Obama Gives Criminal Illegals a "Budget Pardon"

 

IBDEditorials.com

Budget: Even before sequestration hits, the administration has been releasing hundreds of illegal aliens scheduled for deportation, jeopardizing public safety in a demagogic attempt to scare us into not cutting spending.

'I'm appalled to learn the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has begun to release hundreds of illegal aliens from custody, the first of potentially thousands to soon be freed under the guise of federal budget cuts," said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday in response to the release by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of hundreds of "low-risk" illegal aliens from detention.

Well, so are we.

We are appalled at the bogus warnings that our food supply will be tainted, our transportation security jeopardized and the like by slowing the rate of growth by the federal behemoth by a paltry $85 billion.

And now this — the release of criminal illegal aliens before sequestration even happens is a cynical and unnecessary political ploy. In Pinal County, 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, Sheriff Paul Babeau told Newsmax, the release of hundreds of detainees over the weekend was "outrageous and unacceptable, because there's a direct and immediate impact to public safety of families in my county."

Babeau noted: "These are criminal illegals. They were headed for deportation — but now, they have received a budget pardon."

An ICE spokesman said the detainees selected for release were "noncriminals and other low-risk offenders who do not have serious criminal histories."

Well, that depends on how you define "low risk" and "serious." We view all crime as serious and law enforcement and border security as an essential, not optional, function of government.

"It's abhorrent that President Obama is releasing criminals into our communities to promote his political agenda on sequestration," said Rep. Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, who, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is running the House hearings on immigration reform. "By releasing criminal immigrants on to the streets, the administration is needlessly endangering American lives."

"We're doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester. But there's only so much I can do," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said. "I'm supposed to have 34,000 detention beds for immigration. How do I pay for those?"

Considering ICE only has to reduce expenditures by 5.3% and that it had months to prepare, a better question to ask is why efficiency has to come at the expense of public safety?

ICE officials say only 303 were initially released, but a spokesman for Babeau told FoxNews.com that ICE officials have said they plan to release a total of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants.

This strikes as a kind of domestic Mariel boatlift when Fidel Castro emptied his jails and institutions of undesirables as part of the 1980 mass exodus from Cuba.

This move is a way of further appeasing amnesty and open-border advocates using sequestration as political cover.

"It is clear the administration is using the (budget cuts known as sequestration) as a convenient excuse to bow to political pressure from the amnesty groups, as it did with its unilateral decision to confer legal status on millions who are not lawfully present," said Jeff Sessions R-Ala.

Some 7,283 deportable illegal aliens who were released between 2008 and mid-2011 were later charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes, including 19 murders, 142 sex crimes, such as rape or child molestation, and thousands of drunk-driving offenses, drug crimes and felonies, according to a recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Sequestration, which President Obama designed and signed into law, has allowed the administration to continue and expand a policy of open borders and amnesty that wins political support at the price of public safety.