America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Thursday, May 6, 2021
CRIMINALS AND JOE BIDEN'S OPEN BORDERS AGENDA - Biden’s ICE Nominee Pushed to Release Violent Felons From His Jail
Biden’s ICE Nominee Pushed to Release Violent Felons From His Jail
Texas sheriff Ed Gonzalez asked D.A. to free more than 1,500 inmates
President Joe Biden's nominee for director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Texas sheriff Ed Gonzalez, petitioned a court earlier this year to force the mass release of inmates from his county jail. Many of them had been charged with violent crimes and felonies, according to court records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Gonzalez has served as sheriff of Harris County, Texas, since 2017. Earlier this year, he filed an emergency request asking a federal court to help negotiate the potential release of 1,500 inmates from the Harris County Jail, which he ran and which had an inmate population of around 9,000 at the time. He cited overcrowding, though the jail had housed nearly 10,000 in 2018.
The request came as Harris County and its largest city, Houston, faced a massive spike in crime that many law enforcement advocates have attributed to lenient bond rulings that flooded the streets with criminals. Since 2015, homicide cases increased by 25 percent and assault cases nearly doubled, according to statistics compiled by the Harris County Justice Administration.
Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE under President Donald Trump and a senior fellow at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said he is concerned about Gonzalez's actions as sheriff and said the nomination is drawing opposition from ICE employees.
"If you're a victim or witness the last thing you need is a bad guy to get back into the community," said Homan. "Morale's already in the toilet [at ICE] due to what the Biden administration's done. … How much more can ICE take? They've already been decapitated."
In January, Gonzalez filed a motion for an emergency hearing with the Texas Southern District Court, in an attempt to force the Harris County district attorney's office to release a significant portion of his jail population. The vast majority of inmates in the jail have been charged with felonies.
At the time, the jail had 9,000 inmates, which was within typical range for the facility and nearly 1,000 less than the jail had housed in 2018, according to county data.
Gonzalez argued that COVID drove the need to downsize, although he noted that "the current number of inmates and staff testing positive is currently relatively small" as of January.
"The jail is bursting at the seams. Something must be done to reduce the population," wrote Gonzalez. "Many of the inmates—pre-trial misdemeanors, state jail felonies without holds, other non-violent charges—ought to be subject to release."
Gonzalez compiled a list of 1,500 inmates that his office said could be eligible for release, which he sent to the district attorney's office for approval. D.A. Kim Ogg, a Democrat who ran on a progressive criminal justice reform platform, balked at the proposal.
"Of the 1,543 defendants on the list sent to the district attorney by the Harris County sheriff, 1,148 defendants have an external hold or their pending case is violent," wrote Ogg. "The district attorney objects to lowering the bail for any of these individuals' cases."
Ogg added that the remaining 395 inmates on the release list "collectively have 823 pending cases [against them], many of which have a bond greater than $10,000. Many of these multiple arrestees were on bond when arrested for new offenses."
She agreed to release 60 out of the 1,543 proposed for release by Gonzalez.
According to Ogg, the sheriff's office had omitted significant concerning details about many of the inmates. One of the prisoners on the list, who was charged with misdemeanor assault of a family member, was also facing probation violation and deferred felony charges for residential burglary and had waived bail hearings. The sheriff neglected to note that another inmate on the list, who had been indicted for felony theft, had previously been released on a reduced bond in an ongoing felony forgery case and was facing deportation when he was rearrested. Another prisoner, charged with violent misdemeanor terroristic threat, had previously been released on bond but had it rescinded twice for failing to comply with electronic monitoring.
Ogg said the sheriff's office also defended its request to release inmates who had "external holds"—for example, were subject to deportation orders or out-of-state extradition requests.
The sheriff's office wrote: "Our hope is that we can get the [Harris County] case cleared so that the defendant can be released to take care of the hold."
But Ogg countered that these inmates were unlikely to return to court to face their Harris County charges if they were also facing deportation or extradition.
"This does not make sense. The inclusion of defendants with holds on this list places the cart before the horse," she wrote.
Gonzalez's request also drew criticism from state lawmakers, who filed an amicus brief in the case calling the potential release "dangerous" and arguing that it would add to the "crime wave in Harris County."
