Sunday, December 6, 2015

CRUZ, RUBIO: Wrong on Immigration - AMNESTY - THE HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO'S LOOTING AND BUILD THE LA RAZA SUPREMACIST PARTY BASE FOR DEMOCRATS

Cruz, Rubio: Wrong on Immigration


 The San Antonio Express-News, November 23, 2015
. . .
Cruz and Rubio disavow comprehensive immigration reform generally — though Rubio has not jumped on the Trump deportation bandwagon and Cruz has dodged the question — while also fearmongering that are criminals among the immigrants.

That Gang of Eight effort has come back to haunt Rubio. It has allowed Cruz to paint him as pro-amnesty. Rubio has responded with text and video that seem to show Cruz as a one-time proponent of giving a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants already here, a charge the senator from Texas denies.

But voters need to deal with the here and now. Here and now, both candidates oppose this path to citizenship, which would have to be a feature of comprehensive reform. Rubio now favors a piecemeal approach with border security as a key feature and no pathway until this is done.

Practically speaking, we see only glimmers of a difference with Cruz in this regard.

Cruz, even if Rubio’s charges are true, can at least claim some broad consistency in his immigration stances. Rubio, running from the charge that spearheading the Gang of Eight effort betrays the views of a particular GOP base, cannot.
. . .
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/article/Cruz-Rubio-Wrong-on-immigration-6652697.php




Cruz, Gaining on Trump in Iowa, Intensifies War Rhetoric

In Cedar Rapids, the Texas senator wins big applause from a fiercely partisan crowd at a Tea Party gathering.               

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Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Texas Senator Ted Cruz intensified his rhetoric this weekend in Iowa as he sought to compete with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump on tough talk about killing Islamic State terrorists.
"We will carpet bomb them into oblivion," Cruz said at a multi-candidate event in Cedar Rapids sponsored by the Tea Party-aligned FreedomWorks group. "I don't know if sand can glow in the dark, but we're going to find out."
Cruz received loud applause throughout his speech from the more than 1,500 people in attendance and got a standing ovation as he left the stage. It was a strong showing for Cruz ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, although a significant proportion of the crowd was from outside the state.

Like Trump and others in the race, Cruz has been giving national security topics more emphasis in recent weeks following the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, California—termed an "act of terrorism" by the FBI—and also a much deadlier attack on civilians in Paris last month.

Cruz's Surge

Cruz has benefited more than any other Republican candidate from the decline of Ben Carson, with his poll numbers in Iowa and nationally moving up in recent weeks as the retired neurosurgeon's numbers began sliding.
For his part, Carson called for more military muscle in the Middle East to fight the Islamic State. "If we really want to take care of our people over here, we need to get rid of them over there," he said.
Carson questioned why American planes aren't doing more to strike oil tanker trucks in the region. "You can't fight a politically correct war," he said. "Even if you do want to be politically correct, just say, 'If you drive it out of there, we're going to bomb it.' Just tell them ahead of time."
Speaking to reporters later, Carson downplayed Cruz's growing strength in polls. "Poll numbers go up and down," he said. "I do not worry about anyone, specifically."
Carson also defended his mispronunciation of Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement, in a speech this week in Washington. "I said hummus and then I corrected it in the same sentence and said Hamas. But do they talk about that?" he said. "Do people make mistakes sometimes when they're speaking?"

Fierce Crowds

The retired doctor and Cruz were two of the five candidates who spoke at what was the last multi-candidate event in Iowa before a late-January debate, which takes place just days before the caucuses.
The audience was intensely partisan. During a speech from a non-presidential candidate, one man yelled "Obama dead!," after the speaker said he was about to deliver some good news.
In his speech, Cruz told those in the arena that the "left has their eyes closed to the reality, the dangers of this world."
Cruz strongly rejected calls for stricter gun-control laws in the wake of recent mass shootings. "You don't stop the bad guys by taking away our guns," Cruz said. "You stop the bad guys by using our guns."
The Second Amendment, he said, is more crucial now than ever because it was designed as a "check on government tyranny."
Prior to his speech, Cruz said he was open to American troops on the ground in the Middle East to defeat the Islamic State. "If boots on the ground are necessary, we should do what is militarily necessary," he said. "We need to start with using overwhelming airpower."

Outsiders and Insiders

Senator Rand Paul told reporters before his speech that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is quickly becoming "the establishment candidate" because of his support for military intervention in Syria. The Kentucky senator generally favors limited use of America's military clout.
Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina also spoke at the nearly five-hour-long event, which finished just ahead of the University of Iowa's Big Ten championship game against Michigan State.
Dave Meggers, a farmer from Donahue, Iowa, was one of those in attendance at the event. After backing former Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2012, Meggers said he's leaning toward Cruz, Carson, or Rubio.
Trump, Meggers said, isn't providing enough specific information, although he's glad he's in the race, for now. "I keep thinking that he's going to shoot himself in the foot, but that hasn’t happened," he said. "But I like having him in the race because it makes people listen."
 

Patriots Should Rejoice as Cruz Tries to Steal Trump’s Thunder on Immigration

 By James Kirkpatrick

 VDare.com, November 23, 2015

Even Donald Trump can’t single-handedly turn Republicans into a party for immigration patriots. But the GOP frontrunner is receiving some support from an unexpected quarter—Senator Ted Cruz. Albeit overshadowed by the Paris bombing, Cruz has suddenly started to sound like Trump when it comes to birthright citizenship, limiting H1-B visas, attacking the Donor Class, and building Trump’s signature wall. Not surprisingly, Trump has even speculated about the Texas Senator as a vice-presidential candidate. [Trump names Cruz when asked about VP spot, By Mark Hensch, Politico, November 17, 2015]Regardless, a process of radicalizing the party is underway that the GOP Establishment can’t control.

Greatly to his credit, Ted Cruz opposed the Gang of Eight’s Amnesty/ Immigration Surge bill. But, looked at in more detail, Cruz has a checkered record on immigration, often falling into the cliché of “legal immigration good, illegal immigration bad. His overall position at the beginning of the primary season was distinctly weaker than that of some other candidates. Cruz barely mentioned immigration when he announced his campaign and he has a long record of wanting to boost H1B visas as a handout to the Donor Class.

Unexpectedly, however, Cruz made his move during the most recent Republican debate. As the moderators tried to bait other candidates into attacking frontrunner Trump, Cruz unexpectedly threw down the gauntlet on immigration, blasting any effort to turn Republicans into the “party of Amnesty” and, critically, connecting the immigration issue to low wages.
. . .
Even more significant, Cruz has explicitly committed to ending birthright citizenship, bringing up the topic during his stump speeches, and, critically, featuring it in his official platform [Cruz Plan To Stop Illegal Immigration Highlights, Ted Cruz 2016, Accessed November 23, 2015].


 For good measure, Cruz also says in his platform “I will complete the wall”—and vows to triple the number of Border Patrol agents.

 . . .
http://www.vdare.com/articles/patriots-should-rejoice-as-cruz-tries-to-steal-trumps-thunder-on-immigration
 
“Right now, the state of Florida doesn’t recognize illegal citizens for what they earn, and so they get nothing subtracted,” Bean said. “Illegal citizen households are getting more in benefits than the traditional legal residents in our state.”  

Earlier this year, Kate Steinle, 32, was shot to death by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco. The accused man had been deported five times, had been convicted of seven felonies, and was in the San Francisco County Jail on drug-related charges a couple of months before the shooting.  

Meet the State Lawmaker Who Wants to Slap $5K-a-Day Fines on Sanctuary City Officials

Aaron Bean, a Florida state senator, wants to crack down on the Sunshine State's seven "sanctuary" counties. (Photo: Scott Keeler/ZumaPress/Newscom)


A Florida state senator proposes to impose a fine of up to $5,000 a day on officials of “sanctuary cities” who don’t follow federal immigration enforcement policies.
“In Florida, [sanctuary cities] enjoy sovereign immunity, meaning they’re shielded from being sued on any of their decisions in conducting their business,” state Sen. Aaron Bean, sponsor of the bill, told The Daily Signal. “The legislature, if this bill passed, would take away that, and [sanctuary cities] would be able to be held responsible in court for their actions.”
Bean, a Republican who previously served in the Florida House, represents all of Nassau County and part of Duval County.
As of October, Florida has seven “sanctuary counties,” all in the Tampa and Miami areas, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
The bill, along with two others recently filed in the Florida state legislature, is “going to take a little pushback over illegal immigration in our state,” Bean, 48, said. He added:
We’re going to work on defining what a sanctuary city is. But we envision it [as] any city or county or municipality or entity that doesn’t cooperate. In fact, it could actually be a constitutional officer of a county that doesn’t cooperate with the federal government in tracking, enforcing, keeping up with illegal citizens[.] … We would deem them as a sanctuary.
Bean’s bill, SB 872, was filed Nov. 17 in the Florida Senate. A section reads:
Upon adjudication by the court or as provided in a consent motion declaring that a state entity, state official, law enforcement agency, local governmental entity, or local government official has violated this chapter, the court shall enjoin the unlawful policy or practice and order that such entity or official pay a civil penalty to the state of at least $1,000 but not more than $5,000 for each day that the policy or practice was found to be in effect before the injunction was granted.
State Rep. Larry Metz introduced an identical bill, HB 675, in the Florida House.

About 340 counties, cities, and states nationwide have been deemed sanctuary cities that protect illegal immigrants from deportation—including criminals.

“Cities that provided sanctuary to illegal aliens are also providing sanctuary for criminal illegal aliens who, according to GAO reports, are repeat criminal offenders who victimize thousands of Americans,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, referring to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Earlier this year, Kate Steinle, 32, was shot to death by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco. The accused man had been deported five times, had been convicted of seven felonies, and was in the San Francisco County Jail on drug-related charges a couple of months before the shooting.  

“Cities providing sanctuary for criminal illegal aliens should be fined by the states to deter such misbehavior,” von Spakovsky said, adding:
The state legislature should also consider lifting the sovereign immunity of all city officials who implement sanctuary policies, so that citizens who are injured by criminal aliens can directly sue those officials for their actions in providing such criminals with safe havens in which to commit their crimes.
Bean said that under his bill, a sheriff who lets an illegal immigrant out of jail “would be able to be sued and not have that immunity that he would enjoy otherwise.”

Some who defend sanctuary cities are worried that cities and other jurisdictions will pass laws that hurt illegal immigrants.

“Innovative regions of the world depend on ambitious, creative people who come from other parts of the world to contribute to our economy,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, a Democrat, told USA Today. “I think cities that become viewed as hostile toward immigrants will ultimately be forced to rethink their approach.”

Another bill filed in the Florida Senate, SB 750, would limit the amount of money that low-income households of illegal immigrants could receive from the state. A similar bill, HB 563, was filed in the Florida House.

The federal government gives Florida money to distribute to families. Florida subtracts the amount of benefits those families already receive, and other income, from the total benefits for which a family qualifies, Bean said.

“Right now, the state of Florida doesn’t recognize illegal citizens for what they earn, and so they get nothing subtracted,” Bean said. “Illegal citizen households are getting more in benefits than the traditional legal residents in our state.”

A third bill “ramps up the degree of charges” for illegal immigrants accused of committing crimes, he said.  

The next legislative session in Florida opens Jan. 12. Bean said he intends to make these bills the top priority and “hopefully make our state a safer one.”

A “handful” of lawmakers will push to get the bills through the legislature, he said, noting that he has joined with Metz, state Sen. Travis Hutson, and state Rep. Matt Gaetz.

“We think it’s just a shame the federal government hasn’t done its duty in defending our borders, enforcing our rules,” Bean said, “and that’s why we’ve decided as a state we’re going to step up and see what we can do.”


On Driver's Licenses for Illegal Aliens, States' Rights, and Discrimination

 By Dan Cadman

 CIS Immigration Blog,


 It is hard to imagine how a claim of unconstitutional discrimination could possibly be sustained. First, the ballot measure is facially neutral. It denies a license to anyone who is illegally in the country, without regard to race, ethnicity, or national origins. An overstayed Canadian of Northern European origins would be denied a license as surely as a mestizo from Mexico.

Second, individuals lawfully residing in the United States — including, obviously, people of Mexican or Central American origin — are all entitled to licenses without other qualifiers or caveats, so they are clearly unaffected. Surely if there were state-sanctioned "animus toward persons from Mexico and Central America" it would leak over into other provisions of the motor vehicle laws. But it clearly has not.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/cadman/drivers-licenses-illegal-aliens-states-rights-and-discrimination

Number of Unaccompanied Kids Crossing Border Has Doubled in Last Year 

By Joel Gehrke 

 National Review Online, November 25, 2015 . . . About 3,400 people cleared to receive the children “have later been determined to have criminal convictions including re-entry after deportation, DUI, burglary, distribution of narcotics, domestic violence, homicide, child molestation, and sexual assault,” Senate majority whip John Cornyn and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley wrote in a Monday letter to HHS and the Department of Homeland Security.. .

