Sarah Saldana, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been called to testify before Congress to address this one key question: Why have deportations of illegal immigrants fallen off so sharply under President Obama?
The Daily Caller reported an 18 percent drop in deportations of illegals found to have committed crimes between fiscal 2013 and 2014. by the numbers, only 102,000 criminal illegals were sent packing in fiscal 201, the news outlet reported. On top of that, arrests of criminal illegals have fallen off by 35 percent in the past year, too.
Saldana's prepared testimony shows a reallocation and reassignment of almost 800 immigration personnel to deal with the influx of illegals in the past year. The agency also had to build three new family detention centers to deal with all the illegals crossing the border, the Daily Caller reported.
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Saldana is also supposed to speak to Congress about the problem of "sanctuary" cities that don't turn illegals over to ICE to process and deport.
"There are more than 200 jurisdictions, including some of the largest in the country," that are dubbed "sanctuary" cities, she said in prepared remarks,, the Daily Caller reported. And these cities collectively dismissed or ignored 15,000 requests from ICE to turn over illegals, between January 2014 and March 2015, the news organization found.
"While the reasons for this may vary," Saldana said, in her remarks, "in certain circumstances we believe such a lack of cooperation may increase the risk that dangerous criminals are returned to the streets, putting the public and our officers at greater risk."
Meanwhile, ICE has released 65,000 criminal illegals between 2013 and 2014, she said.
"Over the past six years, President Obama has steadily dismantled the interior enforcement of our nation's immigration laws," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, in a statement. "Under the Obama administration's watch, the apprehension, detention and removal of unlawful and criminal aliens has dramatically declined."
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