washington
CNN
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Former President Donald Trump is drastically distorting new immigration and crime statistics to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.
President Trump falsely claimed on Friday and Saturday that the statistics specifically pertained to criminals who entered the United States during the Biden-Harris administration. In reality, this number relates to criminals who entered the United States over several decades, including during the Trump administration. And Trump falsely claimed that this statistic specifically pertained to people currently living freely in the United States. This number actually includes people currently in prison or serving criminal sentences.
“Mr. Kamala should immediately cancel her press conference because, during her 3 1/2 year term as border czar, It has just been revealed that 13,000 murderers have entered our country.” . In another post Friday, Trump wrote that Harris “allowed nearly 14,000 murderers to roam freely and openly in our country.” They are “walking free to kill again,” he wrote on Saturday, escalating his remarks.
Facts First: President Trump’s claims are false in two major ways. First, the statistics he cited are not specific to people who entered the country during the Biden-Harris administration. Rather, these statistics pertain to noncitizens who entered the country under any administration, including the Trump administration. They are convicted at some point, usually after arriving in the United States. They currently live in the United States on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-custodial registry,” but some have been on the list for years, including during the Trump presidency. The reason is that their nationality does not allow them to be deported by the United States. There. Second, ICE’s list of “non-detainees” includes people currently serving jail or prison sentences for crimes. They are on the list because they are not specifically detained by immigration authorities.
A total of 425,431 convicted criminals had non-custodial records as of July 21, 2024, according to new statistics released by ICE in a letter to Republican lawmakers this week. Of these, 13,099 people were convicted of murder.
The statistic was rolled out by Trump and various Republicans and right-wing commentators as alarming evidence of Harris’ mismanagement of immigration policy. But in addition to exaggerating her role on the file, she was never actually a “border czar,” much of the chatter inaccurately describes what the statistics show. .
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in an email Saturday: “The data in this letter is misconstrued. The data goes back decades. It includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years, and the majority of them had custody rights long before this administration took office. decisions have been made. Also included are many individuals under the jurisdiction of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies or currently incarcerated.
It is unclear how many of the 13,099 murder convictions listed in ICE’s non-custodial records as of July 21 are currently in prison or jail. Nevertheless, attorney John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director in the Obama administration, said in an interview Saturday that all the murderous criminals listed on non-custodial records entered the U.S. during Harris’ presidential term. He said that was “100% false.” Vice-presidential position. Sandweg added: “These are definitely people who have been in the United States for a long time. …Many of them have been on the list for probably 20 years, and the United States just hasn’t been able to deport them.”
CNN could not immediately find public statistics on the number of people convicted of crimes who were on non-custodial records during Trump’s presidency. However, there are official statistics from just before and after his inauguration, and those statistics, which I will discuss later in this article, show that Mr. Trump also presided over an unrestricted dossier that included hundreds of thousands of infected people. is clear. Conviction.
Supreme Court ruling forces ICE to release some criminals
President Trump’s post says killers listed on non-custodial records are allowed to cross the U.S. border and live freely in this country, despite having been convicted of murder in a foreign country. This created an impression. In fact, as both Sandweg and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, make clear, the overwhelming majority of people convicted in non-custodial dockets live in the United States. Public data shows that he has been convicted of a crime. he told CNN.
If they’ve been convicted of a crime as serious as murder, why aren’t they in immigration custody? A 2001 Supreme Court ruling requires the U.S. government to detain people ordered to be deported. Indefinite immigration detention is not permitted. Therefore, if someone serves a sentence for murder and is subsequently ordered deported from the United States, but that country is uncooperative with the United States regarding immigration and will not take them back, that person must be released in the United States. –Usually released after serving a life sentence. Immigration detention for more than six months.
“Say you have a Russian national who has been convicted of murder. There’s nothing we can do there,” Sandweg said, given that Russia simply won’t accept deportation. “There comes a time when you have to let them go,” he said, adding that this doesn’t mean the person is “totally free.” Those on non-custodial records are often required to check in with ICE or be monitored electronically, “but they simply no longer have the legal authority to continue in custody,” he added. Ta.
Sandweg added, “Of course ICE doesn’t just say, ‘Okay, guys convicted of murder, you’re not a priority.'” …We have a man convicted of murder, and it is our strong desire not to release him onto the streets. ”
Reichlin-Melnick noted on social media on Saturday that the non-custodial registry includes people held in jails and jails, and on Friday she posted on social media, “ICE’s non-custodial registry includes The murder convicts listed have likely been in this country for decades.” , is serving a full criminal sentence and cannot be sent out of the country because he is from a country that limits U.S. deportation. ”
Reichlin-Melnik continued: “ICE’s non-custodial record includes some individuals with significant criminal histories who have won some form of protection and release relief after serving time. They are here now legally, but they remain on their record. You must check with ICE regularly.”
The list of convicted criminals on the non-custodial docket includes people who crossed the border illegally and people who entered the United States legally with visas, green cards, etc. and then committed crimes. This includes both people who have been subject to deportation proceedings or have been detained. A removal order was issued.
What the numbers show
The non-binding document is not new to the Biden-Harris administration. In fact, even during the Trump era, hundreds of thousands of people were convicted in non-custodial cases.
A reporter for the right-wing news outlet Fox News, which reported on these statistics, which President Trump had repeatedly touted on Friday, said on social media Friday night, “These crimes, as some have claimed, “Not all criminals entered the Biden administration era,” he said, adding, “Some criminals did not enter the Biden administration era.” Some of these criminals have been around for years and spanned multiple administrations. ”
According to previous official federal reports, as of August 2016, during the Obama administration, about five months before Trump took office, there were a total of 360,000 convicted felons on non-custodial records. There were 8,574 people. Another federal document shows that as of early June 2021, less than five months into the Biden-Harris administration, the number of convicted felons on non-custodial records totaled 405,786. They say it’s a person. Again, the total number of convicted criminals in July 2024 was 425,431.
In other words, this list grew by about 10% from August 2016 to June 2021 (roughly 5 years, including 4 years of the Trump administration), and then by another 5% over 3 years under the Biden administration. This means that it has increased. The Harris administration will run from June 2021 to July 2024.
To what extent the increase occurred because official information on people with criminal convictions who are not in custody is only released sporadically, and its dates do not coincide with the start and end dates of presidential administrations. It is impossible to say. Compare what happened in the last months of the Trump and Obama administrations and the first months of the Biden-Harris administration.
In any case, as President Trump continued to say Friday, there is no basis to say that all those convicted of murder were investigated during the Biden-Harris administration. And the numbers show that “the number of people convicted of murder has definitely increased under the Trump administration,” Sandweg said. Said. (To be fair, Trump, like other presidents, faces stubborn problems with uncooperative foreign countries, he added.)
Crimes committed by people not in custody in July 2024 range from the most serious crimes such as murder and sexual assault to ‘gambling’, ‘alcohol’ and ‘obscene’ crimes. The categories of convictions with the highest number of people recorded in the non-custodial register were “traffic offenses” (77,074 people), “assault” (62,231 people), “dangerous drugs” (56,533 people), and “immigration”. (51,933 people).
CNN could not immediately find public data on the number of people specifically convicted of murder in the past few years, including during the Trump administration.
It is clear that the total number of people out of custody, including those who have not been convicted of a crime, has skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration. (There are many reasons why people go on records, but I won’t go into them here.) ICE says records jumped from about 3.3 million people in fiscal year 2020, the last full term of the Trump administration, to about 6.2 people. The number is expected to reach 1 million people in 2023.
Harris’s critics are entitled to cite this substantial increase. But the president’s opponents have criticized her insincerely.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this article.