.http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427651/border-crisis-unaccompanied-kids-crossing-doubled-last-year

Lawless: The Obama Adminstration’s Uprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law


 12:00-1:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 17, 2015


The Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium
214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DC 20002-4999


http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawless

Overview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.

Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.

In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.


he immigration system Marco Rubio wanted



Saturday | November 14, 2015

The immigration system Marco Rubio wanted
 
The 2013 Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill is the signature achievement of Marco Rubio's four years and ten months in the U.S. Senate. Yet in the first four Republican presidential debates, in which Rubio has played an increasingly prominent role, he has not been asked even once about the specifics of the legislation.
Despite that omission, it seems likely that if Rubio continues to rise in the GOP race, someone, somewhere will pay attention to his most important accomplishment. The 1,197-page Gang of Eight bill is so far-reaching, and at the same time so detailed, that it provides a sharp picture of where Rubio would like to take the U.S. immigration system. Rubio has renounced parts of his own work, but it's not clear which parts, and it's not clear if he has renounced them for good or only until he determines they are more politically practicable.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575923
So until Rubio faces the inevitable questioning about his work, here are some features of the Gang of Eight legislation that might attract discussion as the Republican race goes forward.

1.) More immigration
 
 Comprehensive immigration reform means more immigrants coming to the United States, and with the Gang of Eight Rubio would have dramatically increased that number. "The legislation would loosen or eliminate annual limits on various categories of permanent and temporary immigration," the Congressional Budget Office wrote in its 2013 assessment of the legislation. "If [the bill] was enacted, CBO estimates, the U.S. population would be larger by about 10 million people in 2023 and by about 16 million people in 2033 than projected under current law."
Those numbers are wildly out of touch with the wishes of Republican voters — and of all voters, for that matter. Recently Pew Research asked Americans whether immigration should be "kept at its present level, increased or decreased." Among Republicans, just 7 percent supported increasing the level of immigration, which is at the heart of the Gang of Eight. Among independents, 17 percent supported increased immigration, along with 20 percent of Democrats. So while huge majorities do not support increasing immigration, the gap is particularly large among Republicans, whose presidential nomination Rubio is seeking.

2.) Immediate legalization of illegal immigrants

A fundamental and, as it turned out, fatal flaw of the Gang of Eight was apparent the first day Rubio and his fellow lawmakers announced the reform project, on Jan. 28, 2013. "On day one of our bill, the people without status who are not criminals or security risks will be able to live and work here legally," Rubio's co-author, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, said in a press conference with Rubio and the rest of the Gang.

Conservatives — the ones who remembered the debacle of the 1986 immigration deal, in which legalization of illegal immigrants came first but promised border security measures never happened — were stunned. They demanded that new border security and interior enforcement measures be in place and running before legalization.


oughout the months of writing and promoting the Gang of Eight bill, Rubio reassured skeptics the legislation would be very tough on illegal immigrants who are criminals. They wouldn't be allowed to stay. "They will have to come forward and pass a rigorous background check," Rubio said in April 2013. "If they're criminals, they won't qualify."

When the bill's language was made public, Rubio's promises didn't seem so tough. The legislation forbade the legalization of immigrants who had been convicted of a felony or of three or more misdemeanors. But there were some big exceptions.
First, if breaking the immigration laws was an "essential element" of any criminal conviction, it wouldn't count.
Second, the bill said the three misdemeanors that could disqualify an immigrant would count as three misdemeanors only "if the alien was convicted on different dates for each of the three offenses."
That meant that in the case of a person accused of multiple misdemeanors, and convicted of them during a single court session — a fairly common occurrence — the multiple convictions would count as just one conviction for the purposes of the Gang of Eight bill. Given that in some U.S. jurisdictions, some cases of vehicular manslaughter, drunk driving, domestic violence, sex offenses and theft are all categorized as misdemeanors, an illegal immigrant could be convicted of multiple serious crimes and still stay in the country.

Finally, Rubio gave the Secretary of Homeland Security broad authority to issue waivers to criminal immigrants. "The secretary may waive [the misdemeanor and other requirements] on behalf of an alien for humanitarian purposes, to ensure family unity, or if such a waiver is otherwise in the public interest," the bill said. That could mean almost anything

4.) An unclear enforcement guarantee
During the selling of the Gang of Eight, Rubio pushed back against skeptics who suggested the executive branch — whether the Obama administration or any other administration — would actually enact tough border security. Rubio's trump card was the bill's provision for something called the Southern Border Security Commission. Made up of border state governors plus representatives appointed by the president, the House and the Senate, the commission, according to Rubio, would take charge of border security if an administration failed to do so.
Rubio promised conservatives that the commission would have actual authority to enact security. The bill "requires if the Department of Homeland Security does not achieve 100 percent operational awareness and 90 percent apprehensions on the border, they lose control of the issue, to a commission, not a Washington commission, to a local commission, made up of the governors of the four border states ... where they will then finish the job of securing the border, including the fencing plan," Rubio told radio host Mark Levin in April 2013. Rubio told many other people the same thing.
It wasn't true. When the bill came out, it said the commission's "primary responsibility ... shall be making recommendations" to the president and Congress on "policies to achieve and maintain the border security goal." The bill said the commission would have six months to write a report with security recommendations; after giving its advice, it would be disbanded within 30 days.
The commission was, in other words, just another Washington commission. It had no actual power to do anything, regardless of what Rubio said.


5.) An imbalanced work force
Almost all immigration reformers, Rubio included, argue that the current American immigration system allows in too many unskilled immigrants and too few skilled ones. Rubio used that argument for the Gang of Eight. "I'm a big believer in family-based immigration," he told The Wall Street Journal in January 2013. "But I don't think that in the 21st century we can continue to have an immigration system where only 6.5 percent of people who come here, come here based on labor and skill. We have to move toward merit and skill-based immigration."
When the Gang of Eight bill was released, it became clear that Rubio and the Gang, while increasing high-skilled immigration into the United States, increased low-skilled immigration even more.
"[The bill] would allow significantly more workers with low skills and with high skills to enter the United States — through, for example, new programs for temporary workers and an increase in the number of workers eligible for H-1B visas," the CBO noted. "Taking into account all of those flows of new immigrants, CBO and [the Joint Committee on Taxation] expect that a greater number of immigrants with lower skills than with higher skills would be added to the workforce."


6.) The legalization trigger loophole
Many conservatives worried that the legalization for illegal immigrants, once offered, would inevitably become permanent. Rubio sought to reassure them by explaining that the Gang bill would require a "trigger," by which registered provisional immigrants could attain permanent status only after a long set of border security measures were put into place.


The actual bill, however, directed the secretary of Homeland Security to start the permanent legalization process even if the conditions had not been me. The Gang bill specified that permanent legalization would begin 10 years after passage of the legislation, whether or not the border provisions were in place. Even if the delay was the result of lawsuits tying up progress on border security, the bill said permanent legalization would go forward.


7.) Government micromanagement and special favors
The Gang of Eight bill included page after page of new laws governing the agricultural sector of the economy. After months of delicate negotiations between labor and business, Rubio and his colleagues decided to dictate wages, to the penny, for millions of agricultural workers. The bill specified a number of categories — agricultural products graders and sorters; animal breeders; farmworkers and crop, nursery and greenhouse laborers; agricultural equipment operators, etc.
For each, it laid out specific pay rates for 2014, 2015, 2016 and beyond. For example, farmworkers would be paid $9.17 an hour in 2014, $9.40 an hour in 201, and $9.64 an hour in 2016. Agricultural equipment operators would be paid $11.30 an hour in 2014, $11.58 an hour in 2015 and $11.87 an hour in 2016. And so on. Rubio and the Gang then set out a detailed formula for determining wages in the years after 2016.
As for special favors, Rubio and the Gang gave a number of breaks to specific business areas — tourism, cruise ship operators, meat packing plants and more. Perhaps the most famous is what might be called the Snowboard Exception. The original version of Rubio's bill extended the time limit for visas for "a ski instructor seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing services."
Not long after the bill was released, an amended version appeared, changing the language to "a ski instructor, who has been certified as a level I, II or III ski and snowboard instructor by the Professional Ski Instructors of America or the American Association of Snowboard Instructors ... seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing services." The snowboard instructors, ignored in the original bill, got their break in the final version.


8.) Fast tracks on the road to citizenship
During the selling of the Gang of Eight, Rubio repeatedly emphasized that newly-legalized illegal immigrants would have to go through years of procedures — maintaining a clean record, learning English, etc. — and still have to wait 10 years before even having a chance to apply for permanent legal residents, and only then if the border has been certified secure. Citizenship might lie many years beyond.
As it turned out, Rubio's bill contained some much quicker ways for illegal immigrants to gain permanent legal status. A provision in the Gang of Eight allowed immigrants with even a limited connection to the agricultural economy to gain legal status in half the time Rubio said. This is from a piece I wrote in April 2013:

The Gang of Eight bill creates something called a blue card, which would be granted to illegal immigrant farm workers who come forward and pass the various background checks the bill requires for all illegal immigrants. Instead of the 10-year wait Rubio described in media appearances, blue card holders could receive permanent legal status in just five years.

How does an illegal immigrant qualify for a blue card? If, after passing the background checks, he can prove that he has worked in agriculture for at least 575 hours — about 72 eight-hour days — sometime in the two years ending Dec. 31, 2012, he can be granted a blue card. His spouse and children can be granted blue cards, too — it can all be done with one application ...

[After five years], the legislation requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to change the blue card holder's status to that of permanent resident if the immigrant has worked in agriculture at least 150 days in each of three of those five years since the bill became law. A work day is defined as 5.75 hours.

Also, the immigrant can qualify for permanent residence with less than three years, of 150 work days each, if he can show that he was disabled, ill or had to deal with the "special needs of a child" during that time period. He can also shorten the requirement if "severe weather conditions" prevented him for working for a long period of time, or if he was fired from his agricultural job — provided it was not for just cause — and then couldn't find work.
So for many illegal immigrants, there was no 10-year wait. And Rubio and the Gang granted similar fast-track five-year status to so-called Dreamers who came to the U.S. before age 16 — and also to their spouses and children.



9.) An all-powerful Secretary of Homeland Security
For all its specificity, the Gang of Eight bill granted enormous discretionary powers to the secretary of Homeland Security; it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that for many of the seemingly hard-and-fast requirements in the bill there is a provision giving the secretary the authority to grant a waiver.
One way to see that is to search the bill's text for the phrase "the secretary may," which generally means the secretary has been given the authority to ignore or waive some requirement in the bill. The misdemeanor waiver earlier in this article is just one example. Waiving the blue card requirements is another.
There are more. For example, the secretary can re-admit to the United States an illegal immigrant who has been deported if the secretary determines it is in the "public interest." And in some cases, Rubio and the Gang gave "sole and unreviewable discretion" to the secretary to decide when an illegal immigrant may stay in the country legally.

THE TAX FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY IN LA RAZA-OCCUPIED LOS ANGELES IS ESTIMATED TO BE MORE THAN $2 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR! THIS SAME COUNTY HANDS MEXICO'S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS MORE THAN A BILLION IN WELFARE!

10.) A disappearing back taxes requirement

During the sales period for the Gang of Eight, Rubio said many times that the bill would require immigrants to pay back taxes. "They would have to ... pay back taxes," Rubio told The Wall Street Journal in that January 2013 interview. But when the bill was released, the requirement wasn't much of a requirement. The legislation did not require illegal immigrants to pay back taxes in order to be given registered provisional immigrant status.
It did say that when, after five or 10 years, that immigrant applied for permanent legal status, he or she would have to have "satisfied any applicable federal tax liability," which the Gang defined as "all federal income taxes assessed." That meant the immigrant had to pay any existing IRS liability — except that as illegal immigrants, many had never filed paperwork with the IRS to pay taxes in the first place and thus had no existing liability in IRS files. No matter what Rubio said, the bill did not require all illegal immigrants to pay back taxes.
The Gang of Eight bill passed the Senate on June 27, 2013. The vote was 68-32; the winning total was reached by unanimous support of the Senate's 54 Democrats, plus 13 of Rubio's fellow Republicans, and of course Rubio himself. After the vote, Rubio turned on his own handiwork, with a spokesman saying he opposed passage in the House. The bill was stopped when Speaker John Boehner rejected efforts to bring it up for a vote and House Republicans declined to pass their own version of comprehensive immigration reform.
This year, Rubio refused to answer the question of whether he would sign the Gang of Eight bill if he were president. Future immigration reform, Rubio now argues, must be done piecemeal, with legalization measures coming after the implementation of security. But the Gang of Eight was a big bill. For many Republicans, and indeed for many in the public at large, its problems went far beyond sequencing. If Rubio continues to play a leading role in the Republican presidential race, those problems will receive renewed attention.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. during a campaign event at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
Charles Krupa

Cruz Fought Amnesty, Rubio Fought Conservatives

By: Daniel Horowitz | November 13th, 2015
    • i remember the spring of 2013 like it was yesterday.  It was one of the busiest times of my career.  Republicans were working overtime to codify Obama’s open borders agenda into law, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was the ring leader of the effort.  The voice of the people was not being heard and we were subjected to fallacious talking points on a daily basis. 
Instead of working with conservatives, Rubio and his office coordinated attacks on conservatives together with liberals.
Along with several other conservative writers, I wrote dozens of articles exposing the details and the broader implications of the 1,000-page piece of bilge that is known as the “Gang of 8” bill.  Instead of working with conservatives, Rubio and his office coordinated attacks on conservatives together with liberals.  Even after all of his promises were exposed as pure fabrications, he still went on to star in ads for Mark Zuckerberg touting his bill as something it was not. 
Now Rubio wants our votes and suddenly he is on our side. 

