Immigration News: Undocumented Immigrants Killed Dozens Of Americans, But The Government Can't Deport Them

Dozens of immigrants have murdered people after the government decided not to deport them, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee document. In all, 121 convicts were charged with homicide after they were released by immigration officials from 2010 through 2014, El Nuevo Herald exclusively reported Wednesday.

The vast majority of immigrants are not found guilty of murder. For example, there were 2,457 immigrants released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2014. But federal immigration officials have been criticized widely in recent years for releasing foreigners convicted of crimes.

The murder rate is particularly troubling given a recent focus on criminal immigrants. President Donald Trump has vowed to deport any immigrants who carry out crimes, a stance that could affect 8 million people now living in the U.S.

“This disturbing fact follows ICE’s admission that, of the 36,007 criminal aliens it released from ICE custody in Fiscal Year 2013, 1,000 have been re-convicted of additional crimes in the short time since their release,” the Senate Judiciary Committee document from June 12, 2015 read.

Sometimes immigrants cannot be deported because their native country refuses to take them. The bulk of immigrant convicts in 2014, or roughly 1,183 people, came from Cuba, but others were from Afghanistan, Algeria, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Zimbabwe. In other cases, immigrants were released after the Supreme Court ruling 15 years ago that determined the government cannot hold people indefinitely.

“There are at least 23 countries that refuse to take their people back after they’ve been ordered to leave the United States,” Trump said on the campaign trail in August. “Including large numbers of violent criminals. They won’t take them back. So we say, ‘Okay, we’ll keep them.’ Not going to happen with me, not going to happen with me.”

Trump cited the death of Sarah Root, 21, of Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2016. She was killed by an undocumented immigrant who had failed to attend court hearings for prior alleged crimes. In fact, Trump has made the topic of criminal immigrants a frequent talking point.

"Thousands of Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants," Trump said Oct. 27 in Springfield, Ohio.

But proponents of immigration reform argue it is unfair to blame all immigrants for the acts of a few bad people.

“For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime,” a recent report from the American Immigration Council concluded. “Immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime. This holds true for both legal immigrants and the unauthorized, regardless of their country of origin or level of education.”

There are roughly 1.9 million undocumented immigrants and non-citizens who have been convicted of crimes and are subject to deportation, the Department of Homeland Security estimates. The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, claims 820,000 undocumented immigrants have criminal records. There are roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.