Virginia official to sue feds over immigration files
A Virginia official is preparing to sue the DHS for information about illegal immigrants his county delivered into federal custody, a case in which he claims 105 of the nearly 4,000 illegal immigrants turned over were subsequently re-arrested in the same place. The chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Corey Stewart, will soon be filing a lawsuit immigration documents for the second time this year.
In March, his county also filed a lawsuit to obtain documents about an illegal immigrant charged last year with killing a nun in an drunken driving crash. The county plans on filing a second suit within a couple of weeks. County officials want more information about the 3,800 illegal immigrants turned over to federal immigration agents since 2007.
Since the county started turning over those prisoners, 380 have been re-arrested in Prince William County and turned over again. Stewart believes that most have been re-released into the county, until they commit a serious crime.
“Ten percent — that’s an amazing number, because those are just those individuals who came back into the community, committed another crime and got re-arrested for that crime,” Stewart said, speculating that the actual number of those released is “a lot higher than 10 percent.”
The DHS gave the county some information on those prisoners after an information request was filed last fall, but he described that file as incomplete. Even though the file didn’t contain individual identification, the DHS said they couldn’t release anymore info because of its privacy policy.
The DHS did admit, that not all illegals turned over to their custody remained locked up, but those who are violent criminals, remain in mandatory custody. Those who committed less severe crimes are evaluated on a case by case basis. The DHS claims that they are deporting the most serious offenders.
Stewart argues that federal immigration officials should be deporting most illegal immigrant offenders who are arrested. “The public shouldn’t have to wait for these individuals to commit a serious violent felony in order to be deported,” he said. “They should be deported as soon as they show an inclination toward criminal activity.”
Since last year, Stewart’s county has seen 2 deadly incidents involving illegal immigrants with prior records in the U.S. Months after the high-profile crash that killed a nun in Prince William County, another illegal immigrant was arrested in February and charged in a killing spree that left three dead and three wounded.
That individual had been ordered deported in 2002 after he was caught trying to enter the country illegally but was subsequently allowed to stay.
But DHS records show his special status was revoked in 2006, making him a fugitive. Still, he managed to slip through the fingers of law enforcement in 2008 when he was arrested for drinking in public. As punishment, he received a fine at the time and presumably was let go.
Tags: DHS, immigration records, Prince William County Board of Supervisors Corey Stewart, Virginia
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2011 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Crime & Punishment, General, In The Courts, In the News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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