In order to convince voters that he has walked the Road to Damascus on the road to winning Des Moines, his campaign is promulgating the following narrative: Rubio learned his lesson from the Gang of 8 and now shares the same views on immigration as Ted Cruz, so nothing to see here – let’s move on.
There is a lot to like about Marco Rubio.  But as it relates to the all-important compound issue of immigration, one would have to erase all of history to suggest he is on the same playing field as Ted Cruz.  When it mattered, Cruz wasn’t just a vote for sovereignty and security, he was a voice for it.  Rubio wasn’t just a vote for Obama’s prize agenda, he was a voice for it.               
For those of us who fought with everything we had to defeat the Gang of 8 despite Rubio’s best effort to score the ultimate game-winning touchdown for Obama, we can’t just let this go.  The only similarity Rubio and Cruz share as it relates to immigration is the same similarity that a firefighter and an arsonist share with regards to fire – they were both there at the scene of the crime.  The one was a perpetrator of the problem; the other was part of the solution.

Rubio Negated His Own Talking Points at the Time


As highlighted in his Conservative Review profile, Rubio was promoting his bill as ‘enforcement first’ even as he was voting down amendments to make the bill do just that.  It’s not just that Rubio changed his position to “enforcement first,” it’s that he touted that Gang of 8 bill for months as doing just thatHe opposed the following amendments:
  •  A provision to ensure that the border is secured before any amnesty is granted. (Senate.gov)
  •  A provision requiring completion of the reinforced double-layered border fencing. He was one of only five Republicans to do so. (Senate.gov)
  •  A provision requiring that a visa tracking system be implemented before any amnesty is granted. (Senate.gov)
  •  A provision that would require congressional votes affirming the border has been secured before the granting of temporary legal status. (Senate.gov)
As noted in our guide to political conversions, a legitimate recent convert to a cause is usually the most zealous in championing the issue unprompted by political pressure.  When Cruz was fighting Obama’s executive amnesty, the border surge, sanctuary cities, the release of criminal aliens, the Islamic refugee scheme, and homegrown terror threats via immigration – using all his platforms on committee, floor speeches, and in the media – where was Rubio?  Until Breitbart called him out for not supporting a single enforcement effort, Rubio never even signed onto the effort against sanctuary cities. 
Moreover, even long after the Gang of 8, Rubio continued to promote his amnesty agenda and gave tail winds to Obama instead of actually fighting him on his executive amnesty.  While Cruz was fighting DACA, Rubio was saying he’d keep it and the only problem he had with it is that it wasn’t permanent amnesty.  He seemed to be bothered more by Obama poisoning the well against his legislative amnesty effort than actually stopping Obama’s broader open borders agenda.
Every candidate engages in conversions while running for office to a certain extent.  Even Cruz has changed his tune on H1B visas.  But Cruz has a lot more credibility on the overall immigration issue because “enforcement first” has been more than a campaign talking point to serve as window dressing for amnesty; it has embodied his tenure in the Senate. 
Ask yourself this question: do you believe in your heart of hearts that Rubio will fight for conservatives on sovereignty and borders the minute he wins the primary and commences his general election messaging? 

 
- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/11/cruz-fought-amnesty-rubio-fought-conservatives?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&utm_campaign=e9ef12a58c-Immigration_Opinions_11_13_1511_13_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7dc4c5d977-e9ef12a58c-45100901#top

Turning Cruz’s Firefighting Into Arson


Rubio is now suggesting that Cruz also supported amnesty because at the time of the Gang of 8 debate, Cruz introduced an amendment stripping the provision providing a path to citizenship from the bill.  Rubio’s camp disingenuously submits that this act means Cruz implicitly supported legalization so long as no citizenship is involved.
Perhaps Rubio is unfamiliar with an amendment strategy when fighting legislation because he has been in very few firefights for the cause of conservatism since his election to the Senate.  One way of embarrassing and exposing proponents of a bad bill is by introducing amendments to tweak the bill with changes its proponents are hard-pressed to oppose.  This doesn’t mean the senator would otherwise support the legislation if it contained those changes, it’s merely a strategy to derail the bill altogether.
It’s for this reason that Rubio, during one of the few battles he actively fought, introduced an amendment to the Corker-Cardin bill forcing Iran to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.  It’s not that he otherwise would have been fine with the Iran deal or the Corker-Cardin process.  This was merely a way to expose the other side for their extreme position. 
This is what Cruz was doing when he introduced amendments to pause any amnesty until the enforcement was implemented or to take away the pathway to citizenship or his amendment to expand legal immigration.  He wanted to show that the entire Gang effort had nothing to do with being compassionate, pro-immigrant, or enforcement oriented – as proponents of the bill, including Rubio, so ardently asserted – rather this was a scheme to create new Democrat voters and disenfranchise the citizenry. Indeed, Senator Sessions, who clearly opposes legalization, supported Cruz’s amendment, while Rubio’s fellow Gang members on committee opposed it.
Hence, in the irony of all ironies, Rubio is using the hard work of Cruz in defeating his bill to suggest that they really share the same view!
Rubio was promoting his bill as ‘enforcement first’ even as he was voting down amendments to make the bill do just that.


Rubio Negated His Own Talking Points at the Time



As highlighted in his Conservative Review profile, Rubio was promoting his bill as ‘enforcement first’ even as he was voting down amendments to make the bill do just that.  It’s not just that Rubio changed his position to “enforcement first,” it’s that he touted that Gang of 8 bill for months as doing just thatHe opposed the following amendments:
  •  A provision to ensure that the border is secured before any amnesty is granted. (Senate.gov)
  •  A provision requiring completion of the reinforced double-layered border fencing. He was one of only five Republicans to do so. (Senate.gov)
  •  A provision requiring that a visa tracking system be implemented before any amnesty is granted. (Senate.gov)
  •  A provision that would require congressional votes affirming the border has been secured before the granting of temporary legal status. (Senate.gov)
As noted in our guide to political conversions, a legitimate recent convert to a cause is usually the most zealous in championing the issue unprompted by political pressure.  When Cruz was fighting Obama’s executive amnesty, the border surge, sanctuary cities, the release of criminal aliens, the Islamic refugee scheme, and homegrown terror threats via immigration – using all his platforms on committee, floor speeches, and in the media – where was Rubio?  Until Breitbart called him out for not supporting a single enforcement effort, Rubio never even signed onto the effort against sanctuary cities. 
Moreover, even long after the Gang of 8, Rubio continued to promote his amnesty agenda and gave tail winds to Obama instead of actually fighting him on his executive amnesty.  While Cruz was fighting DACA, Rubio was saying he’d keep it and the only problem he had with it is that it wasn’t permanent amnesty.  He seemed to be bothered more by Obama poisoning the well against his legislative amnesty effort than actually stopping Obama’s broader open borders agenda.
Every candidate engages in conversions while running for office to a certain extent.  Even Cruz has changed his tune on H1B visas.  But Cruz has a lot more credibility on the overall immigration issue because “enforcement first” has been more than a campaign talking point to serve as window dressing for amnesty; it has embodied his tenure in the Senate. 
Ask yourself this question: do you believe in your heart of hearts that Rubio will fight for conservatives on sovereignty and borders the minute he wins the primary and commences his general election messaging? 

 
- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/11/cruz-fought-amnesty-rubio-fought-conservatives?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&utm_campaign=e9ef12a58c-Immigration_Opinions_11_13_1511_13_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7dc4c5d977-e9ef12a58c-45100901#top

Guarding Right Flank, Cruz Unveils Immigration Plan
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
 
 
Further aligning himself with the most restrictive voices in his party — and guarding his right flank amid new questions about how tough he is on the issue — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Friday released his plan to end illegal immigration and temporarily halt some legal immigration.
Speaking in Florida, the GOP presidential hopeful presented the plan in populist terms, lamenting how American workers are "left behind" as people flood the country unlawfully and snatch up menial jobs, driving down wages. Cruz also continued to distance himself from his past support for dramatically upping legal immigration — support that has been magnified by an increasingly contentious feud with presidential foe Marco Rubio.

Cruz's plan includes many proposals he has previously voiced, including finishing a border wall only minimally started under President Obama, tripling the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents and putting an end to so-called "sanctuary cities," or jurisdictions that do not comply with federal immigration law. The plan's most notable parts, however, deal with curbing legal immigration, a relatively new addition to his approach. 

If elected president, Cruz is promising to suspend for 180 days the H-1B visa program, which allows legal immigration for highly skilled foreign workers. With the program on hold, he says, a Cruz administration would investigate allegations of abuse that recently led him to abandon his 2013 support for increasing the number of visas fivefold. Cruz's previous position has become fodder for some GOP rivals and conservative radio hosts skeptical of Cruz's hardline immigration credentials.
More generally, Cruz wants to hold off on any increase in legal immigration "so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high." In his remarks, he emphasized his support for legal immigration, but said it "needs to be structured so that it serves America's needs, so that it benefits our nation rather than undermining our nation."

The plan brings Cruz's immigration views closer in line with those of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who also wants to put new restrictions on legal immigration. Cruz has already backed Trump's call to end birthright citizenship, or the right to citizenship for any person born in the United States regardless of the immigration status of his or her parents.

Rolling out the plan at an Orlando church, Cruz took some fresh shots at his Republican rivals, many of whom he said "composed an epic poem in support of amnesty" at the most recent Republican debate. On Friday, he blasted them for dodging the question of whether they would repeal Obama's executive actions on immigration, which he has promised to do if elected.

"There’s some Republican candidates for president that don’t want to answer that question," Cruz said. "Sometimes they answer them one way on English stations and another way on Spanish stations."
 
While the event was rife with implications for Cruz's feud with Rubio, the Florida senator's name did not come up. However, Cruz left little doubt whom he was referring when he recalled how the Gang of Eight bill — a failed congressional attempt at immigration reform — was pushed by Democratic senators and "maybe a Republican or two."
 
Cruz was not as coy after his speech, telling reporters that in the Gang of Eight debate "Marco chose to stand with [New York Democratic U.S. Sen.] Chuck Schumer and to lead the fight tooth and nail for a massive amnesty plan." 
 
The simmering rivalry between Cruz and Rubio boiled over Thursday, with the candidates and their campaigns openly sparring over immigration views. As Cruz sharpened his criticism of Rubio as soft on immigration, Rubio countered that the two actually had much in common on the issue. 
 
At the center of the scrap is Rubio's membership in the Gang of Eight group of lawmakers who set out to reform the immigration system in 2013. Among the amendments Cruz proposed was one that would have stripped the legislation of a pathway to citizenship for people in the country illegally, but kept in place a pathway to legal status. Rubio's campaign sees Cruz's amendment as a tacit endorsement of a pathway to legal status; Cruz's team suggests that is not necessarily so, arguing that the amendment was part of a broader strategy to kill the bill. 
 
In an interview Friday morning, Cruz said he "laughed out loud" when he heard Rubio say their immigrations views are similar. 
 
"That’s like Obama saying my position is the same as his on Obamacare," Cruz told conservative radio host Mike Gallagher. "That’s like the Ayatollah Khomeini saying my position is the same as his on the Iranian nuclear deal. It is laughingly, blazingly, on-its-face false."
 
Speaking with reporters Friday morning in Florida, Rubio repeated his assertion that there is little daylight between himself and Cruz on immigration, saying he was "puzzled and quite frankly surprised by Ted's attacks, since Ted's position on immigration is not much different than mine." 
"He is a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally," Rubio said. "If he's changed that position, then he certainly has a right to change his position on that issue, but he should be clear about that."


Enforcement Overdrive: A Comprehensive Assessment of ICE’s Criminal Alien Program

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is a massive enforcement program administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and has become the primary channel through which interior immigration enforcement takes place. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of individuals removed from the interior of the United States are removed through CAP. Each year, Congress allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to fund this program. Until now, however, little has been known about how CAP works, whom CAP deports, and whether CAP has been effective in meeting its goals.

