Border Crisis: 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE's national docket
Border Crisis: 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE's national docket
435,719 are convicted criminals
Near the end of this week, a border crisis bombshell went off in the form of a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Patrick Lechleitner to Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX).
The letter, dated Sept. 25, 2024, was in response to Gonzales's inquiry from Mar. 13, 2024. The letter includes alarming data points I’ll get to in a minute, but also addresses concerns about ICE's relationships with law enforcement partners, the challenges of "sanctuary" policies.
"ICE recognizes that some jurisdictions are concerned that cooperating with federal immigration officials will erode trust with immigrant communities and make it harder for local law enforcement to serve those populations,” the letter says. “However, ‘sanctuary’ policies can end up shielding dangerous criminals, who often victimize those same communities.”
Read Lechleitner's letter to Gonzales here.
The letter and the data it contains comes as Vice President Kamala Harris finally made a trip the southern border in Arizona.
Harris, named border czar by media after President Biden put her in charge of the issue, has only been to the border one time before and that was three years ago.
Key Data and Statistics from the letter
As of July 21, 2024, there are 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE's national docket. Of that number, 435,719 are convicted criminals and 226,847 have pending criminal charges.
The number of illegal aliens on the non-detained docket has gone from 3.7 million in FY 2021 to almost 4.8 million in FY 2022 and now stands at a staggering 7 million in FY 2023.
Detainer Data (October 1, 2020 through July 22, 2024) shows 24,796 detainers lifted. A whopping 23,591 detainers were declined by state and local law enforcement agencies, 1,205 were lifted due to insufficient notice to ICE, and 2,897 detainers were declined where the subject had a subsequent arrest by ERO, which stands for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations arm.
Top 5 criminal acts and total number of undetained persons:
1. Traffic Offenses: 126,343
2. Assault: 105,146
3. Dangerous Drugs: 70,379
4. Immigration: 92,075
5. Larceny: 30,631
Sexual Assaults:
- Convicted Criminal (Currently Detained): 509
- Pending Criminal Charges (Currently Detained): 142
- Convicted Criminal (Non-Detained): 15,811
- Pending Criminal Charges (Non-Detained): 4,250
- The total of non-detained individuals (convicted + pending charges) for sexual assault is 20,061.
Removals from mid-May 2023 through end of July 2024 included 893,600 individuals; more than 138,300 individuals were in family units.
ICE’s Detention Capacity is funded for 41,500 beds for the rest of FY 2024 (up from 34,000 in FY 2023).
But crime is down, we are told.
More To The Story
Republicans have repeated the message that ‘every state is a border state’ under Biden-Harris and Lechleitner's letter seems to drive that message home, including in North Carolina.
“Illegal criminals are invading and endangering communities in North Carolina, and Harris-Biden’s open border policies are to blame,” wrote NC Congressman Richard Hudson (R-09) in a post on X in response to yet another arrest of an illegal alien in the state.
This is the arrest Hudson was responding to.
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