Why Are So Many Illegal Immigrant Criminals Not Deported?

Posted 06:18 PM ET



Immigration: From illegals to angry GOP lawmakers, President Obama reassures all that his lax policies are about priorities, conserving resources to focus on deporting criminals. So why are so many crooks allowed to stay?

Caught between an angry public dead set against amnesty for illegal immigrants, and an open-border lobby that holds out the carrot of more votes for Democrats, President Obama has seemingly come up with the perfect answer for all sides: selective enforcement, or what he calls "prioritizing" immigration enforcement resources to target criminals instead of toddlers.

The federal government has to "make sure that we prioritize those folks who are most dangerous and we should acknowledge what everybody has already acknowledged through their actions — and Congress acknowledges through their budget — which is we're not in the business of deporting millions of people or breaking up families," the president told George Stephanopoulos on Nov. 23 after questions about his decision to give temporary work papers to 5 million illegals.

Sounds good, because criminals aren't popular. And Obama's claimed focus on directing enforcement resources on just criminals suggests he's a careful steward of government resources, not a spendthrift.

But a draft Immigration and Customs Enforcement report released last week doesn't support his claim.

According to the report, 30,862 illegal immigrant criminals were released into the U.S. instead of being deported back to their home countries. Now they're free to commit more crimes against Americans.

That's close to par with the 36,007 illegal aliens with criminal records who were released into America in 2013. Those criminals, by the way, shared 88,000 crimes among themselves, including murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, aggravated assault, major drug crimes and auto theft, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

They're not exactly the petty thieves and graffiti taggers that ICE classifies as category 3, or low-level, criminals who supposedly are deprioritized.

The Center also found 167,000 illegals with criminal records who should be deported but who are at large.

Now that Obama has released ICE from having to enforce the law against all 11 million illegals, the question remains why they are here.

Why isn't someone being fired for not enforcing the priorities?

Combine these fugitive illegals with the last two years' worth of illegal criminals the authorities have released at presidential direction, and it's a very large number of criminals with no business being here and whom Americans shouldn't have to tolerate, no matter how many Democratic votes it brings for Obama.

It goes hand in hand with the 14% fall in overall deportations in 2014 (see chart), part of a broader trend. The screams of dreamers to the contrary, Obama is no "deporter in chief." Internal deportations — that is, deportations of those who've been in the U.S. awhile — have plunged 34%, according to ICE.

So much for "priorities." The ugly reality is that immigration laws aren't being enforced at all, as Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions has charged.

With little chance of being deported, it's little wonder there's been a 60,000-plus surge of unaccompanied children from Central America crossing the Texas border, along with 240,000 other illegals this year alone, as word gets out.

That, appallingly enough, isn't an accident. It seems to be the real Obama priority.

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