Based on government data and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), this report examines CAP’s evolution, operations, and outcomes between fiscal years 2010 and 2013. That data shows that through CAP’s enormous web, ICE has encountered millions and removed hundreds of thousands of people. Yet, CAP is not narrowly tailored to focus enforcement efforts on the most serious security or safety threats—in part because CAP uses criminal arrest as a proxy for dangerousness and because the agency’s own priorities have been drawn more broadly than those threats.
As a result, the program removed mainly people with no criminal convictions, and people who have not been convicted of violent crimes or crimes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies as serious. CAP also has resulted in several anomalies, including that it appears biased against Mexican and Central American nationals. Moreover, the number of CAP removals differs significantly from state to state.
ICE’s reliance on CAP to achieve its goals will likely continue as ICE further narrows its focus on removing noncitizens with criminal convictions and continues to seek partnerships with state and local law enforcement to find them. This examination of CAP’s outcomes from fiscal years 2010 to 2013 offers important insights into CAP’s operations over time and its potential impact on communities moving forward. In particular, it raises questions about the ability of a broad “jail check” program to effectively remove serious public safety threats without resulting in serious unintended consequences, such as those described in this report.
Background: CAP’s Expansion over Time
  • While CAP was originally conceived as a “jail check” program narrowly tailored to remove noncitizens incarcerated for serious criminal convictions, it has become a massive enforcement web—indeed, the primary mechanism through which ICE removes people from the U.S. interior.
  • When the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) established CAP’s predecessor programs in 1988, only a limited number of crimes rendered a person removable. These crimes were commonly considered “serious” or “violent.” Subsequently, between 1990 and 1996, Congress expanded the criminal grounds for removal to potentially include minor crimes such as drug possession, simple assault, shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and disorderly conduct.
  • The scope of CAP ballooned when Congress dramatically increased its funding nearly thirty-fold between fiscal years 2004 and 2008, from $6.6 million to $180 million. In fiscal year (FY) 2013, Congress began to dedicate the funding that Secure Communities had received towards CAP, resulting in a 64 percent increase in CAP funding, from $196.7 million in FY 2012 to $322.4 million in FY 2015.
CAP’s Outcomes: Large Web, Few Removals of Immigrants with Serious or Violent Convictions 
  • Between FY 2010 and FY 2013, ICE encountered over 2.6 million persons through CAP, but removed fewer than 508,000. Of that number, 87,426 individuals had a conviction for a violent crime or a crime the FBI classifies as serious (a mere 3 percent of the total number of encounters).
Out of more than half a million CAP removals that took place between FY 2010 and FY 2013, ICE classified the largest share (27.4 percent) as not “definite criminals”—i.e., ICE recorded no criminal conviction. The second- and third-most prevalent categories of CAP removals were of individuals whose “most serious” criminal conviction involved a “traffic offense” (20 percent) and “dangerous drugs” (18 percent), followed by “assault” (6 percent) and “immigration” (5 percent).
  • During this time period, over 4 out of 5 CAP removals were of individuals with either no conviction or of individuals who have not been convicted of a violent crime or one that the FBI classifies as serious.
  • Conversely, a very low percentage of individuals removed through CAP were convicted of extremely serious crimes. Specifically, 1.7 percent were convicted of burglary, 1.6 percent were convicted of robbery, 1.5 percent were convicted of sexual assault (including rape), 0.5 percent were convicted of homicide, 0.4 percent were convicted of kidnapping, and 0.1 percent were convicted of arson.
Do CAP Removals Match ICE’s Removal Priorities? 
  • ICE has justified its interior removal efforts by stating that its intention is to remove “those convicted of the most serious crimes,” ranking immigrants with convictions as “Level 1, 2, or 3” offenders (in order of decreasing seriousness), and publicly emphasizing that an increasing share of its removals are of Level 1 or 2 offenders. But, in recent years, ICE’s criminal removal priorities have still encompassed many offenders besides those who had committed violent crimes or crimes the FBI classifies as serious.
  • While the largest proportion (33 percent) of CAP removals falls into Level 1, almost two-thirds of all Level 1 removals were not associated with convictions for a violent crime or a crime that the FBI classifies as serious. Of all Level 2 removals, 76 percent involved individuals who have not been convicted of a violent crime or a crime classified as serious by the FBI. And among Level 3 removals, crimes other than those categorized as violent or serious accounted for 95 percent of removals.
CAP Appears to Be Biased against Mexican and Central American Nationals 
  • Mexican and Central American nationals are overrepresented in CAP removals compared to the demographic profiles of those populations in the United States. People from Mexico and the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) accounted for 92.5 percent of all CAP removals between FY 2010 and FY 2013, even though, collectively, nationals of said countries account for 48 percent of the noncitizen population in the United States. Nationals of those countries, however, are not markedly more likely to be convicted of violent crimes or crimes the FBI classifies as serious.
The Geography of Removals: State-by-State Results 
  • The number of CAP removals differs significantly from state to state. And this discrepancy is not associated with the size of the states’ noncitizen populations.  
  • The states with the highest rates of removals include several with smaller immigrant populations (i.e., Mississippi, Wyoming, and West Virginia), as well as two with large immigrant populations (Texas and Arizona).
  • Although further research is needed to explain these discrepancies in CAP removal rates, it is plausible that the state-by-state outcomes of CAP are related to local cooperation with ICE; ICE’s local capacity and presence in those states; and the availability of public transportation and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Introduction

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) has become the primary program through which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), conducts immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of individuals ICE removes from the interior of the United States are removed through CAP—the vast majority in cooperation with state and local law enforcement. Each year, Congress allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to fund CAP. And ICE’s reliance on CAP to achieve its goals will likely continue as ICE further narrows its focus on removing noncitizens with criminal convictions and continues to seek partnerships with state and local law enforcement to find them.
There are reasons to question CAP’s efficacy and efficiency, and to look closely at unintended consequences. As this report discloses, CAP is not narrowly tailored to focus enforcement efforts on the most serious security or safety threats—in part because CAP uses criminal arrest as a proxy for dangerousness and because the agency’s own priorities have been drawn more broadly than those threats. As a result, the program is overbroad and arguably inefficient. CAP also has resulted in several anomalies, including an apparent bias against Mexican and Central American nationals, and the number of CAP removals differs significantly from state to state.
Prior to this report, little was known about how CAP works, whom CAP deports, and whether CAP has been effective in meeting its goals. As the debate grows over whether state and local cooperation with ICE helps or hinders public safety, this report provides crucial information regarding CAP’s evolution, operations, and outcomes between fiscal year (FY) 2010 and August 17, 2013, based on never-before-released government data[5] and documents obtained by the American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Connecticut Chapter through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Yet, as this report highlights, much is still unknown about CAP, and the government’s lack of transparency and poor data collection and sharing means that a full assessment of CAP remains elusive.
What the data does show, however, is that from FY 2010 to August 17, 2013, ICE officers encountered over 2.6 million persons, and removed nearly 508,000 through CAP. As an initial matter, it is unclear why, in a program designed to target removable noncitizens in jails, ICE spends so much time, money, and resources encountering those whom ICE does not even arrest, let alone remove. Moreover, despite this massive enforcement web, only 3 percent of the total number of CAP encounters resulted in removal of an individual with a conviction for a violent crime or a crime the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies as serious. Indeed, strikingly, CAP removed mainly people with no criminal convictions and people who have not been convicted of violent crimes or crimes the FBI classifies as serious. Over four out of five CAP removals from FY 2010 to August 17, 2013—83 percent—fell into these categories. Among those noncitizens whom ICE removed through CAP, the most common “most serious” conviction that ICE recorded was none (27 percent).
Of those removed with a conviction, a sizable proportion had not been convicted of a violent crime or a crime the FBI classifies as serious. The most prevalent “most serious” convictions that ICE recorded were traffic offenses (20 percent) and drug offenses (18 percent). And among those persons removed with traffic and drug convictions, many had committed lesser offenses. For example, 30 percent of those whose most serious conviction was a traffic offense were convicted of non-DUI offenses, and 39 percent of those whose most serious convictions were drug offenses were convicted of possession, with another 23.2 percent not specified. Among all removed individuals whose most serious convictions were marijuana offenses, 53.6 percent were convicted of possession. This data complements other reports showing that DHS’ removals of those with criminal convictions have largely been removals of those who committed drug or lesser offenses—in some cases, with harsh impact compared to their equities in the United States. And even though this report shows that ICE, over time, began better tailoring its CAP removals to its own priorities, still, most removed through CAP did not commit violent crimes or crimes the FBI classifies as serious.
In addition to removing large numbers of minor offenders, ICE has removed through CAP disproportionately high numbers of Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans compared to the composition by national origin of both the foreign-born and the undocumented populations in the United States. Interestingly, the data also shows that nationals of those countries are not markedly more likely to be convicted of violent crimes or crimes the FBI classifies as serious.
Finally, as states and localities have adopted differing policies regarding cooperation with ICE, state-by-state disparities in CAP removals have emerged. CAP led to the removal of a disproportionately high number of noncitizens in certain states in FY 2013. In particular, states including Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, and Arizona experienced the highest rates of CAP removals per 1,000 noncitizens. Meanwhile, some states with substantial immigrant populations, including Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Connecticut, Florida, and Illinois, experienced comparatively lower rates of CAP removals per 1,000 noncitizens. A possible explanation is the emergence of “community trust” policies in FY 2013, such as the introduction of anti-detainer policies by urban localities, which reduced local cooperation with ICE regarding non-serious offenders, as well as those charged but not convicted. Possible explanations also include ICE’s detention capacity in different states, and the necessity for immigrants to drive in rural states, which increases the chances of contact with local law enforcement or ICE.
Looking forward, as Congress, states, and localities debate the impact of state and local cooperation with ICE on public safety, and ICE attempts to further narrow its enforcement priorities, excluding from removal those with no convictions or only minor convictions, the data in this report is crucial to understand. ICE asserts that it is protecting public safety in the interior of the United States by removing the “worst criminals.” Most noncitizens removed through CAP, however, were not the worst criminals, and many were not criminals at the time of removal. The data calls into question whether CAP is designed to effectively and efficiently achieve the government’s stated policy goals. Given the comparatively few CAP removals involving individuals who committed violent crimes or crimes the FBI classifies as serious, relative to the financial and human cost of deporting minor offenders, the value of current CAP funding levels is questionable.

Background

While CAP was originally conceived as a “jail check” program narrowly tailored to remove noncitizens incarcerated for serious criminal convictions, it has become a massive enforcement web—indeed, the primary mechanism through which ICE removes people from the U.S. interior. ICE has both expanded the target population of CAP’s core “jail check” activities to include those charged with any crime, whether convicted or not, and expanded CAP’s mission outside jails into immigrant communities. Meanwhile, Congress has consistently fueled those expansions with dramatic funding increases.
Rather than operating CAP as a freestanding program with specialized CAP officers, ICE merely designates its CAP work separately for budgetary purposes. In other words, ordinary ICE officers record their work as CAP work when performing CAP duties. As CAP’s former unit chief stated, “[a]ny [ICE] ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] officer at any time can conduct a Criminal Alien Program duty,” if (s)he is pursuing removal of a noncitizen with a criminal history. Thus, in FY 2014, CAP was funded for 1,495 full-time employees nationwide, even though, as of 2013, CAP only operationally employed a unit chief and 10 staff officers who oversaw the program from ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C.
CAP’s Traditional “Jail Check” Role
In CAP’s traditional “jail check” function, ICE identifies removable noncitizens who are incarcerated in jails or prisons and initiates removal proceedings against them. To this end, ICE collaborates with over 4,000 federal, state, and local facilities that provide ICE information about the foreign nationals in their custody. Federal facilities are required to report all self-identified foreign inmates to ICE, under an agreement between ICE and the federal Bureau of Prisons. Additionally, certain state and local facilities voluntarily provide ICE with lists of foreign nationals in custody, targeted lists of suspected noncitizens, or access to detainees or records, depending on the level of cooperation. State and local law-enforcement agencies have provided the bulk of CAP’s work. From FY 2010 to FY 2013, only 6.4 percent of CAP encounters were referred from federal facilities, compared to 91.8 percent referred from state or local law enforcement.
Once receiving information, the ICE officer ascertains a noncitizen’s removability either by screening records or traveling to a jail or prison to interview the noncitizen. Before November 2014, if the ICE officer found a noncitizen to be removable, the officer would typically lodge a “detainer” request for state or local law enforcement to hold the noncitizen, interview the noncitizen if necessary, and subsequently initiate removal proceedings if appropriate. Under new November 2014 guidance ending Secure Communities and announcing the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), ICE officers are directed to request state or local law enforcement to notify ICE of the noncitizen’s release, rather than issue a detainer request (absent special circumstances).
CAP’s Reach into Immigrant Communities
Though CAP primarily functions in jails and prisons nationwide, ICE also has extended the program’s reach into communities through what the agency terms “at-large” activities, including pursuing individuals on criminal probation or parole, and working with other ICE enforcement initiatives, such as the National Fugitive Operations Program. In FY 2013, 97 percent of CAP removals appear to have been executed through CAP’s traditional jail check functions. It is generally unclear, though, when ICE arrests and removes noncitizens in the community, whether ICE counts those arrests as “CAP removals.”
CAP’s Dramatic Expansion in Mission, Scale, and Funding
CAP’s expansion of its “jail check” targets, as well as its activities in communities, evolved out of several events: (1) Congress broadening the legal grounds for criminal deportability, (2) subsequent dramatic funding increases for CAP, (3) ICE establishing the controversial “Secure Communities” program, with its mission to remove every noncitizen deportable for a criminal offense, (4) ICE prioritizing the removal of noncitizens with criminal convictions, and (5) ICE folding Secure Communities’ technology and operations into CAP, and apparently Secure Communities’ broad mission, too.
U.S. immigration-enforcement agencies have prioritized the removal of noncitizens with criminal convictions since at least 1986. When the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) established CAP’s predecessor programs in 1988, the crimes that resulted in removal were a limited number commonly considered “serious” or “violent”—i.e., murder, gun trafficking, and drug trafficking, which had been designated by Congress as “aggravated felonies.” Subsequently though, between 1990 and 1996, Congress expanded the criminal grounds for removal to potentially include less serious crimes such as drug possession, simple assault, shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and disorderly conduct.
The scope of CAP then ballooned when Congress dramatically increased CAP funding nearly thirty-fold from fiscal years 2004 through 2008, from $6.6 million to $180 million; and in FY 2009 began to allocate to ICE $1 billion per year (and more in later years) through CAP and other programs to identify and remove “criminal aliens” (albeit prioritized “by the severity of [their] crime”) (Table 1).
Table 1: Appropriations for ICE, CAP, and Secure Communities, FY 2004-2016 (in millions)
 