"The sheriff's statements are alarming because he is entrusted with protecting all Harris County citizens by enforcing the law," said the lawmakers in the amicus brief. "Certainly, there are other options aside from wholesale release, including the procurement of additional jail space and cooperation with the Harris County legislators."
Gonzalez responded with another court filing, arguing that he was not advocating for the release of any "potentially dangerous detainees."
"The criminal justice system has ample protections to ensure that those charged with violent offenses receive attention from judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel before bond is set or release determined," wrote Gonzalez.
According to Jason Spencer, a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff's Office, "Early on in the pandemic, our agency provided the D.A. with a list of incarcerated people who were jailed for non-violent offenses so the D.A.’s staff could look further into their cases to determine whether they should be eligible to await their trials outside of jail. The sheriff did not recommend that all of the people on this list be released."
One of the legislators who filed the amicus brief, state senator Paul Bettencourt, told the Free Beacon that Harris County's rising crime rate was due to felony bond reform, noting that more than 100 murders in the past year were linked to suspects who were out on multiple felony bonds or personal recognizant felony bonds issued by lenient judges.
Bettencourt said Gonzalez's court petition raised questions about his judgment as a law enforcement official.
"There simply wasn't a COVID crisis that [necessitated] setting off a crime bomb in Houston by releasing half the jail population," said Bettencourt. "You want a sheriff to stand up for law and order. That means keeping the prisoners in the jail."
"The fact that you have leftist progressive criminal judges that are willing to [release offenders] is one thing. But that the sheriff goes along with them, and sues to try to get half the jail population out—that's preposterously bad public policy," he added.
Updated 3:35 p.m. to include comment from the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
Biden’s DHS Plans No Deportations for Illegal Alien Murderers, Sex Offenders
Thousands of criminal illegal aliens, including those convicted of homicide and sex crimes, may evade deportation as internal records reveal that President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not classify them as “priority” for immigration enforcement.
Internal DHS records, obtained by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, show that thousands of criminal illegal aliens in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody do not meet the Biden administration’s narrow requirements that allow federal agents to deport someone to their native country.
The Biden orders, known as “sanctuary country” orders, effectively prevent ICE agents from arresting and deportating criminal illegal aliens unless they have been recently convicted of an aggravated felony or are terrorists or gang members.
The records reveal that before implementing the orders, top DHS officials reviewed the potential impact on criminal illegal aliens already in federal custody — listing those who would be eligible for deportation as “priorities,” while those unlikely to be deported are classified as “no known priority.”
Of the more than 14,100 criminal illegal aliens in federal custody, the records show that DHS has no plans to deport about 8,325, including:
19 convicted of homicide
27 convicted of sexual offenses
9 convicted of sexual assault
375 convicted of assault
17 convicted of burglary
9 convicted of commercialized sexual offenses
4 convicted of kidnapping
7 convicted of obscenity
13 convicted of robbery
19 convicted of stealing a vehicle
91 convicted of larceny
Another internal DHS record finds that ICE agents were told in early February that, should there be any doubt about an illegal alien’s criminal history qualifying them for deportation under the orders, agents should “err on the side of caution” by postponing their deportation:
If there is any question as to whether an individual falls into the category of posing a public safety threat, managers should err on the side of caution and postpone the individual’s removal until a full assessment, in coordination with local Office of Chief Counsel, is conducted. If there isn’t sufficient time to determine whether an individual was convicted of an aggravated felony or poses a public safety risk, the individual shall be removed from the manifest until such time as the review is completed. [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News has chronicled, the Biden orders have reportedly helped release thousands of criminal illegal aliens back into American communities who would have otherwise been deported by ICE agents. Some of those illegal aliens include convicted sex offenders released from the U.S. Marshal’s custody.
Last month, the internal records showed that top DHS officials were fully aware that their decision to implement the orders would result in the release of thousands of criminal illegal aliens who would be shielded from arrest and deportation under their narrow enforcement perameters.
Since the orders went into effect, the number of criminal illegal aliens in federal custody has dropped 70 percent, and the number of illegal aliens arrested has been reduced by 80 percent. The number of illegal aliens in ICE detention has hit the lowest level in the agency’s history.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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