Sheriff Babeu: Obama Causing 'Largest Prison Breaks in History'
Wednesday, 18 Mar 2015 09:23 PM
By Todd Beamon
Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu on Wednesday slammed reports that federal immigration officials had released more than 30,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, telling Newsmax that President Barack Obama "and his administration have led the largest prison breaks in the history of our country."
"These were the worst of the worst — even the ones that President Obama said at one time needed to be deported," said Babeu, the top law-enforcement officer in Pinal County in central Arizona, about 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Now, all of a sudden, we're releasing tens of thousands of them into our community in really such a reckless manner that how do we not hold the president and these officials as co-conspirators in their crimes once committed?"
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Wednesday that it had released 30,558 criminal illegals in fiscal 2014, down from the 36,007 criminals let go the previous year.
ICE, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, said that many of the illegals were released both years because of a previous court order that prohibited federal officials from holding them beyond six months if their home countries would not take them back.
The illegals were under "supervised release" — monitoring by federal authorities — but ICE director Sarah Saldaña said the agency would increase its efforts to prevent those released from committing new offenses.
"I am determined to continue to take every possible measure to ensure the public’s safety and the removal of dangerous criminals," Saldaña told The Washington Times, which initially reported the figures.
The fiscal 2013 figures included more than 2,000 illegals who were released from jails in Arizona, California, Georgia, and Texas that February, just days before federal budget cuts were to take effect through sequestration.
The efforts were stopped after Arizona officials — including then-Gov. Jan Brewer, GOP Sen. John McCain, Babeu and other sheriffs — expressed outrage over the release of the criminals into the general population.
The release of the illegals came as Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issued revised guidelines urging "prosecutorial discretion" — in which the federal government would pursue only those criminals deemed most dangerous.
Johnson's directive came shortly after Obama announced his executive amnesty orders in November. Those orders have been frozen by a federal judge in Texas pending a hearing on a lawsuit brought by Texas, Arizona and other states challenging the amnesty.
The Homeland Security chief also abolished the "Secure Communities" program, which started under the Bush administration. It allowed local authorities to screen suspected illegals booked into local jails through the DHS. The immigrants would then be held for deportation proceedings if they were found to be illegal.
Babeu told Newsmax that all of these changes "have lethal consequences for innocent American citizens who become victims."
He cited the brutal murder this past January in nearby Mesa of Grant Ronnebeck, a 21-year-old convenience store clerk, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, Apolinar Altamirano, 29.
Altamirano, who is from Mexico, had been released from custody in January 2013 by ICE after posting a $10,000 bond despite having been previously convicted of a felony burglary charge, AZCentral.com reports.
The bond was posted pending the outcome of a deportation hearing in immigration court. Altamirano was arrested by ICE after pleading guilty to the burglary charge stemming from a 2012 incident, according AZCentral.
"All we heard was excuse after excuse by this administration of why he was released, only with a promise to appear in court," Babeu said regarding Altamirano and immigration court. "No surveillance. No parole-probation. Only a promise to appear for a violent criminal."
The continued release of criminal illegals will only cause many more tragedies, the sheriff said.
"You don't have to be a detective to figure out what's going to happen because of this. The president should be held accountable for these crimes committed against our citizens, against our families."
The ICE figures released Wednesday did not provide specifics of the crimes the illegals committed, but the data on the 36,007 released from fiscal 2013 showed that 193 had been convicted of homicide, 426 of sexual assault, 303 of kidnapping, and 16,070 of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Babeu said he is still waiting for the Obama administration to provide him with basic information on these releases — and a lawsuit is pending to try to force the White House to turn over the data.
"Here I am the sheriff, and they've released all these criminals into my county, and they won't even tell me that basic information," he told Newsmax. "They'll never give you the names — and the reason why is that we can link these criminals … to future crimes that they've committed against our citizens.
"And the liability for that, and the outrage — justifiably from families and victims — would be so intense that the blood of future victims should be squarely on the hands of President Obama."
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