Fiscal Year
Overall ICE Appropriations
CAP
Secure Communities
2004
$3,669.6
$6.6
-
2005
$3,127.1
$33.7
-
2006
$3,866.4
$93.0
-
2007
$4,696.6
$137.5
-
2008
$5,054.3
$180.0
$200.0
2009
$5,968.0
$189.1
$150.0
2010
$5,741.8
$192.5
$200.0
2011
$5,805.4
$192.5
$200.0
2012
$5,983.0
$196.7
$189.1
2013
$5,878.2
$205.0
$138.1
2014
$5,610.7
$294.2
$25.3
2015
$5,932.8
$322.4
--
2016 (requested)
$5,881.1
$320.3
--
 
One of those other programs was “Secure Communities,” through which the fingerprints of those arrested by local law enforcement were shared with ICE. ICE established Secure Communities in 2008 following Congress’ directive to “identify and remove every deportable criminal alien”—not just those convicted of serious or violent crimes. Secure Communities’ mission also included targeting noncitizens in the community, not just those incarcerated in jails. Both these functions were later integrated into CAP, expanding its massive reach.
In June 2010, ICE Director John Morton published a memorandum setting new civil enforcement priorities, with the goal of focusing removals on public safety and other threats. The priorities set out a three-tiered framework, with noncitizens who have criminal convictions as Priority 1—and, within Priority 1, individuals with convictions ranked by the severity of their crimes into three levels (Levels 1, 2, and 3). Subsequently, though, when ICE management set numeric goals for removals with convictions, overall goals were set rather than goals by level. This may have resulted in ICE removing more offenders at lesser levels. For example, ICE management for FY 2012 set an aggressive goal of 225,000 removals with convictions, stated that that goal was “[t]he only performance measure that will count,” and directed officers to “reallocate all available resources” to meet it. In response, an ICE Assistant Field Director in Atlanta offered to “process more petty offenses,” among other proposals.
CAP’s unit chief also testified in 2013 that CAP had targeted “any alien convicted of any crime” since 2010. Additionally, ICE’s internal “Criminal Alien Program Handbook” (May 2013) made clear that CAP targets included individuals “regardless of the status of conviction” (emphasis in original), i.e., even where the criminal charge was pending. CAP’s unit chief confirmed this practice. This guidance exists even though ICE has defined “criminality” in terms of a “recorded criminal conviction,” following Morton’s 2010 memorandum.
On January 22, 2013, ICE completed nationwide deployment of Secure Communities in all local jurisdictions. ICE then stated that it would transfer “full responsibility” of the day-to-day management of Secure Communities to CAP, and began to realign Secure Communities funding towards CAP. In FY 2013, Congress began to direct the funding that Secure Communities had received towards CAP, resulting in a 64 percent increase in CAP funding from $196.7 million in FY 2012 to $322.4 million in FY 2015. By February 2014, CAP had assumed operational responsibility for Secure Communities. In November 2014, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson then stated that DHS was discontinuing the “Secure Communities program, as we know it,” although it replaced it with PEP.
As CAP subsumed Secure Communities operationally, it appears that CAP also assumed its broad mission. Today, CAP’s stated mission is essentially coextensive with ICE’s general priorities—to remove noncitizens that in ICE’s view are public safety threats, by using criminal history as a proxy for danger. CAP also targets noncitizens not only in jails, but also in the community.

CAP’s Outcomes: Large Web, Few Removals of Immigrants with Serious or Violent Convictions

Between October 1, 2009, and August 17, 2013, ICE encountered 2.6 million individuals under CAP. Such encounters consisted of an interview and/or screening of a person or his or her records to determine citizenship status, nationality, lawful presence, and legal right to remain in the United States. During the same period, ICE arrested over three-quarters of a million individuals through CAP, and removed more than half a million.
Over time, while the number of encounters through CAP has remained relatively high, the number of CAP arrests and removals has gone down. For instance, in FY 2010 there were roughly 329 arrests and 256 removals per 1,000 encounters. By 2013, that rate had decreased to 250 arrests and 139 removals per 1,000 encounters. In other words, CAP’s web has remained large while its arrests—and particularly removals—have decreased (Table 2).
Table 2. CAP Encounters, Arrests, and Removals by Fiscal Year

FY
Encounters
Arrests
Removals
 2010
668,079
219,477
171,281
 2011
701,473
221,122
138,971
 2012
674,368
200,254
120,371
 2013*
556,708
139,375
77,231
Total
2,600,628
780,228
507,854
*Data provided for FY 2013 covers the period of October 1, 2012, through August 17, 2013.

It is unclear why, in a program designed to target removable noncitizens in jails, ICE spends so much time, money, and resources encountering those whom ICE does not even arrest, let alone remove. Indeed, CAP’s massive enforcement web even has ensnared U.S. citizens. In 2012, CAP and ICE management identified 278 U.S. citizens upon whom ICE had placed detainers.
That said, these overall numbers tell us little about the population that CAP has targeted and removed. Examining the details underlying the general numbers tells us more about CAP’s effectiveness and efficiency in identifying, apprehending, and removing genuine public safety threats.
Most interestingly, of the over half-million CAP removals that took place between FY 2010 and FY 2013, ICE classified the largest percentage (27.4%) as not “definite criminals”—i.e., ICE recorded no criminal conviction in its ENFORCE database. The second- and third-most prevalent categories of CAP removals were of individuals whose “most serious” criminal conviction, according to ICE, involved a “traffic offense” (20 percent) and “dangerous drugs” (18 percent), followed by “assault” (6 percent) and “immigration” (5 percent). The FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) crime coding scheme, and ICE’s internal coding based upon it, classify all drug offenses under the rubric of “dangerous drugs,” without any “non-dangerous” category. Collectively, people with no recorded conviction, or a drug, traffic, or immigration conviction, constituted 70.5 percent of all removals ICE attributed to CAP between FY 2010 and FY 2013 (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Most Serious Criminal Offense Convictions, FY 2010-2013
To more precisely examine CAP’s efforts to remove public safety threats, we classified removed individuals into three broad categories, following the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the FBI classification schemes:
  1. Individuals with no conviction: I.e., “definite criminal” no, according to ICE.
  2. Serious or violent: Individuals whose “most serious” conviction was a serious or violent conviction according to independent classification schemes. These include (a) crimes that the FBI classifies as Part I; (b) a subset of those the FBI classifies as Part II (i.e., Part II-violent); and (c) domestic abuse crimes. According to the FBI’s decades-old crime classification system, “Part I” includes eight types of crimes, which criminal scholars have commonly understood to represent the most serious crimes. Those eight categories are murder and non-negligent homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson. Part II, on the other hand, includes a broad spectrum of crimes that range from more to less serious. In an effort to further disaggregate the broad universe of FBI-Part II crimes, MPI classifies them as violent or nonviolent. Part II-violent includes crimes such as assault, battery, kidnapping, hit and run, weapons offenses, and sex offenses. Following MPI’s approach, we included these crimes (Part II-violent), as well as domestic abuse crimes, in our “serious or violent” category.
  3. Other: Individuals whose “most serious” conviction was for (a) a FBI Part 2 crime that is not violent according to MPI; (b) drug possession; (c) drug sale, distribution, or transportation; (d) an immigration crime (e.g., illegal entry or re-entry); (e) a nuisance crime; (f) driving under the influence (DUI); or (g) traffic offenses other than DUI.
Between FY 2010 and 2013, more individuals were removed through CAP without a criminal conviction (27.4 percent) than with a serious or violent conviction (17.2 percent). Put another way, based on this categorization, over 4 out of 5 CAP removals between FY 2010 and 2013 involved individuals with either no conviction or individuals who were not convicted of a crime classified as violent (following MPI’s definition) or serious, according to the FBI (Table 3).
Table 3: Removals by Broad Type of Crime, FY 2010-2013
Crime Category
2010
2011
2012
2013 (through Aug. 17, 2013)
Total
Percent increase/decrease of share
(2010-2013)
Not Definite Criminal
64,867
(37.9%)
38,095
(27.4%)
25,280
(21%)
11,054
(14.3%)
139,296
(27.4%)
 
-62.3%
FBI Part 1
13,349
(7.8%)
10,226
(7.4%)
9,619
(8.0%)
6,557
(8.5%)
39,751
(7.8%)
 
9.0%
FBI Part 2 (Violent)
12,293
(7.2%)
10,631
(7.6%)
9,627
(8.0%)
7,008
(9.1%)
39,559
(7.8%)
 
26.4%
Domestic Abuse
2,314
(1.4%)
2,065
(1.5%)
2,224
(1.8%)
1,513
(2.0%)
8,116
(1.6%)
 
48.1%
Total—Serious or Violent
27,956 (16.3%)
22,922
(16.5%)
21,470
(17.8%)
15,078
(19.5%)
87,426
(17.2%)
 
19.5%
FBI Part 2 (Nonviolent)
13,127
(7.7%)
12,677
(9.1%)
11,705
(9.7%)
7,727
(10.0%)
45,236
(8.9%)
 
29.9%
Nuisance Crime
3,728
(2.2%)
4,106
(3.0%)
3,896
(3.2%)
2,428
(3.1%)
14,158
(2.8%)
 
40.9%
Drugs- Possession
19,085
(11.1%)
16,359
(11.8%)
15,251
(12.7%)
11,183
(14.5%)
61,878
(12.2%)
 
30.6%
Drugs- Sale, Distribution
11,814
(6.9%)
9,144
(6.6%)
9,690
(8.1%)
7,222
(9.4%)
37,870
(7.5%)
 
34.8%
Immigration
6,594
(3.8%)
6,240
(4.5%)
5,562
(4.6%)
4,379
(5.7%)
22,775
(4.5%)
 
50.0%
Traffic (DUI)
17,043
(10.0%)
20,694
(14.9%)
18,455
(15.3%)
12,657
(16.4%)
68,849
(13.6%)
 
65.7%
Traffic (Other than DUI)
7,061
(4.1%)
8,733
(6.3%)
9,062
(7.5%)
5,503
(7.1%)
30,359
(6.0%)
 
73.2%
Total—Other
78,452
(45.8%)
77,953
(56.1%)
73,621
(61.2%)
51,099
(66.2%)
281,125
(55.4%)
 
44.6%
Total
171,275
(100%)
138,970
(100%)
120,371
(100%)
77,231
(100%)
507,847
(100%)


 
 
Moreover, although over time CAP removed fewer individuals overall and a higher percentage of them with convictions, it essentially replaced removals of people who had not been convicted of a crime with removals of people who had not been convicted of a violent crime or of a crime that the FBI classifies as serious. Specifically, while the share of those removed under CAP without a conviction decreased 62.3 percent over time—from 37.9 percent in FY 2010 to 14.3 percent in FY 2013—the share of those removed under CAP who had not been convicted of a serious or violent crime increased 44.6 percent over time—from 45.8 percent in FY 2010 to 66.2 percent in FY 2013.
Furthermore, the proportion of individuals removed through CAP whose most serious criminal conviction related to traffic, drug, or immigration offenses increased from FY 2010 to FY 2013. The proportion of individuals removed with a traffic offense conviction increased each year, from 14.4 percent to 24.0 percent; the proportion of individuals removed with a drug conviction grew from 17.2 percent to 20.5 percent; and the proportion of individuals removed with an immigration-related criminal conviction grew from 4.4 percent to 6.5 percent (Appendix 1).
Additionally, breaking down those most prevalent convictions by specific offense types reinforces that a sizable proportion of the individuals ICE removed through CAP, if convicted, were convicted of less serious crimes. For example, 30 percent of all removed individuals whose most serious conviction was a traffic offense were convicted of non-DUI traffic offenses. Among “dangerous drug” offenders, 38.8 percent were convicted of possession and 23.2 percent did not have a “specified” conviction. Only 33.1 percent of the convictions were associated with selling, smuggling, or distributing drugs. Further, among all marijuana offenders, 53.6 percent were convicted for possession compared to 37 percent convicted of smuggling or selling drugs.
Lastly, a very low percentage of individuals removed through CAP were convicted of extremely serious crimes. Specifically, 1.7 percent were convicted of burglary, 1.6 percent of robbery, 1.5 percent of sexual assault (including rape), 0.5 percent of homicide, 0.4 percent of kidnapping, and 0.1 percent of arson (see Appendix 1).
In sum, given that the overwhelming majority of those removed through CAP do not fall within the most serious categories of crimes, as identified by the FBI, the data casts doubt on ICE officials’ assertions that ICE removals had narrowed to the worst public safety threats.

