Q&A Of The Day – Part 2 How Many Criminal Illegal Immigrants are being released in Florida?
Bottom Line: The Biden administration policy to dramatically limit the scope of who is to be detained for deportation has had a profound impact on the number of criminal illegal immigrants being released across the country. According to former acting ICE Director Mark Morgan, the rule change reduces the number of criminal illegal immigrants being deported by 75%-90%. According to the 2020 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Report, ICE executed 122,233 detainers of criminal illegal immigrants who were removed. Had the current Biden policy been in place last year, there would have been a minimum of 91,675 more criminal illegal immigrants released back into our communities – or an average of 251 per day! So what’s it mean closer to home?
In Florida, we averaged 629 ICE detainers per month prior to the Biden administration policy for an average of 7,548 per year. A reduction in real-time of 75%-90% means a minimum additional 5,661 criminal illegal immigrants, or about 16 per day, are being released back into our communities as opposed to being deported. In 2019, a study of criminal illegal immigrants in Florida showed 19% of criminal illegal immigrants who aren’t deported are convicted of a felony within three years. Obviously, it’s likely the actual recidivism rate is higher – those are only the criminal illegal immigrants apprehended and convicted of felonies – however sticking with those rates... The Biden administration is choosing to release a minimum of 3 future felons, who were already in this country illegally and had already been convicted of a crime while here, back into our communities.
In complete context it’s entirely understandable why Governor DeSantis has viewed the crisis at the southern border as a security priority for the state of Florida. When hundreds of criminal illegal immigrants are being released into our country daily as it is – we may not be able to deport those who are here but if we can help stop them from getting here in the first place, that’s a worthwhile law enforcement initiative on behalf of Floridians.