A man was stopped entering Mexico at the Hidalgo border crossing and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents questioned him while searching his vehicle.
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More than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide in the United States or abroad are living freely in the United States and are not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to data ICE provided to Congress earlier this week.
The immigrants are part of ICE’s “non-detention” docket, which means the agency has some information about the immigrants and they have pending immigration cases in the U.S., but they are not currently in custody, either because they are not Priority detention would have been otherwise because ICE couldn’t find them.
ICE Acting Director P.J. Lechleitner sent the data collected through July 21 as part of a March request from Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R-Texas.
It’s unclear when the first of the 13,000 migrants crossed into the United States Two law enforcement officials familiar with the data told NBC News that many of the immigrants in ICE’s undetained cases, including serious criminals, crossed into the U.S. under the previous administration, including former president donald trumpof.
During a campaign event in Michigan on Friday, trump card Use the data to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris’ current immigration policies.
“I can finally look at them and say ‘I told you so’ to the fake news,” trump card explain. “These are vicious, vicious, vicious criminals who operate freely in our country.”
this White House There has been no comment on the data. An official told NBC News that the release of the data surprised the White House.
Two law enforcement officials said the 13,099 immigrants convicted of homicide living in the United States may have never had contact with ICE. Some may have crossed the border and then been released because the Border Patrol lacked information about their criminal histories. In many cases, the United States is not notified of a criminal conviction until a person enters the country.
In other cases, immigrants who have been convicted of a crime may be released by state and local officials after serving their sentence without notifying ICE, which is the policy of many sanctuary cities. ICE must find offenders upon release in order to detain and deport them.
The two law enforcement officials said ICE prioritizes arresting immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes such as homicide.
But the agency has limited resources, limiting the number of people they can locate and arrest. Currently, there are more than 7.5 million immigrants on ICE’s “not in custody” list, meaning they have pending immigration cases but are not currently in custody.
Lakely Turner told NBC News More local jurisdictions are collaborating began to reconsider its asylum policy in light of growing concerns about immigrant crime.
Earlier this year, NBC News worked with Maryland ICE agents to arrest a man convicted of murder in Colombia and a man convicted of attempted murder in El Salvador.
Agents explained that locating convicted criminals at large, from locating them to apprehending them, requires a significant amount of manpower.
