William Keating files legislation on immigrant sex offenders

DEBEE TLUMACKI/GLOBE PHOTO/FILE 2013
Representative William Keating‘s bill would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help register sex offenders with state and local authorities before the agency releases them.

By Maria Sacchetti GLOBE STAFF AUGUST 05, 2015

US Representative William Keating has filed legislation that would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help register sex offenders with state and local authorities before the agency releases them in the United States.

Keating, a Democrat from Bourne and a former Norfolk county prosecutor, filed the legislation last week, more than a month after the Globe reported that the federal immigration agency had released hundreds of rapists, child molesters, and other sex offenders without consistently notifying law enforcement.

As a result, local police agencies and the public did not know that many dangerous criminals were living in communities across the United States.

“What we’re doing is giving the public the same measure of safety they have when a prisoner is released as opposed to a criminal who’s being released through ICE,” Keating said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “It’s common sense.”

Immigration officials declined to comment Tuesday. However, officials have said that they are now consistently notifying state and local law enforcement agencies and demanding proof from sex offenders that they registered.

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A Globe investigation found immigration officials have released many violent sex offenders without making sure they register with local authorities.




But Keating said that ICE should be required to help register sex offenders by federal law, similar to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Deporting criminals is ICE’s top priority, but the agency says it has been forced to release thousands of convicts because their homelands refused to take them back. The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that ICE cannot hold immigrants indefinitely.

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‘What we’re doing is giving the public the same measure of safety they have when a prisoner is released as opposed to a criminal who’s being released through ICE.’
Representative William Keating, Democrat of Bourne

Keating’s bill, called the “Prevent Repeat Offenders Act of 2015,” would require ICE to help register sex offenders before they release them and inform the offenders that they must provide their new address to local law enforcement. The bill would also mandate that ICE notify local law enforcement when the agency takes sex offenders into custody and when they release or deport them. Keating said the measure aims to prevent new crimes.

“There’ll be support for this,” Keating said of the bill. “The only thing that surprises people, frankly, I don’t think people were quite aware of it.”

The bipartisan bill is cosponsored by Representative John Katko, a Republican from upstate New York and a former federal prosecutor. Keating and Katko are members of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Keating’s bill follows another measure filed in June by Representative Jody Hice, a Republican from Georgia, that would also require ICE to register sex offenders.

In June, the Globe reported that from 2008 to 2012, ICE released 424 immigrants convicted of sex-related crimes, including a diagnosed pedophile in California, convicted rapists in Massachusetts and Florida, and a sex offender who later raped a woman in Virginia.

Failure to register as a sex offender is a crime, though penalties vary by state.

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at maria.sacchetti@globe.com.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...T7O/story.html