary cities" additionally prevent municipal funds or resources from being used to enforce federal immigration laws, according to the right-wing Daily Signal.
According to the ICE report provided by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, drug violations and driving under the influence were among the top crimes for which immigrants were rearrested, The Associated Press reported.
The study also noted a number of more serious offenses, including a San Mateo, California, County case in which an immigrant was accused of felony sex crimes involving a child under the age of 14.
Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, called for new federal laws to compel local law enforcement to comply with all immigration detainers -- or face sanctions in federal funding, the Christian Science Monitor noted.
"Local refusal to comply with ICE detainers has become a public safety problem in many communities, and a mission crisis for ICE that demands immediate attention," Vaughan said, according to the AP. "This is a genuine safety problem, and also a crisis for immigration enforcement."
But Jennie Pasquarella, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, challenged the center's arguments.
"It is not correct to point to the detainers as the reason why people are getting rearrested," Pasquarella said. "ICE has had, and continues to have and develop its tools to be able to prioritize people who it believes are priority for removal, and to pick up those people."
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