ICE Report Rips Apart Liberal Narrative about "Law-Abiding" Illegal Aliens
President Donald Trump ran for office on a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, and repeatedly noted that he would focus on the arrest and removal from the country of “bad hombres” that had criminal convictions or pending charges.
Of course, liberals countered with the tired narrative that hardly any illegal immigrants are criminals, and that Trump would in essence be targeting “law-abiding” illegals — the narrative they lean on to support their sanctuary city policies that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials in turning over locally detained illegals for federal adjudication, processing and removal.
But according to The Daily Wire, a recent report released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement totally undercut that narrative as it made clear that an overwhelming percentage of illegal immigrants arrested by ICE in the 2017 fiscal year — roughly 90 percent — either had a criminal record or had criminal charges pending against them, with very few qualifying as “law-abiding” with no known convictions or pending charges.
That 18-page summary report detailed how ICE activity increased significantly following a Jan. 25, 2017, executive order from President Trump, and compared the resulting numbers of arrests with previous years.
Pew Research took a deep dive into the numbers of the report and found that of all those arrested by ICE in FY 2017, some 74 percent had past criminal convictions. An additional 16 percent of those arrested faced pending criminal charges, and a mere 11 percent had no criminal record or pending charges to speak of.
Interestingly, the report showed that ICE arrests in 2017 were nearly half of the number of arrests made in FY 2009, former President Barack Obama’s first year in office, and that roughly 61 percent of those arrested in 2009 by Obama’s ICE were of the “non-criminal” variety. That’s exactly the opposite of what liberals would have you believe.
Of course, the total number of arrests dropped significantly over Obama’s tenure in office, with a decisive closing of that gap between criminal and non-criminal over the latter years, though the number of arrests picked up sharply following Trump’s inauguration into office — some 30 percent higher over the previous year.
Of those arrested in 2017 with past criminal convictions, the top criminal category was driving under the influence, followed closely by possession or distribution of “dangerous drugs.” Other traffic offenses, immigration law violations and assault rounded out the top five criminal categories.
Pew noted that there was a bit of regional variance in the numbers of criminal versus non-criminal ICE arrests. For example, some 88 percent of those arrested in the southern California area had a criminal record, while only about 60 percent of those arrested in New Jersey were known criminals.
The ICE report didn’t come right out and explicitly condemn sanctuary city policies, but it wasn’t difficult to catch the numerous allusions to such policies at several points throughout the report.
Most notably, a section of the report titled “At-Large Arrests” pointed out that in some jurisdictions, ICE was compelled to make at-large arrests within the community of illegal immigrants, which inevitably brings them into contact with non-criminal illegals.
Comparatively, when ICE is permitted to make arrests in a “custodial setting” such as a jail or prison, it is virtually guaranteed that the arrestee will either have a criminal record or pending criminal charges, and is far less likely to be a non-criminal swept up in the at-large arrests or sweeping raids.
Because of the lack of cooperation from sanctuary city jurisdictions, ICE had to make significantly more at-large arrests in the community than in prior years. The non-criminal illegals caught in those arrests have nobody to blame but themselves (for being here illegally in the first place) and the liberal politicians who refused to cooperate with federal officials for their detainment.
The ICE report noted that it would be far better for everyone involved — both law enforcement officials and non-criminal illegal immigrants — if such jurisdictions cooperated and handed over criminal illegals to ICE within a custodial setting, which would negate the need for at-large arrests and raids to track down known criminal illegals.
The liberal media would have us all believe that Trump and ICE are rounding up and deporting millions of “law-abiding,” non-criminal illegal immigrants, but the numbers released by ICE paint a far different picture, and reveal that Trump has thus far kept his word; that he is focused on rooting out and deporting criminals who shouldn’t be here.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter so everyone can see how this ICE report just demolished the liberal narrative that Trump is going after “law-abiding” illegal immigrants.
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