Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
More than 647,000 illegal immigrants convicted or suspected of sexual assault, homicide, and other heinous crimes are roaming free in the United States, federal immigration authorities confirmed on Wednesday.
The revelation came in a letter sent to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Patrick Lechleitner. The data disclosed by the agency showed that as of July 2024, there are 425,431 noncitizens convicted of criminal offenses, many of them serious, and 222,141 noncitizens with pending criminal charges who are currently not in ICE custody.
According to Fox News, “Those include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide,” as well as “[a]n additional 2,521 [with] kidnapping convictions and 15,811 [with] sexual assault convictions.”
Those with pending charges are facing allegations of similar offenses.
In his communique to Gonzales, Lechleitner contended that the Department of Homeland Security “removed or returned more than 893,600 individuals” from the United States from “mid-May 2023 through the end of July 2024” and that the “majority of all individuals encountered at the Southwest Border over the past three years have been removed, returned, or expelled.”
The acting agency head also took an apparent swipe at Democrat-run “sanctuary cities,” writing that “‘sanctuary’ policies can end up shielding dangerous criminals, who often victimize those same communities.”
As noted by Fox News, the Biden-Harris administration has released many illegal aliens “who came to the U.S. border into the interior, which coincided with a sharp drop in deportations as it focused on prioritizing public safety and national security threats.” The outlet reported that under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, there were “142,580 removals in FY 23, up considerably from 72,177 in FY 22 and 59,011 in FY 21, but still down from the highs of 267,258 under the Trump administration in FY 19.”
The released ICE figures come amid Harris’ planned Friday trip to the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2024 Democrat presidential nominee has presided over the ongoing invasion in her role as Biden’s “border czar.”
An estimated 10 million illegal aliens have unlawfully entered the United States since Biden and Harris took office in January 2021, according to the Washington Examiner.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood