Law-snubbing “sanctuary cities” during the four-year Biden-Harris administration freed over 22,000 criminal migrants sought by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation, according to newly reviewed federal records.
The reports found that from 2021 to 2024, 22,040 illegal immigrants were let out of jail into communities instead of being peacefully transferred to ICE.
That represents about 6% to 7% of those sought nationally by ICE for deportation, according to Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies who released the findings.
She has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for where those illegal immigrants were released. There are hundreds of sanctuary cities in America.
“It’s bad enough that the Biden policies have allowed so many criminals to come into our country, but it’s downright absurd that so many local officials deliberately release them back into the community after they’ve committed crimes instead of letting ICE send them back home. No wonder we have a migrant crime wave,” she told Secrets on Friday.
During their administration, neither President Joe Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris have pushed to force the most liberal sanctuary cities, counties, and states to work with ICE and comply with their requests for criminal migrants. ICE prefers to seize the illegal immigrants from the jails they are held in because that is safer than tracking them down in neighborhoods.
While sanctuaries believe they are acting benevolently to immigrant communities in releasing the illegal immigrants from jail, about a quarter go on to commit further crimes, according to government reports.
“Each declined detainer represents a deportable criminal alien who was released back into the community and given the opportunity to prey on more victims,” Vaughan’s report said.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to begin a roundup of the worst criminal migrants on his first day back in the White House, and most of America applauds that effort.
I asked @TomHoman_ what Day One Border Security looks like:
Three words.
“Shock and awe” pic.twitter.com/xX2raCRWsj
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 15, 2024
His new border czar, former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, has pushed to force sanctuaries to play ball and is already suggesting punishments that could prompt a change in their approach to ICE “detainer” requests.
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“Tom Homan and his team will have to find ways to restore cooperation with some of the sanctuary jurisdictions or work around them with a lot of fugitive operations,” Vaughan said.
“But since many of the die-hard sanctuaries will never change voluntarily, Congress should move to impose penalties on all of the noncooperative jurisdictions and create some kind of legal recourse for victims who suffer serious harm from criminal aliens who were released by sanctuaries,” she added.