• ICE Released 2,387 Convicted Alien Sex Offenders to Comply With Supreme Court Ruling


    Illegal alien awaits deportation at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility. (AP photo)

    (CNSNews.com) – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released 2,837 convicted criminal alien sex offenders back into American communities in order to comply with a Supreme Court decision authored by Clinton-appointed Justice Stephen Breyer, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

    The 2,837 sex offenders represented five percent of the 59,347 deportable aliens released since last September under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the GAO report, which was released Thursday.

    “There are circumstances in which criminal aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States – including those convicted of a sex offense – cannot be removed,” the report states. “For example, a criminal alien may not be removed because the designated country will not accept the alien’s return.”

    September 13, 2013 - 10:55 AM
    By Alissa Tabirian

    The GAO report refers to the 2001 Supreme Court case Zadvydas v. Davis to explain why ICE is required to release foreigners who have been convicted of sex crimes. In its 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the indefinite detention of removable aliens for greater than six months is unconstitutional unless there is “significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.”

    “Freedom from imprisonment lies at the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause,” Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion.

    But writing for the minority, Justice Antonin Scalia said: "Insofar as a claimed legal right to release into this country is concerned, an alien under final order of removal stands on an equal footing with an inadmissable alien at the threshold of entry: He has no such right."

    Justice Anthony Kennedy concurred, noting that "the authority to detain beyond the removal period is to protect the community, not to negotiate the aliens' return... An alien's admission to this country is conditioned upon compliance with our laws, and removal is the consequence of a breach of that understanding."

    Of 4,359 sex offenders who were deported during the first eight months of last year, 220 (5 percent) “subsequently returned to the United States and were arrested for another offense,” GAO found. In addition, ICE officials were often unaware of the status of alien sex offenders until they “ended up back in the state criminal justice system,” GAO noted.

    About five percent of released aliens did not register as sex offenders as required by federal law. “The risk that alien sex offenders will reside in U.S. communities without being registered is increased,” the GAO concluded.
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