In what should be good news for Americans troubled by the nation’s open borders and diminished internal illegal immigration enforcement, a federal judge has tossed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ personal and harmful interpretation of immigration law.
U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton, in the Southern District of Texas in Corpus Christi, ruled that the government has a duty to detain and deport criminal aliens, and those whom an immigration judge has ordered removed.
Tipton found, however, that aliens which the law demands be detained or removed are, with Mayorkas’ blessing, released, including those guilty of serious drug offenses, firearm assaults or sexual battery.
He said the evidence he reviewed before reaching his decision showed that under Mayorkas’ policy, migrants whom the law demanded be detained and then deported, were in fact being released into the general population.
Under President Joe Biden, overall illegal immigrant deportations sank to their lowest level since the mid-1990s, down 90% from 2019, according to a new report.
Alarmingly, removal of aliens who have serious criminal convictions fell by 65%. From Jan. 21 through July 9, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 6,000 criminal aliens guilty of serious offenses, a significant decline from the 17,553 aliens deported during the same period in 2019.
Biden, his cabinet and Congress should unanimously agree that, for public safety and national security interests, criminal aliens must be removed — no ifs, ands or buts.
Instead, criminal aliens are set free. Despite both the inexplicable decision to endanger the public and Tipton’s ruling, few immigration analysts expect the Biden administration to deviate from its course.
The administration consistently violates established immigration law and the “take care clause of the Constitution that requires the sitting U.S. president to assure that those and other laws be “faithfully executed.”
No responsible government should allow its citizens to be subjected to foreign-born, unlawfully present convicted felons. Nevertheless, the Biden administration persists in unnecessarily putting citizens at risk, a puzzle because immigration law provides a removal option.
Biden and others could learn an important lesson from Mexico, which actively — and successfully — returns undesirable criminals to their home countries, usually the United States.
The Washington Post, a committed Biden defender, surprisingly published a lengthy article that extolled deportation’s virtues, albeit from Mexico. Headlined “Gringo Hunters,” the newspaper glowingly reported on a specially trained Mexican police squad whose mission it is to track down U.S. criminals who have fled to Northern Mexico, or as agent “Ivan” said, “guys who think they can create a new life in Mexico,” a spin on the routinely cited reason that migrants come to America — to find a better life.
The Gringo Hunters, officially called the International Liaison Unit, have their sights set on Americans on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, serial killers, billionaires charged with securities fraud, and other fugitives on the run in Baja California.
The unit is impressively dedicated to its task, and admirably efficient. The Post’s saga noted that fugitive gringos have been rooted out in beach resorts, dangling from parasails, in remote mountain cabins, in fishing boats, at a Papas & Beer nightclub, in drug rehabilitation centers, in trailer parks, in cars with prostitutes, in Carl’s Jr. parking lots and tending bars.
Some of the apprehended were on crystal meth; others had undergone plastic surgery and acquired new names. Former Playboy models, Catholic priests, professional athletes, C-list celebrities and fugitive Marines — nabbed. A few were found dead.
Agent Ivan summed up his unit’s objective, a worthy one for Biden and Mayorkas to adopt as their own: “We don’t want a bunch of criminals in our community.”
— Joe Guzzardi is an analyst and researcher with Progressives for Immigration Reform who now lives in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com, or follow him on Twitter: @joeguzzardi19. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.