Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released nearly 90,000 illegal immigrants since 2013 who had committed more than 200,000 crimes, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) reported during a hearing Thursday that nearly a million illegal aliens who have received final deportation orders remain in the United States.
"We have people that come here legally to this country, we have people that come here illegally to this country," Chaffetz said during his opening statement. "But there’s a population here that may have overstayed a visa, they may have come here on a tourist visa or a student visa. But they were supposed to go home and they didn’t and they’re here illegally."
"Nevertheless, there is a large population of people that are in this country illegally," he said. "Unfortunately, there is also a criminal element to this population."
Chaffetz said 86,288 illegal aliens who have been convicted of a crime have been released by the federal government since 2013. Those illegal immigrants had committed a total of 231,074 crimes.
"That’s a lot of criminal activity that can be totally and wholly avoided," Chaffetz said.
Convicted sex offenders, kidnappers, and murderers were released last year, and a total of 953,507 aliens who have received deportation orders remain in the United States.
"In the last year alone, ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, released—keep in mind these people committed crimes or were convicted of these crimes, they’re in our possession and we release them out into the public—19,723 criminal aliens, who among them had 64,197 convictions, including 934 sex offenses, 804 robberies, 216 kidnappings, and 196 homicide-related convictions," Chaffetz said.
"How do you look the parents in the eye of somebody who was murdered—their son or daughter—because the government said, 'Well, you know, it’s in the best interest to just let them go back into the public here in the United States,’" he said.
Chaffetz pointed to the case of Casey Chadwick, who was brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant in June 2015. Jean Jacques, an illegal alien from Haiti, had been convicted of attempted murder in 1997.
Jacques stabbed Chadwick to death just five months after his release from prison, and was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 60 years in June.
"He should have automatically been deported back to his home country of Haiti after he was released from prison," Chaffetz said. "But instead, he was released from custody because Haiti refused to take him back and we just accepted that."