Both conservative and mainstream media outlets were flooded with the bombshell news in late September that there were hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants with criminal convictions on the non-detained docket currently in the U.S. Their charges include sexual assault, criminal pedophilia and even homicide — and these individuals are roaming American streets, neither detained nor tracked in any meaningful capacity.
But much coverage, including that from hardline border security experts, was focused on the entry date associated with each criminal, neglecting the more concerning issue: Why are they still in this country, and moreover, if they are here, why aren’t they in ICE custody? ICE leadership has repeatedly claimed that their hands are tied regarding detention due to budgetary limits — yet detention beds are still sitting empty and have been throughout the entire Biden-Harris Administration.
While we know the Trump administration and Biden-Harris administration managed interior enforcement in vastly different ways, one simply needs to look at the data. Migrant encounters more than tripled from the Trump administration to the Biden-Harris administration, yet overall ICE removals plummeted — from roughly 30% under Trump, to just 4% under Biden and Harris, according to data obtained from ICE’s annual reporting. That’s three straight years of record low removals, compounded by three straight years of record high encounters and entries.
And Harris and her team refuse to hold home countries responsible, claiming that her hands are tied when it comes to deportations because foreign governments are non-cooperative. Yet, there has been no withholding of foreign aid, no increased sanctions, no real pressure at all. Meanwhile, the Trump administration imposed financial penalties as well as visa restrictions on countries that refused to accept the return of its nationals.
Enforcement statistics between the two administrations align with these somber figures as well. Administrative arrests of criminal aliens declined by 57% between 2017-2019 and 2021-2023, according to official data released by ICE. This data also showed that ICE-issued detainer requests saw a similar drop, plummeting from 484,990 detainer requests, to just 270,127 between the two administrations, a 44% decrease.
And this new data shows that the decrease in arrests and detainers is not because illegal aliens stopped committing crimes in the interior — the administration simply stopped pretending to care. Their lack of action is additionally in complete defiance of the nearly thirty-year-old Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Passed in 1996, the IRIRA stipulates mandatory detention for noncitizens convicted of aggravated felonies and imposes a ten year entry ban on any noncitizen who resides in the US illegally for more than a year.
By ignoring this policy, the Harris administration is throwing all care of the safety of everyday American citizens aside, in favor of the path of least resistance: releasing known criminals into the interior immediately, and shrugging when the inevitable murder or rape of a civilian happens.
This is a clear and direct result of the policies enacted by the Biden-Harris administration, which not only made crossing the border as easy as downloading a mobile app, but also by taking little to no action to remove these individuals once they step foot on American soil. Once they make it across the border, they are as good as home-free, because you can guarantee that the Biden-Harris will make no tangible efforts to ensure they are returned to their home country, criminal convictions or not.
Harris argues that her prospective new administration would bring “comprehensive reform” to the U.S. immigration landscape, but why should Americans believe her? In her role as “border czar,” she has had every tool at her disposal to enact policies that follow the law and are enforcement-driven, selecting instead to overturn effective policies that were already working. And yet things have continued to go from bad to worse, to somehow even worse still, to the point where the administration has been caught changing definitions and playing with the numbers to create the façade that removals are down, when they are in fact way, way up.
Harris had four years to show where she stands on illegal immigration — and her administration’s actions show clear support for open borders, regardless of her current campaign rhetoric. Don’t believe her recent change in position. The far left certainly doesn’t.
Any true statesman with real intent can make meaningful moves that would deport known criminals back to their country of origin. Given that Biden-Harris have not done this, one can only assume they have no real desire to do so. The immigration system is not broken as the administration and many commentators claim. Existing law enacted in 1996 requiring detention and prompt removal simply needs to be enforced by the Executive Branch.
Rex J. Ford served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Administration of George H.W. Bush and as a U.S. Immigration Judge from 1993 to 2019. Ford is also a member of the Florida bar.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