Do CAP Removals Match ICE’s Removal Priorities Targeting "Serious Criminals" or Public Safety Threats?

Although CAP removals have increasingly matched ICE’s removal priorities over time, ICE’s removal priorities did not necessarily correlate to the most serious criminal convictions or public safety threats.
When ICE Director Morton’s June 2010 memorandum classified all noncitizens with criminal convictions as “Priority 1,” it sub-classified offenders into three Criminal Offense Levels (“COLs”), with Level 1 and 2 receiving principal attention:
  • Level 1 offenders: noncitizens convicted of “aggravated felonies,” as defined in §101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or two or more crimes each punishable by more than one year, commonly referred to as “felonies”;
  • Level 2 offenders: noncitizens convicted of any felony or three or more crimes each punishable by less than one year, commonly referred to as “misdemeanors”; and
  • Level 3 offenders: noncitizens convicted of crimes punishable by less than one year.
The data indicates that CAP removal patterns increasingly reflected Morton’s prioritization. Specifically, between FY 2011 and FY 2013 the share of ICE Level 1 and Level 2 offenders among all CAP removals increased—while the share of individuals with no conviction declined (Table 4).
Table 4. Removal Criminal Offense Level by Fiscal Year
Criminal Offense Level
2011
2012
2013
(through
Aug. 17,
2013)
Total
Level 1
39,584
41,282
31,299
112,165
 
(28.5%)
(34.3%)
(40.5%)
(33.3%)
Level 2
24,056
22,504
15,916
62,476
 
(17.3%)
(18.7%)
(20.6%)
(18.6%)
Level 3
37,245
31,303
18,959
87,507
 
(26.8%)
(26.0%)
(24.6%)
(26.0%)
NA
38,086
25,280
11,057
74,423
 
(27.4%)
(21.0%)
(14.3%)
(22.1%)
Total
138,971
120,369
77,231
336,571
(%)
(100%)
(100%)
(100%)
(100%)



However, the majority of ICE Level 1 or Level 2 offenders removed by CAP did not commit offenses that were “violent,” according to MPI’s categorization, or “serious,” according to the FBI’s classification (Table 5, Figure 2).

Table 5. Removals by Broad Type of Crime and Removal Criminal Offense Level, 2011-2013

 
Removal Case Criminal Offense Level
Crime Category
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
NA
Total
Not Definite Criminal
2
4
10
74,411
74,427
 
(0.0%)
(0.0%)
(0.0%)
(100%)
(22.1%)
FBI Part 1
20,393
6,009
0
0
26,402
 
(18.2%)
(9.6%)
(0.0%)
(0.0%)
(7.8%)
FBI Part 2 - Violent
17,540
7,379
2,347
0
27,266
 
(15.6%)
(11.8%)
(2.7%)
(0.0%)
(8.1%)
Domestic abuse
2,597
1,450
1,755
0
5,802
 
(2.3%)
(2.3%)
(2.0%)
(0.0%)
(1.7%)
Total - Serious or Violent
40,530
14,838
4,102
0
59,470
 
36.1%
23.7%
4.7%
0.0%
17.7%
FBI Part 2 - Nonviolent
17,292
7,679
7,127
11
32,109
 
(15.4%)
(12.3%)
(8.1%)
(0.0%)
(9.5%)
Drugs - possession
16,565
13,783
12,445
0
42,793
 
(14.8%)
(22.1%)
(14.2%)
(0.0%)
(12.7%)
Drugs - sale, dist, trans
25,035
268
752
1
26,056
 
(22.3%)
(0.4%)
(0.9%)
(0.0%)
(7.7%)
Immigration (strict)
2,165
4,293
9,723
0
16,181
 
(1.9%)
(6.9%)
(11.1%)
(0.0%)
(4.8%)
Nuisance crime
1,542
2,266
6,622
0
10,430
 
(1.4%)
(3.6%)
(7.6%)
(0.0%)
(3.1%)
Traffic (DUI)
6,159
12,716
32,931
0
51,806
 
(5.5%)
(20.4%)
(37.6%)
(0.0%)
(15.4%)
Traffic (other than DUI)
2,875
6,629
13,794
0
23,298
 
(2.6%)
(10.6%)
(15.8%)
(0.0%)
(6.9%)
Total - Other
71,633
47,634
83,394
12
202,673
 
63.9%
76.2%
95.3%
0.0%
60.2%
Total
112,165
62,476
87,506
74,423
336,570
 
(100.0%)
(100.0%)
(100.0%)
(100.0%)
(100.0%)

Note: Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding


Figure 2: Removals by Broad Type of Crime and Removal Criminal Offense Level, 2011-2013
In practice, among those removed through CAP, this data shows a sharp disconnect between ICE’s Criminal Offense Level prioritizations and independent classifications of “violent or serious” crime. For instance, while the largest proportion (33.3 percent) of CAP removals are classified as ICE Level 1, almost two-thirds of all ICE Level 1 removals (63.9 percent) involved individuals who had not been convicted of a violent crime or a crime that the FBI classifies as serious. Of all ICE Level 2 removals, 76.2 percent involved individuals who had not been convicted of such a violent or serious crime. And of all ICE Level 3 removals, 95.3 percent involved individuals who had not been convicted of such a violent or serious crime.

This disconnect largely existed because ICE classified many common FBI Part II-nonviolent offenses or drug offenses as “Level 1.” More than half (52.5 percent) of Level 1 offenders removed through CAP were convicted of FBI Part II-nonviolent offenses or drug offenses. In particular, drug offenders removed through CAP were overwhelmingly classified as “Level 1.” Namely, 38.7 percent of drug possession offenders, and 96.1 percent of drug sale, distribution, or transportation offenders, were classified as “Level 1”—even though drug “distribution” can encompass minor conduct such as sharing without money changing hands, as a Human Rights Watch report points out. ICE still places a high priority on removing drug offenders, even as states have moved to decriminalize drugs such as marijuana.
Thus, while CAP has achieved some success in prioritizing removals according to ICE Levels, it has been less successful in narrowing enforcement removals to those who have been convicted of a violent crime or a crime that the FBI classifies as serious. Thus, CAP—and, in a broader sense, ICE’s prioritizations—may have facilitated to some extent ICE’s goal of removing the most "serious criminals" or public safety threats. However, by using criminal convictions as a proxy for danger, CAP also has resulted in the removal of a large number of individuals who did not meet those criteria.

Mexican and Central American Nationals are Overrepresented in CAP Removals

Additionally, the data shows that Mexican and Central American nationals are overrepresented in CAP removals compared to the demographic profiles of those populations in the United States. Collectively, people from Mexico and the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) accounted for 92.5 percent of all CAP removals between FY 2010 and FY 2013 (Table 6).
Table 6. Top Seven Countries Represented Among Persons Removed Through CAP, FY 2010-2013

Country
No.
Percent
 Mexico
396,629
78.1%
 Guatemala
32,003
6.3%
 Honduras
24,357
4.8%
 El Salvador
16,777
3.3%
 Dominican Republic
5,374
1.1%
 Colombia
3,561
0.7%
 Jamaica
2,911
0.6%
 All Other Countries
26,242
5.1%
Total
507,854
100% 

When we compare this distribution to the composition by nationality of the noncitizen population, and that of the unauthorized population in particular, the disparities in national origin among CAP removals become evident. For example, the share of Mexicans removed through CAP is higher by almost 39 percent points than the proportion of Mexicans among foreign-born noncitizens living in the country, according to American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for 2011-2013. In addition, the proportion of Mexican nationals among CAP removals is significantly greater than the share of Mexicans among the undocumented population residing in the United States. The difference ranges from 19.1 percent points, when comparing to DHS estimates, to 25.7 percent points, when comparing to the Pew Research Center’s estimates. Guatemalans and Hondurans also are overrepresented in CAP removals compared to their share among the noncitizen and the undocumented population living in this country (Table 7).
Table 7. Comparison of Top Seven Countries Represented Among CAP Removalsand Other Data Sources, by Country of Origin     
CAP Removals (FY 2010-2013)
2012 Pew Estimates of Unauthorized Population
2012 CMS Estimates of Unauthorized Population
January 2011 DHS Estimates of Unauthorized Population
2011-2013 ACS  Estimates of Noncitizen Population
Country
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
Mexico
78.1%
52.4%
55.0%
59.0%
39.3%
Guatemala
6.3%
4.7%
4.4%
5%
3.0%
Honduras
4.8%
3.1%
2.8%
3%
1.8%
El Salvador
3.3%
6.1%
5.4%
6%
3.9%
Dominican Republic
1.1%
1.5%
1.8%
NA
2.2%
Colombia
0.7%
1.3%
1.3%
NA
1.4%
Jamaica
0.6%
0.9%
0.9%
NA
1.2%
All Other Countries
5.1%
30.0%
NA
NA
47.2%


Moreover, regardless of nationality, the proportion of individuals removed through CAP with convictions for violent crimes or for crimes that the FBI classifies as serious is relatively low, even across nationalities. For example, the share of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Dominicans, and Colombians among all people removed through CAP with a “violent or serious” conviction is slightly smaller than the share of nationals of the same countries among all CAP removals. Conversely, the proportion of nationals of Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica, and “all other countries combined” among all people removed through CAP with a “violent or serious” conviction is slightly greater than the share of nationals of the same countries among all CAP removals (Table 8).
Table 8. Top Seven Countries by Broad Type of Crime, FY 2011-2013

Country
Percent of individuals removed
Not definite criminal
Serious (FBI) or violent
Other
Mexico
78.1%
76.3%
74.4%
80.1%
Guatemala
6.3%
8.4%
5.8%
5.4%
Honduras
4.8%
5.2%
5.3%
4.4%
El Salvador
3.3%
2.7%
5.4%
3.0%
Dominican Republic
1.1%
0.4%
1.0%
1.4%
Colombia
0.7%
0.7%
0.5%
0.8%
Jamaica
0.6%
0.2%
0.8%
0.7%
All Other Countries
5.1%
6.1%
6.9%
4.2%
Total
100%
100%
100%
100%
 
All in all, these data suggest that, considering their demographic profiles, nationals of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras seem to be overrepresented among overall CAP removals, while the proportion of those nationals in each broad category of crime is not very different from the representation of their nationality among overall CAP removals.

Further research is needed to establish why nationals of certain countries tend to be overrepresented among CAP removals. For example, reports have questioned whether local law-enforcement officers have racially profiled minority residents or conducted pre-textual arrests so that ICE’s officers would check residents’ immigration status, once residents’ information was shared with ICE through CAP. A 2009 study of arrest data in Irving, Texas, found “strong evidence to support claims that Irving police engaged in racial profiling of Hispanics in order to filter them through the CAP screening system.” Our data raises concerns about whether racial disparities among arrests that lead to immigration enforcement may be more generalized practices.

