35,000 illegal immigrant criminals from Liberia, China, Guinea and other countries set free in U.S. as State Dept. thwarts deportations
{Washington Times} – The State
Department is thwarting efforts to deport immigrants to China, Guinea,
Liberia and other countries that are reluctant to take back their own
citizens convicted of crimes — forcing immigration agents to release
often-violent criminals back onto the streets, U.S. government documents
show.
The Homeland Security Department’s
deportation agency has filed several petitions asking the State
Department to take steps to punish recalcitrant countries, including the
ultimate punishment of denying visas to visitors from those countries.
But the department has failed to follow through on the plain language in
federal law, saying it doesn’t want to anger foreign governments by
withholding the visas.
In the meantime, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement is forced to release the immigrants, many of whom
commit further serious crimes. The recidivism rate is 30 percent or
higher for criminal aliens released from detention.
And the backlog is growing: Some 35,000
immigrants with criminal records are awaiting deportation back to Cuba,
while the number of migrants awaiting deportation to China stands at
1,900, ICE said in documents provided to the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee, after questioning by Chairman Jason
Chaffetz, Utah Republican, and ranking Democrat Elijah E. Cummings of
Maryland.
The two lawmakers are demanding that the
State Department explain why it has refused to deny visas or block
funding to recalcitrant countries, as the law requires.
The State Department declined to answer a
series of questions from The Washington Times. Instead, it released a
response that insisted the department tried to work with Homeland
Security “on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all of the
factors surrounding each circumstance.”
The issue came to a head last year when
Jean Jacques, a Haitian man who served time for attempted murder but
whose home country refused to take him back, was released and then went
on to kill a young woman in Connecticut. Haiti claimed it wasn’t sure of
Jacques‘ citizenship.
Connecticut lawmakers demanded an
investigation into the incident, and then said all sides need to do more
to get other countries to live up to their obligations.
“We have points of leverage that we can
use. It doesn’t have to rely simply on our persuasive power. We can deny
visas, we can suspend aid,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
Democrat, told Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson at a hearing last
week.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, expressed his own frustration with what
he called inadequacy of the administration’s efforts. In a letter to
Mr. Johnson late last month, he hinted that he would consider removing
the executive branch’s discretion on whether to impose the visa
penalties on recalcitrant countries if the situation does not improve.
“Lives are being lost, the public’s
safety is at risk, and American families are suffering,” Mr. Grassley
wrote. “It cannot continue.”
Mr. Johnson insisted he is doing what he can but said it is up to the State Department to apply the most powerful tools.
“Very clearly, this is a work in
progress and at some point, I’m going to advocate that we use the
ultimate sanction available to us, which is to deny visas to these
countries if we don’t see more progress,” he said.
Analysts disagree with Mr. Johnson.
Federal law says Homeland Security “shall” deny visas once Mr. Johnson
invokes Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and that
he should use that power and force the State Department to comply.
Blocking of visas has been used only
once — by the George W. Bush administration in 2001. Guyana was refusing
to take back its citizens, and a backlog of some 113 Guyanese was
awaiting deportation.
The State Department stopped issuing
visas to Guyanese government officials and their families, and Guyana
quickly yielded. Within two months, 112 of the backlogged aliens had
been cleared to be shipped back — a 99 percent success rate.
Blunt weapon
Still, that episode has done little to sway the State Department, which says visa denial is too blunt.
“The Department of State believes
continued close interagency cooperation and coordinated approaches, both
in Washington and at posts overseas, form the best strategy to make
progress on repatriations,” said Nicole Thompson, a spokeswoman.
“Considerations of visa restrictions are not made lightly, and are made
in close coordination with other agencies.”
ICE tried to get things moving with a
2011 memorandum of understanding to promote better cooperation with the
State Department. It established a series of steps, including joint
meetings with foreign countries’ ambassadors and issuing demarches,
which are essentially diplomatic warnings.
Two demarches have been issued in the past 18 months: one to Algeria and one to Iraq, both sent in March 2015.
Cuba is the worst offender, according to
ICE, with some 35,000 convicted criminals ICE would like to deport, but
which Havana refuses to take back. Cuban authorities even rejected an
offer to deport just 10 percent of those criminals a year.
The Obama administration last year
agreed to extend more normalized relations to Cuba but did not make
repatriation a priority. ICE was left out of those negotiations, and the
issue was never solved.
That leaves the U.S. with few options.
Last year, the Homeland Security Department threatened to block an
increase in Cuban student and exchange program visas but relented,
hoping it would earn better cooperation from Cuba. So far, it hasn’t.
“DHS and ICE have exhausted standard
diplomatic approaches and seek alternative measures that fall within the
purview” of the State Department, ICE Director Sarah Saldana said in an
April letter to the State Department.
She has written similar letters on
Guinea, China and Liberia, which are also among the worst of the 23
countries ICE deems uncooperative in deportations. Another 62 countries
are on ICE’s watch list but whose records aren’t considered bad enough
to be labeled uncooperative.
Haiti, which refused to accept Jacques,
the man who killed the woman in Connecticut, is not on the worst
offenders’ list because it generally accepts deportees. ICE said a
monthly charter flight returns Haitians, and Haitian consular officials
are helping conduct interviews to take their people back.
In the case of China, ICE thought it had
a breakthrough last year after Mr. Johnson raised the issue of
cooperation with Gao Shengkun, the Chinese minister of public security,
and the two sides agreed to regular charter flights to ship Chinese
criminals home.
After two flights were scheduled, the
Chinese balked, saying the U.S. misunderstood the agreement and that it
was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not Public Safety, that must be
involved in deportations.
As of May, some 1,900 convicts were awaiting deportation, with some of the requests dating as far back as 2008.
Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director
at the Center for Immigration Studies, said ICE often gets blamed, but
the issues need to be solved at a higher level.
“They keep getting blown off by the
State Department,” she said. “This is a situation where it needs to be
raised to a higher level, and someone needs to show some leadership,
such as the president.”
Comments
Post a Comment