WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) issued a statement following a shocking report that showed a massive decrease in removals of convicted criminal aliens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first three fiscal years of the Biden-Harris administration (FY2021-2023).

According to ICE figures obtained by the Daily Mail, removals of convicted criminal aliens between FY2021-2023 dropped by 74 percent compared to FY2017-2020. ICE removed more than 526,000 convicted criminal aliens between FY2017-2020, but just 134,617 from FY2021-2023.

“Under President Joe Biden, and his hand-picked ‘border czar,’ Vice President Kamala Harris, we don’t just have a crisis at our borders—we have one in the interior, as well,” Chairman Green said. “These two open-borders extremists have tied the hands of ICE agents and made it almost impossible for ICE to remove those here unlawfully. The numbers don’t lie—under President Trump, illegal crossings were at record lows, and removals were high. Biden and Harris have completely flipped that record on its head. On their watch, encounters have hit historic, sustained highs, while removals have dropped through the floor. Biden and Harris have utterly abandoned their oath to enforce the laws of this country—assuming they ever took that oath seriously to begin with. Meanwhile, innocent Americans continue to be victimized daily by this administration’s dereliction of duty. Enough is enough.”
 
Background:

Last week, ICE released additional numbers showing that, as of July 21, 2024, nearly 650,000 criminal illegal aliens were currently on ICE’s Non-Detained Docket (NDD), many of them roaming free in communities throughout the United States. This figure includes roughly 15,000 individuals convicted of or charged with murder, more than 20,000 of sexual assault, and more than 105,000 of assault.
 
The specific breakdown of what types of criminals have been released is just as sobering. The following numbers include both convicted criminals and those with pending charges for the specific offense. In all categories, the former exceeded the latter: 

• Homicide: 14,944
• Sexual Assault: 20,061
• Assault: 105,146
• Burglary/Larceny/Robbery: 60,268
• Traffic Offenses: 126,343
• Weapon Offenses: 16,820
• Kidnapping: 3,372
• Commercialized Sexual Offenses: 3,971 

In its recent report, “Crisis by Design,” the House Committee on Homeland Security documented how DHS law enforcement often have very little information to use in vetting illegal aliens crossing the border, and the massive flood of illegal border crossers under the Biden-Harris administration has made this task even more difficult. According to former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, vetting has become a “check-the-box exercise.” The fact that in hundreds of thousands of cases, criminal illegal aliens are being released even after derogatory information about them has been discovered is simply inexcusable, and can be traced back to the Biden-Harris administration’s policy of mass “catch and release.”

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