Feds Help Criminal Aliens Escape Justice In Texas
Last Updated: Wed, 11/18/2009 - 4:29pm
More than 1,000 illegal immigrants awaiting trial for serious crimes in one
major U.S. county were instead deported by federal immigration authorities and
freed in their home countries.
The released offenders include at least 128 murderers, more than 400 child
rapists and molesters, some 300 charged with aggravated assault and dozens more
accused of sexual assault, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and other grave
felonies.
The offenders’ newfound freedom came courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that provided a one-way ticket home after
bail was posted in their state criminal case. This sort of voluntary deportation
to escape justice occurs nationwide, but this batch focuses on just one county
in Texas.
Dallas County prosecutors provided the data to a local newspaper, calling it a
“wish list” of people they would have liked to see tried. Instead the illegal
immigrant criminals got away after bonding out and getting transferred to
immigration facilities where they agreed that returning home was better than
going to prison in America.
The 1,000 figure doesn’t even include all the illegal immigrant criminals the
feds helped get off in the nation’s eighth-largest county, only the most
serious, according to frustrated Dallas County officials. They assure defendants
knowingly use the system as a means to avoid prosecution. The sad thing, of
course, is that a federal agency is aiding and abetting them.
It could be worse, however. The criminals could be released in the U.S., which
ICE does regularly and attributes to resource shortages. Earlier this year a
Houston newspaper obtained public records that revealed the agency has freed
hundreds of illegal immigrants convicted of felonies—including homicide, sexual
assault and weapons violations—in the last few years alone. In many cases ICE
doesn’t even know the whereabouts of the criminal aliens, who were released in
various different states.
volunteer border guards doing ICE's job for them