Grassley Demands Data on Biden Admin Failure to Detain, Deport Criminal Illegal Aliens

WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is pushing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide information about its failures to comply with statutory requirements for the detention and removal of aliens with backgrounds involving criminal or terrorism activity or with final orders of removal.

 

“Your September 30th memorandum was, unfortunately, yet another in a long line of initiatives pursued by the Biden Administration to undermine the full, faithful, and robust enforcement of the immigration laws Congress has passed. As has been obvious since the day it was issued, your memorandum, and two earlier versions of it, constituted a de facto mandatory, blanket non-enforcement policy – masquerading as a discretionary ‘prioritization’ scheme – by which DHS personnel were expected to abide,” Grassley wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

 

In his letter to Secretary Mayorkas, Grassley cites the text of two statutes that mandate enforcement action against certain aliens who are inadmissible or deportable due to criminality or terrorism. He also notes the Biden Administration’s use of a “resource constraints” rationale as a pretext to simply not enforce immigration laws with which it disagrees.  

“The Biden Administration’s statements about resources constraints ring particularly hollow when it also continues to ask Congress to cut resources for immigration enforcement – particularly detention space,” Grassley emphasized.

Grassley notes that, as part of the court case that eventually vacated the September 2021 ‘Mayorkas Memo,” data was provided to the court showing that, in Texas alone, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rescinded 170 detainer requests for criminal aliens in the year following President Biden’s inauguration.  

 

Among other data points, the senator is requesting, on a state-by-state basis since January 20, 2021, the total number of rescinded detainers, the number of those rescinded detainers that were for criminal aliens or those with final orders of removal and the total number of detainers reissued.

 

Full text of Grassley’s letter to Mayorkas can be found HERE.

 

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