The Geography of Removals: State-by-State Results

To identify the regions of the country in which CAP has been most active, we analyzed the location where individuals were apprehended prior to arrest and removal through CAP in FY 2013. In order to account for the fact that a higher proportion of noncitizens are living in certain states, we estimated CAP arrest and removal rates standardized to 1,000 noncitizens in each state, utilizing 2013 ACS estimates of the noncitizen population (Table 9).
Table 9. DHS Criminal Alien Program Removals By U.S. State, FY 2013
State
CAP Arrests
CAP Removals
Noncitizen Population
Arrests per 1,000 Noncitizens
Removals Per 1,000 Noncitizens
1,000,000+ Noncitizen Population
 
 
 
 
 
Texas
39,169
18,513
2,791,229
14.0
6.6
California
31,623
18,812
5,384,868
5.9
3.5
Florida
5,977
2,665
1,826,711
3.3
1.5
New York
1,365
2,153
2,043,941
0.7
1.1
500,000 - 999,999 Noncitizen Population
 
 
 
 
 
Arizona
6,148
3,566
544,807
11.3
6.6
Georgia
3,990
2,252
596,693
6.7
3.8
North Carolina
1,770
1,223
500,007
3.5
2.5
Illinois
1,924
1,439
995,759
1.9
1.5
New Jersey
2,519
1,158
911,565
2.8
1.3
250,000 - 499,999 Noncitizen Population
 
 
 
 
 
Colorado
3,035
1,978
313,412
9.7
6.3
Pennsylvania
2,605
1,394
370,228
7.0
3.8
Washington
3,201
1,506
486,424
6.6
3.1
Virginia
2,960
1,351
482,627
6.1
2.8
Michigan
901
651
302,714
3.0
2.2
Maryland
1,324
528
434,148
3.0
1.2
Massachusetts
691
484
490,848
1.4
1.0
Nevada
2,175
266
296,213
7.3
0.9
100,000 - 249,999 Noncitizen Population
 
 
 
 
 
Louisiana
953
649
104,788
9.1
6.2
Tennessee
1,784
1,137
192,749
9.3
5.9
Alabama
1,059
643
114,406
9.3
5.6
Kansas
991
683
126,512
7.8
5.4
Utah
1,237
783
150,978
8.2
5.2
New Mexico
1,068
688
134,929
7.9
5.1
South Carolina
1,374
717
147,292
9.3
4.9
Oklahoma
925
665
139,764
6.6
4.8
Minnesota
1,595
989
210,177
7.6
4.7
Ohio
1,870
925
233,939
8.0
4.0
Missouri
632
486
133,029
4.8
3.7
Indiana
1,670
726
200,505
8.3
3.6
Oregon
2,070
806
233,939
8.8
3.5
Wisconsin
670
332
153,641
4.4
2.2
Connecticut
544
368
254,839
2.1
1.4
Hawaii
125
77
106,779
1.2
0.7
50,000 - 99,999 Noncitizen Population
 
 
 
 
 
Kentucky
1,565
737
93,159
16.8
7.9
Nebraska
957
548
76,064
12.6
7.2
Idaho
521
367
60,794
8.6
6.0
Iowa
789
454
84,966
9.3
5.3
Arkansas
581
348
93,717
6.2
3.7
Washington D.C.
131
72
51,343
2.6
1.4
Rhode Island
103
12
68,712
1.5
0.2
25,000 - 49,999 Noncitizen Population*
 
 
 
 
 
Mississippi
697
770
44,198
15.8
17.4
Delaware
238
102
42,391
5.6
2.4
New Hampshire
114
54
34,488
3.3
1.6
10,000 - 24,999 Noncitizen Population*
 
 
 
 
 
Wyoming
212
121
12,044
17.6
10.1
West Virginia
400
131
14,062
28.4
9.3
South Dakota
190
107
14,375
13.2
7.4
North Dakota
76
34
12,027
6.3
2.8
Maine
28
11
10,155
2.8
0.6
Vermont
9
3
10,519
0.9
0.3
Alaska
27
6
23,385
1.2
0.3
Less than 10,000 Noncitizen Population*
 
 
 
 
 
Montana
22
42
9,241
2.4
4.5
Sources: DHS Criminal Alien Removals, 2013; American Community Survey, 2009-2013.*Results should be interpreted with caution due to small cell sizes for ACS noncitizen estimates.
States with similar noncitizen population sizes do not necessarily present similar rates of CAP removals. In fact, a Pearson correlation test shows no statistically significant correlation between the two variables. In other words, whether the foreign-born population living in a particular state is large or small does not explain whether the state would have a higher or lower CAP removal rate.
The states with the highest rates of removal per 1,000 noncitizens include several with smaller immigrant populations—e.g., Mississippi (17.4 per 1,000 noncitizens), Wyoming (10.1 per 1,000), West Virginia (9.3 per 1,000), Kentucky (7.9 per 1,000), South Dakota (7.4 per 1,000), and Nebraska (7.2 per 1,000)—as well as two with large immigrant populations, Texas (6.6 per 1,000) and Arizona (6.6 per 1,000). The states with the lowest rates of removals per 1,000 noncitizens include several with comparatively small immigrant populations—e.g., Rhode Island (0.2 per 1,000), Alaska (0.3 per 1,000), Vermont (0.3 per 1,000), Maine (0.6 per 1,000), and Hawaii (0.7 per 1,000)—as well as several with comparatively larger immigrant populations—Nevada (0.9 per 1,000), Massachusetts (1.0 per 1,000), New York (1.1 per 1,000), Maryland (1.2 per 1,000), New Jersey (1.3 per 1,000), Washington D.C. (1.4 per 1,000), and Connecticut (1.4 per 1,000).
Several state-specific factors may have contributed to these varying arrest and removal patterns in FY 2013. Most relevant may be the extent of local cooperation with ICE generally, through programs such as 287(g) that deputize local officers to enforce immigration law, and CAP specifically, through “jail check” agreements and policies regarding ICE detainer requests. For example, from 2011 to 2013, several large U.S. cities limited ICE’s access to their jails, and stopped honoring ICE detainer requests for some or all noncitizens—particularly those with criminal charges, but not convictions, or those with lesser charges or convictions. Other state-specific factors may include availability of public transportation and ICE’s detention capacity. Although these are plausible explanatory factors, further research is needed to understand the varying impact of CAP at the state level.

Conclusion and Looking Forward

This examination of CAP’s outcomes from fiscal years 2010 to 2013 offers important insights into CAP’s operations over time and its potential impact on communities moving forward. Understanding CAP is critical to understanding ICE’s overall interior enforcement activities. This understanding takes on added importance as ICE begins implementing its 2014 enforcement priorities and engages state and local law enforcement through PEP.
Since the years for which this report examined data, CAP has remained the primary program through which ICE conducts enforcement in the interior of the United States. In FY 2014, CAP was responsible for 524,522 encounters, 122,826 arrests, and 68,244 removals, according to ICE—compared to ICE’s 102,224 overall “interior removals” (in other words, removals of individuals apprehended in the interior). With ICE still focusing on removing noncitizens with criminal convictions by leveraging state and local law-enforcement arrests, and with Secure Communities (and now PEP) fingerprint-sharing from state and local law enforcement subsumed into CAP’s operations, CAP will likely remain a key (if not the) linchpin of ICE’s efforts to achieve interior removals.
That said, CAP’s target population and removal processes will likely change. On November 20, 2014, DHS Secretary Johnson, among other actions, (1) narrowed ICE’s removal priorities from any noncitizen convicted of any crime to those “convicted of specifically enumerated crimes,” and (2) changed CAP’s enforcement processes after CAP receives information from local law enforcement, by replacing ICE “detainer” requests (i.e., to hold a noncitizen) with requests for notification of release, absent special circumstances.
Johnson’s first change, the narrowing of ICE’s priorities, could significantly reduce the numbers of noncitizens targeted through CAP in two key groups: (1) those without convictions (e.g., those only arrested or charged), which constituted 27.4 percent of those CAP removed from FY 2010 to 2013, and (2) those convicted of certain lesser offenses that no longer meet ICE’s priorities, potentially as many as 34.4 percent of those CAP removed from FY 2010 to 2013. These latter individuals are those whose most serious conviction is for a Part II-nonviolent offense, a nuisance offense, drug possession, an immigration-related criminal offense, or a non-DUI traffic offense—but who do not remain an ICE priority because they have not committed a criminal felony, an “aggravated felony” under immigration laws, three misdemeanor offenses arising on separate occasions, or a misdemeanor with a 90-day sentence or longer.
The likelihood of a decline in the number of noncitizens targeted by CAP, however, depends on ICE’s effective implementation of the 2014 Johnson Memo priorities. ICE would have to adjust CAP’s daily work so as to not target and remove some of those individuals whom CAP has been removing in large numbers. For example, it is unclear whether the May 2013 CAP guidance that targets those without convictions remains in place following the 2014 Johnson Memo. Additionally, ICE would have to adjust its daily work based on criminal offense level classifications (i.e., Level 1-2-3), since a significant amount of Level 1 and Level 2 offenders will no longer meet ICE’s new priorities—namely, 36.1 percent of Level 1 offenders and 55.5 percent of Level 2 offenders that CAP removed from FY 2011 through FY 2013.
But tellingly, this report shows that CAP encounter numbers have remained outsized relative to CAP removals—in FY 2014, nearly eight times as large, suggesting that the program may not be narrowly designed to target those who fall within the government’s priorities. Logically, if CAP is targeting fewer individuals, encounters should drop. Whether reductions in encounters occur or not, since large numbers of encounters appear either unnecessary or inefficient, Congress may want to more closely examine current levels of CAP funding.
As to Johnson’s second change—ICE’s replacement of detainer requests with notification requests—the impact upon CAP will likely be state-specific, depending on the willingness of state and local authorities to cooperate with ICE. Many local law-enforcement leaders, and the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, note that cooperation with ICE inhibits community trust and thus local immigrant reporting of crimes. States and localities have, to date, implemented a range of protocols regarding ICE cooperation. Indeed, the state-by-state CAP arrest and removal data in this report may reflect differing levels of cooperation with ICE.
If ICE’s goal is to remove serious public safety threats, a broad “jail check” program such as CAP may not be an efficient way to do it. Jail check or arrest check programs, by their nature, funnel into immigration enforcement those noncitizens apprehended by local law enforcement—and those apprehended by local law enforcement tend to overwhelmingly be apprehended for lesser offenses. Congress should more closely examine CAP funding, given these dynamics. The government also should report on a regular basis statistics on encounters, arrests, and removals by specific types of criminal convictions. Finally, there must be more oversight over DHS’s steps to forestall racial profiling, given the disproportionate numbers of Mexicans and Central Americans removed through CAP.

Glossary

Encounters: “An ICE encounter of a person is defined as the interview, screening, and determination of his/her citizenship, nationality, and lawful presence (i.e., whether or not the alien is present in the United States after the expiration of the period of stay authorized by the Secretary or is present in the United States without being admitted or paroled), and legal right to remain in the United States of America. An encounter, detainer or charging documents issued by ICE does not necessarily result in the individual being placed into ICE custody.”
Arrests: “The arrest date refers to the date in which an individual was either booked into ICE custody or processed prior to being booked into ICE custody.”
Removals: “FY2010-2013 Removals include Returns, which include Voluntary Returns, Voluntary Departures and Withdrawals under Docket Control.”
Lead Type: “The Lead Type is a category of event, incident, or anything of interest to immigration authorities. The Lead Source is a category of the origin of information regarding an occurrence.”
ICE Criminal Offense level: Since FY 2011, ICE has defined criminality as whether or not an alien has an ICE Threat Level (convicted criminal) or not (non-criminal immigration violator). For purposes of prioritizing the removal of aliens convicted of crimes, ICE personnel refer to the following offense levels: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 offenders. Level 1 offenders are those aliens convicted of “aggravated felonies,” as defined in § 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or two (2) or more crimes each punishable by more than 1 year, commonly referred to as “felonies.” Level 2 offenders are aliens convicted of any other felony or three (3) or more crimes each punishable by less than 1 year, commonly referred to as “misdemeanors.” Level 3 offenders are aliens convicted of “misdemeanor” crime(s) punishable by less than 1 year.
“Definite Criminal”: “The “Definite Criminal Yes No” column is populated based on whether a criminal conviction is recorded in ENFORCE's Crime Entry Screen. Aliens may have criminal convictions that have not been recorded in the Crime Entry Screen.”
“Most Serious Criminal Charge”: Reflects “the most serious convicted criminal charge on record at the time of removal.” These categories are drawn from the NCIC criminal charge code that ICE reported to us within its removals data. We used a list describing ICE’s internal “business rules” for using NCIC codes, publicly available and posted on TRAC’s website. ICE’s data stated that this NCIC code reflects “the most serious convicted criminal charge on record at the time of removal.”
NCIC code: Classification of criminal offenses based on codes from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
Aggravated Felony: An “aggravated felony” is a term of art, defined by an immigration statute, used to describe a category of criminal offenses carrying particularly harsh immigration consequences for noncitizens convicted of such crimes. Regardless of their immigration status, noncitizens who have been convicted of an “aggravated felony” are prohibited from receiving most forms of relief that would spare them from deportation, including asylum, and from being readmitted to the United States at any time in the future. An “aggravated felony” need not be aggravated nor a felony under criminal laws.

