At least 2,000 dangerous criminal illegal aliens are stalking the streets inside the United States thanks to the continued intransigence of so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to abide by federal immigration law.
Image Credit: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Public Domain
Currently, 279 cities are classified as “sanctuary cities” when it comes to cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement. These cities refuse to turn over dangerous criminal illegal aliens and instead release them.
Those sanctuary communities released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants back onto the streets rather than turn them over to federal authorities in fiscal year 2016, and were on pace for even more in the first two months of fiscal year 2017, which began Oct. 1.
The numbers were part of Homeland Security’s year-end immigration enforcement update, which said border agents and officers are reporting more illegal immigrants attempting to cross into the U.S., in what has been dubbed a new surge of migration.
Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who man the ports of entry are reporting a spike in migrants attempting to enter illegally.
Homeland Security officials say the number caught at the border is an indicator of the number getting through it, so it signals an overall increase in the flow.
Border Patrol agents caught 415,816 people trying to enter illegally over the last fiscal year, which was up 23 percent from 2015.
This surge in illegal border crossings coincided with the breakdown of interior immigration law enforcement.
Yet fewer are being caught in the interior by ICE, as President Obama continued to make good on his vow to stop deporting all but the most serious of illegal immigrants.
Last year, ICE caught 114,000 illegal immigrants, the lowest number in Mr. Obama’s tenure. That represented only 1 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants believed to be at large in the U.S.
More than 90 percent of those ICE apprehended had criminal convictions, had gang ties, were deemed national security risks, were new illegal arrivals or were defying active orders of deportation.
Just five years ago, ICE agents apprehended 338,000 people in the interior of the U.S. — nearly three times the 114,000 captured in 2016.
“That’s where we’ve really seen changes,” said one Homeland Security official who briefed reporters on the numbers Friday afternoon on the condition that he not be named publicly.
Sanctuary cities have given criminal illegal aliens the green light to break immigration law to illegally enter the United States.
President Obama’s weak-willed response to this massive outbreak of lawlessness has only encouraged more criminal illegals to come here.
And finally, even if they manage to get caught, nearly 300 cities across the country will just allow these criminals to waltz out of detention and roam the streets free to murder and rape at will.