Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona Congressman Matt Salmon met on Monday, November 3, to discuss the possibility of launching a congressional hearing into why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) keeps releasing illegal aliens charged of crimes back onto the streets of our communities. The Sheriff had previously called for a congressional hearing into this matter.
Salmon issued a statement regarding a letter he sent on Friday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. In the letter, Rep. Salmon demanded answers as to why illegal immigrants apprehended for the commission of crimes and turned over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents for removal are found by Maricopa County Sheriffs once more committing crimes on Arizona streets just days later.
“It is with great sadness that two weeks ago we learned of the murder of two California sheriff’s deputies by Luis Enrique Monroy Bracamonte. Mr. Bracamonte was an illegal immigrant who had already been arrested by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office on four separate occasions, and turned over to ICE agents,” wrote Salmon.
“When I first spoke with Sheriff Arpaio and learned that this situation was not an outlier, I was deeply disturbed,” continued Salmon “Subsequently, I have learned that numerous individuals are continually apprehended for the commission of crimes in Maricopa County after already having been arrested and transferred to ICE custody for removal.”
“The Obama Administration should never allow known, dangerous criminals to travel American streets without regard for the safety of U.S. citizens,” charged Salmon. “It is my hope that my request for information is met with a prompt and thorough response by the Department of Homeland Security before more senseless tragedies take place.”
For the tenth month in a row, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has compiled the disturbing figures that reveal the number of criminal aliens taken by ICE who are arrested again and return to the Maricopa County jail system.
In October 2014, 307 illegal immigrants were arrested by Sheriff’s deputies and police officers in Maricopa County and given detainers, or holds by ICE. Of that number, 96 are repeat offenders, having had prior bookings with detainers placed on them, or 31.2% of the total. Among those are two illegal aliens who have been booked into the Sheriff’s jails 19 times each, one of which had 11 prior detainers, and, extraordinarily, 4 within the last year. These statistics mirror with rather remarkable consistency what has happened every month of 2014.
During that same month, two California deputy sheriffs were shot and killed by an illegal alien who had previously been incarcerated in Maricopa County jails four times, going back a number of years, and had been deported by ICE twice.
“An individual with this history,” Arpaio says, “convicted and deported more than once, should not have been able to get back into this country to commit these murders.”
Adding the figures from October onto the numbers already accumulated means that of the 4,172 ICE detainers placed on incoming criminal offenders, 1478, or 35.4%, are repeat offenders. “We have been compiling and presenting these figures over and over, month after month,” says Sheriff Arpaio, “and it seems that no one is paying attention, because of the underlying issues. These policies are contentious and difficult, and it’s easier to bury your head in the sand and ignore them. But that’s not good enough, not good enough for the public and the public safety, not good enough for national policy.
“Politicians and other officials have to stand up,” states Arpaio, “and do their duty, popular or not. The situation is untenable and unacceptable, and that’s why, after trying to get a real response from Homeland Security and ICE for months, I contacted Representative Salmon to see what he can do. We met and I will say, without going into specifics at this time, that his response was most encouraging, and I am confident we will be working together to resolve this serious problem before long.”