With an estimated 12-15 million illegal immigrants in the country, every step toward restoring law and order is a drop in the bucket compared to the enormity of the problem, but it’s a start.
In addition to preventing future illegal immigrants from entering the country through increased border security and visa reform, the Trump deportation plan aims to target and remove illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds (aside from immigration related offenses) first.
Trump himself said that he aims to deport two to three million illegals who meet this criteria (though according to the non-partisan Migration Policies Institute, there are “only” 820,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records).
If the lesser number is true (820,000), then ICE has already captured over a tenth of those just four months into the Trump presidency.
According to the Daily Caller:
The Trump administration boasted Friday of the nearly 30,000 convicted criminal aliens Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained since Donald Trump became president.
The news comes as a turnaround from one year ago when it was reported that ICE released nearly 20,000 criminal illegal aliens under the Obama administration.
Upon entering office, Trump signed executive orders related to the enforcement of immigration laws and thousands have been arrested on charges ranging from homicide to sexual abuse.
According to the White House, nearly 90 percent of the aliens had prior criminal convictions that included domestic violence, battery, sex crimes, manslaughter, assault, arson, and cruelty to a child.
ICE officials in Southern California nearly 200 persons Thursday, most of whom had prior criminal convictions. Within the group, 15 individuals were previously convicted of sex crimes, including a convicted rapist, an earlier deported cocaine trafficker and two with child cruelty convictions.
Other arrests between February and April include an MS-13 gang member in New York, a Mexican citizen wanted for child molestation, and a murder suspect wanted in Mexico since 2011.
“Additionally, earlier this month, ICE detailed the results of its six-week nationwide gang apprehension operation, which resulted in the arrest of 384 illegal immigrants, as well as 61 foreign nationals voluntarily admitted into the country. The arrests of these 445 foreign nationals include those arrested for homicide- or sexual crime-related charges,” the White House said in a statement.
While there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants with criminal records to go, the progress thus far has undoubtedly prevented tens of thousands of violent and sexual crimes from occurring than otherwise might have, had the guilty been allowed to roam freely and re-offend.
Source: Allen West