Reference Guide

CAP Initiatives
During its existence, ICE’s Criminal Alien Program has engaged in several initiatives that complement its traditional “jail check” activities, expand its “at-large” activities in the community, or both. These initiatives include:
  • CAP Surges: A “CAP Surge” represents ICE’s effort to focus resources to intensify and augment CAP’s traditional “jail check” removals within a short time period. ICE does this within a particular geographical Field Office through a “Removal Surge Operation” (CAPRSO), and, since FY 2014, has added ICE officers from across the country to a Field Office through the CAP “Surge Enforcement Team” (CAPSET). The goal of a CAP Surge is to ensure that “100 percent of all priority criminal aliens booked into targeted facilities that are amenable to immediate removal obtain a removal order” (CAPRSO), or to “[i]ncrease the number of priority criminal aliens identified and fully processed prior to their release from custody” (CAPSET).
  • Threats to the Community (TC): CAP’s new “Threats to the Community” (TC) initiative—an “at-large” initiative—consists of “targeted at-large enforcement operations led by CAP to investigate, arrest, and remove criminal aliens that pose the greatest threats to the community.” The initiative “targets criminal aliens utilizing ICE priorities, focusing on at-large criminal aliens identified through interoperability” [i.e. Secure Communities fingerprint-sharing], “as well as those jurisdictions which limit or refuse ICE access to their facilities.” ICE first publicly disclosed the initiative in February 2015, in its FY 2016 budget request.
  • Joint Criminal Alien Removal Taskforce (JCART): In ICE’s words, “ICE’s Joint Criminal Alien Removal Taskforce (JCART) focuses on locating and arresting at-large criminal aliens with convictions for drug trafficking, violent crimes and sex offenses. Working closely with other agencies, JCART conducts special operations including criminal aliens who have been released from federal, state, or local custody.” In February 2013, ICE stated that JCART was then currently “active in the Los Angeles and New York Field Offices.” It appears that ICE may have since replaced JCART with the “Threats to the Community” (TC) initiative, although ICE’s website still lists JCART as an active initiative. 
  • Violent Criminal Alien Section (VCAS): CAP’s Violent Criminal Alien Section (VCAS) initiative exists to facilitate federal criminal prosecutions of criminal violations that are discovered through ICE enforcement activities. VCAS focuses on “recidivist” noncitizens with convictions (i.e. those have offended more than once), so as to “enhance public safety” and deter future recidivism—either by deterring crime through prosecution, or simply incarcerating offenders. VCAS screens for recidivists encountered not only through CAP, but through local law enforcement or Fugitive Operations raids. VCAS then refers cases to federal prosecutors (i.e. the United States’ Attorneys’ Offices) for prosecution.
  • Rapid Removal of Eligible Parolees Accepted for Transfer (Rapid REPAT Program): In ICE’s words, the “Rapid Removal of Eligible Parolees Accepted for Transfer (REPAT) Program is a joint partnership with state correctional/parole agencies designed to expedite the process of identifying and removing criminal aliens from the U.S. by allowing selected non-violent criminal aliens incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails to accept early release in exchange for voluntarily returning to their country of origin.”
  • Detention Enforcement and Processing Offenders by Remote Technology (DEPORT): In ICE’s words: “Approximately 27 percent of inmates in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody are non-U.S. citizens. ERO created the Detention Enforcement and Processing Offenders by Remote Technology (DEPORT) Center in Chicago to process this population through CAP. ERO officers and agents assigned to the DEPORT Center conduct interviews of BOP inmates nationwide using video teleconference equipment. Through the combined effort of the DEPORT Center and local ERO resources, criminal aliens from all federal detention facilities are taken into ERO custody upon completion of their sentences."
  • Phoenix Law Enforcement Area Response (LEAR): This initiative, specific to ICE’s Phoenix, Arizona field office, “provides a method for state and local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in Arizona to directly contact ICE regarding suspected immigration violators.” ICE’s LEAR staff would respond to local agencies 24/7; ICE officers would determine nationality, immigration status, and removability, place detainers, and process noncitizens for removal. It is unclear if LEAR is still in operation. Since February 2013, ICE has not listed it in its annual budget requests.

APPENDIX 1: Most Serious Criminal Charge Category, by Fiscal Year



Most Serious Criminal Charge
2010
2011
2012
2013
Total
 
Freq.
%
Freq.
%
Freq.
%
Freq.
%
Freq.
%
 Not “Definite Criminal”
64,867
37.9
38,095
27.4
25,280
21.0
11,054
14.3
139,296
27.4
 Traffic Offenses
24,699
14.4
30,142
21.7
28,116
23.4
18,554
24.0
101,511
20.0
 Dangerous Drugs
29,479
17.2
24,352
17.5
21,755
18.1
15,807
20.5
91,393
18.0
 Assault
8,376
4.9
7,884
5.7
7,558
6.3
5,355
6.9
29,173
5.7
 Immigration
7,510
4.4
6,967
5.0
6,281
5.2
5,000
6.5
25,758
5.1
 Larceny
3,580
2.1
3,391
2.4
2,926
2.4
1,881
2.4
11,778
2.3
 Burglary
2,960
1.7
2,189
1.6
2,064
1.7
1,373
1.8
8,586
1.7
 Robbery
2,768
1.6
2,017
1.5
2,051
1.7
1,395
1.8
8,231
1.6
 General Crimes
2,168
1.3
2,314
1.7
2,125
1.8
1,296
1.7
7,903
1.6
 Sexual Assault
2,551
1.5
1,896
1.4
1,896
1.6
1,448
1.9
7,791
1.5
 Fraudulent Activities
2,278
1.3
2,218
1.6
1,909
1.6
1,195
1.5
7,600
1.5
 Family Offenses
2,373
1.4
1,927
1.4
1,325
1.1
750
1.0
6,375
1.3
 Public Peace
1,723
1.0
1,691
1.2
1,655
1.4
1,022
1.3
6,091
1.2
 Weapon Offenses
1,953
1.1
1,599
1.2
1,387
1.2
1,021
1.3
5,960
1.2
 Forgery
1,737
1.0
1,626
1.2
1,233
1.0
799
1.0
5,395
1.1
 Sex Offenses (Not Assault or omm .sex
1,818
1.1
1,212
0.9
1,281
1.1
1,007
1.3
5,318
1.0
 Obstructing the Police
1,220
0.7
1,485
1.1
1,433
1.2
852
1.1
4,990
1.0
 Obstructing Judiciary, Congress, Legslat.
920
0.5
1,073
0.8
957
0.8
614
0.8
3,564
0.7
 Stolen Vehicle
1,220
0.7
867
0.6
740
0.6
461
0.6
3,288
0.6
 Health & Safety
1,675
1.0
800
0.6
433
0.4
238
0.3
3,146
0.6
 Invasion of Privacy
920
0.5
814
0.6
828
0.7
494
0.6
3,056
0.6
 Stolen Property
934
0.5
697
0.5
620
0.5
375
0.5
2,626
0.5
 Homicide
844
0.5
475
0.3
530
0.4
437
0.6
2,286
0.5
 Kidnapping
531
0.3
468
0.3
566
0.5
496
0.6
2,061
0.4
 Liquor
327
0.2
531
0.4
487
0.4
324
0.4
1,669
0.3
 Commercialized Sexual Offenses
469
0.3
396
0.3
347
0.3
235
0.3
1,447
0.3
 Flight & Escape
375
0.2
351
0.3
386
0.3
249
0.3
1,361
0.3
 Damage Property
353
0.2
374
0.3
326
0.3
230
0.3
1,283
0.3
 Threat
139
0.1
111
0.1
101
0.1
70
0.1
421
0.1
 Smuggling
110
0.1
85
0.1
81
0.1
77
0.1
353
0.1
 Arson
106
0.1
50
0.0
52
0.0
46
0.1
254
0.1
 Conservation
49
0.0
48
0.0
36
0.0
24
0.0
157
0.0
 Obscenity
53
0.0
26
0.0
30
0.0
30
0.0
139
0.0
 Embezzlement
49
0.0
36
0.0
23
0.0
17
0.0
125
0.0
 Extortion
38
0.0
25
0.0
20
0.0
24
0.0
107
0.0
 Juvenile Offenders
35
0.0
21
0.0
31
0.0
16
0.0
103
0.0
 Gambling
23
0.0
17
0.0
28
0.0
10
0.0
78
0.0
 Bribery
18
0.0
14
0.0
17
0.0
9
0.0
58
0.0
 Tax Revenue
15
0.0
10
0.0
10
0.0
8
0.0
43
0.0
 Sovereignty
8
0.0
5
0.0
5
0.0
1
0.0
19
0.0
 Military
1
0.0
1
0.0
2
0.0
1
0.0
5
0.0
 Abortion
1
0.0
2
0.0
0
0.0
1
0.0
4
0.0
 Civil Rights
1
0.0
2
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
3
0.0
 Antitrust
0
0.0
1
0.0
0
0.0
1
0.0
2
0.0
 Missing
7
0.0
666
0.5
3,440
2.9
2,934
3.8
7,047
1.4
Total
171,281
100
138,971
100
120,371
100
77,231
100
507,854
100.0

APPENDIX 2: “Most Serious Criminal Charge Category” by “Removal Criminal Offense Level”, FY2011-2013

(Excludes Cases that are “Not Definite Criminal”)
Most Serious Criminal Charge

Level 1
%
Level 2
%
Level 3
%
NA
%
Total
%
 Traffic Offenses
9,558
12.4
20,529
26.7
46,725
60.8
0
0.0
76,812
30.1
 Dangerous Drugs
38,399
62.0
12,998
21.0
10,516
17.0
1
0.0
61,914
24.3
 Assault
11,874
57.1
5,407
26.0
3,516
16.9
0
0.0
20,797
8.2
 Immigration
4,232
23.2
4,293
23.5
9,723
53.3
0
0.0
18,248
7.2
 Larceny
3,756
45.8
3,546
43.3
896
10.9
0
0.0
8,198
3.2
 General Crimes
934
16.3
1,434
25.0
3,367
58.7
0
0.0
5,735
2.2
 Burglary
4,487
79.8
1,077
19.1
62
1.1
0
0.0
5,626
2.2
 Robbery
5,221
95.6
242
4.4
0
0.0
0
0.0
5,463
2.1
 Fraudulent Activities
4,346
81.7
976
18.3
0
0.0
0
0.0
5,322
2.1
 Sexual Assault
4,990
95.2
250
4.8
0
0.0
0
0.0
5,240
2.1
 Public Peace
705
16.1
913
20.9
2,750
63.0
0
0.0
4,368
1.7
 Weapon Offenses
3,079
76.8
928
23.2
0
0.0
0
0.0
4,007
1.6
 Family Offenses
2,275
56.8
1,183
29.6
544
13.6
0
0.0
4,002
1.6
 Obstructing the Police
1,277
33.9
1,436
38.1
1,057
28.0
0
0.0
3,770
1.5
 Forgery
2,591
70.8
1,067
29.2
0
0.0
0
0.0
3,658
1.4
 Sex Offenses (Not Involving Assault or Commercialized Sex)
2,723
77.8
745
21.3
32
0.9
0
0.0
3,500
1.4
 Obstructing Judiciary, Congress, Legislature, Etc.
695
26.3
560
21.2
1,389
52.5
0
0.0
2,644
1.0
 Invasion of Privacy
468
21.9
454
21.3
1,214
56.8
0
0.0
2,136
0.8
 Stolen Vehicle
1,189
57.5
693
33.5
186
9.0
0
0.0
2,068
0.8
 Stolen Property
1,020
60.3
672
39.7
0
0.0
0
0.0
1,692
0.7
 Kidnapping
1,234
80.7
184
12.0
112
7.3
0
0.0
1,530
0.6
 Health & Safety
266
18.1
307
20.9
898
61.0
0
0.0
1,471
0.6
 Homicide
1,233
85.5
209
14.5
0
0.0
0
0.0
1,442
0.6
 Liquor
165
12.3
293
21.8
884
65.9
0
0.0
1,342
0.5
 Flight & Escape
807
81.8
69
7.0
110
11.2
0
0.0
986
0.4
 Commercialized Sexual  Offenses
239
24.4
165
16.9
574
58.7
0
0.0
978
0.4
 Damage Property
228
24.5
226
24.3
476
51.2
0
0.0
930
0.4
 Threat
268
95.0
3
1.1
0
0.0
11
3.9
282
0.1
 Smuggling
24
9.9
86
35.4
133
54.7
0
0.0
243
0.1
 Arson
131
88.5
17
11.5
0
0.0
0
0.0
148
0.1
 Conservation
16
14.8
23
21.3
69
63.9
0
0.0
108
0.0
 Obscenity
12
14.0
38
44.2
36
41.9
0
0.0
86
0.0
 Embezzlement
40
52.6
36
47.4
0
0.0
0
0.0
76
0.0
 Extortion
34
49.3
35
50.7
0
0.0
0
0.0
69
0.0
 Juvenile Offenders
17
25.0
19
27.9
32
47.1
0
0.0
68
0.0
 Gambling
8
14.5
10
18.2
37
67.3
0
0.0
55
0.0
 Bribery
23
57.5
8
20.0
9
22.5
0
0.0
40
0.0
 Tax Revenue
7
25.0
4
14.3
17
60.7
0
0.0
28
0.0
 Sovereignty
11
100.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
11
0.0
 Military
0
0.0
3
75.0
1
25.0
0
0.0
4
0.0
 Abortion
0
0.0
2
66.7
1
33.3
0
0.0
3
0.0
 Antitrust
0
0.0
0
0.0
2
100.0
0
0.0
2
0.0
 Civil Rights
2
100.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
2
0.0
Total
108,584
42.6
61,140
24.0
85,368
33.5
12
0.0
255,104
100

Published On: Mon, Nov 02, 2015 | Download File

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