Last month, records were produced showing that officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) misled Congress and the American people when they claimed that 2,200 undocumented immigrants released from detention facilities to save money were only “low-risk offenders who do not have serious criminal records.” In fact, the released detainees included some who had been charged or convicted of serious, violent crimes, including kidnapping, sexual assault, drug trafficking, and homicide, and new records requested by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) include a list of zip codes where these detainees were released, including several in Texas.
In fact, the 2,200 who were released because of ICE’s claims that they needed to save money were only less than one percent of the total criminal aliens released by ICE last year. According to a letter to Grassley from ICE Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas J. Winkowski, “ICE released 36,007 criminal aliens from ICE custody” in 2013. Winkowski also provided, pursuant to Grassley’s request, a list of zip codes where the criminal aliens were released. Blogger Doug Ross took these zip codes and converted them into a list of cities across the United States. California, Florida, and New York cities are a significant part of the list, and Texas cities on the list include Cypress, Houston, and Katy.
The letter from Winkowski also lists the “name and location of the detention facilities from which the aliens with homicide-related convictions were released in FY 2013.” Texas locations include the Dallas Field Office Hold Room, the El Paso Service Processing Center, the Houston Contract Detention Facility, and the South Texas Detention Complex.
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