Immigrant criminals re-offend at higher rates than ICE estimates, report says
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
A recent investigation shows that 30 percent of illegal immigrants who committed crimes were charged with new offenses – such as rape, child molestation and attempted murder – contrary to assurances from federal officials that the criminals rarely went on to re-offend.
The investigation by The Boston Globe revealed that 30 percent of 323 criminal immigrants released in New England from 2008-2012 went on to re-offend, a rate more than four times as high as previously suggested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
While speaking before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee in 2011, ICE Executive Associate Director Gary Mead said only 7 percent of illegal aliens released since 2009 had been re-booked into ICE custody. But The Globe review of records in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine showed recidivism was substantially higher.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
The Globe investigation took three years, as staffers searched police logs, Internet databases, court records and media reports to identify which criminal immigrants had committed new crimes. A judge ordered the names of the 323 immigrants released in 2013.
Among the crimes The Globe uncovered:
- A Massachusetts man marked for deportation after serving jail time for hitting his ex-girlfriend on the head with a hammer was released in October 2009. He later found the woman and stabbed her multiple times.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
- A Maine man with a long criminal record robbed a man at knifepoint outside a 7-Eleven soon after his release from ICE custody.
- ICE fought to deport Jean Jacques to Haiti in 2012, but released him when Haiti wouldn’t accept him. Jacques stabbed a Connecticut man to death in 2015.
“ICE is committed to continually improving the agency’s ability to track and manage ever-evolving agency-related data, but the agency does not have statistically reliable information on recidivism rates prior to (2013),” ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer told The Globe in an email.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
ICE has released 86,288 criminals nationally from 2013-2015.