Thread: Foreigners Now Account for 61% of Federal Arrests

by IAN MASON
10 Apr 2017
378 comments

The Pew Research Center released an analysis of Justice Department numbers Monday showing a massive increase in the prominence of immigration-related offenses in federal law enforcement.

Pew cited a report released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to show that immigration offenses accounted for fully half of federal arrests in 2014, up from only 28% a decade earlier. Consequently, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now makes more arrests than the FBI, DEA, BATFE, U.S. Marshal’s Service, and all other branches of the Justice Department combined.

According to Pew:

The geographic distribution of federal arrests also shows the growing emphasis on immigration offenses. In 2014, 61% of all federal arrests – or more than 100,000 – occurred in just five federal judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Driven by this massive increase in immigration arrests, a staggering 61% of federal arrests are now of non-U.S. citizens. These arrests, mostly for immigration offenses, but including thousands for other crimes, do not include the hundreds of thousands of non-criminal apprehensions of illegal aliens each year.

Illegal aliens made up an equally shocking 37% of all criminal defendants in federal district courts in 2014.

Most illegal aliens arrested for immigration offenses are referred to administrative hearings before immigration courts. The increase in this type of arrests has placed tremendous strain on that system. The resulting backlog raises concerns of a “virtual amnesty” from the inability to process these cases.

The BJS report shows that, increasingly, immigration offenses, which can include more serious crimes like trafficking aliens into the United States, are winding up in regular U.S. district courts. While, in 1994, fewer than 2,500 immigration cases wound up in district court, 21,789 did in 2014, representing over a quarter of those general courts’ criminal caseload. Of those defendants, almost 80% were sentenced to time in federal prison with a median sentence of 15 months.

The influx of illegal alien offenders and especially of immigration arrestees remains a pressure point on the federal prison system that, due to a drop in other types of offenders and changes in federal sentencing policy, has otherwise seen a drop in overcrowding. The problem is particularly acute for prisons run by private companies, which are disproportionately set aside for immigration offenders.

ICE is forced to make use of dozens of private facilities to house detainees awaiting deportation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced he would be reversing the Obama administration’s plans to phase out private prisons for criminal convicts and pre-trial detainees.

Pew notes that, by their estimates, federal arrests make up only a little more than one percent of the total arrests in the United States each year, local and state law enforcement being responsible for the vast majority of arrests.

While the numbers in the BJS report accurately reflect the federal criminal justice system, wider estimates of the proportions of crime committed by illegal aliens are hard to come by. Reporting across the nation’s hundreds of law enforcement agencies is inconsistent and incomplete. So-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions also refuse to report on their arrestees’ immigration status as a matter of policy, hindering federal efforts to collect statistics and enforce immigration laws.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...deral-arrests/

We need a Moratorium on All Immigration and we need it now. Please Congress. A Moratorium. No permanent or long-term immigration green cards or visas. Stop it all now.

The financial drain these illegals, refugees and asylum liars is astronomical!

Money that should be invested into our citizens, our communities, rebuilding our roads, bridges and getting people to work.

Green card holders and visa holders are draining US too. It's all of it. Our poor beleaguered country can't support even the extreme burden of excess legal immigration through the present numbers of green cards and visas being handed out. We can't support any of it. We might be able to support a small amount in future years, way down the road, but we can't support any of it now. None. We must have a Moratorium on All Immigration, (temporary (3 months or less, seasonal workers excluded, those who come in, supervised, do a job, and leave under the supervision and guarantees of their employers, no families, no wives, no children, just short-term workers).

Yes, seasonal workers, for a short period only. The employer should be responsible for them while they are here, responsible for their living expenses,medical expenses, etc.

Actually, truth be told, there is little these 'seasonal' workers really are needed for. Yes, harvesting crops, but there are so many mechanized solutions to that.

Phase out the imported workers, and Americans will design more and more 'robots' or machinery to do the work.

There is a small town down the road from us and they raise a lot of veggies, watermelons, etc., there. It's not huge, but quite a bit. When we moved here 20 years ago, a lot of the young high school boys looked forward to working there during the summer.

Now the town is full of illegals - they even own - or run the one local gas station and convenience store.