64% Of Federal Arrests Were of Non-Citizens In 2018, Says DOJ

“When discussing illegal immigration and crimes committed by criminal aliens, leftists will always try to shut down the discussion by saying American citizens commit more criminal offenses than illegal aliens. The facts, however, appear to blow the media’s and the politicians’ assertions right out of the water.” — Former police inspector and public safety director David Linkletter.

Federal arrests of non-citizens has increased at an accelerated pace over the last 20 years, and at the federal level the majority of all arrests reveals that a large percentage of those arrested are either illegally in the country, legally entered the country with a visa but committed a criminal offense, or are here in the U.S. as refugees, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

While politicians, immigration activists and the leftist news media attempt to ignore bona fide studies and reports, the Justice Department’s analysts discovered and reported that non-citizens made up 64% of all federal arrests in 2018 despite making up about 7% of the U.S. population, according to Justice Department data released Thursday to the 13,000-member National Association of Chiefs of Police.

During the period between 1998 and 2018, federal arrests of non-citizens grew by 234%, while federal arrests of U.S. citizens climbed only 10%.

While the numbers President Donald Trump’s accusations about illegal immigration resulting in an increase in violent and property crimes, immigration experts also pointed out that migrant apprehensions make up a significant portion of current federal arrests.

In order to reduce recidivism, when illegal aliens from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and other nations face some more severe consequence than just being sent back home, they don’t keep sneaking back into the United States. “As it is, the Democratic Party and the biased news complain about how federal law enforcement officers treat illegal aliens. Anyone who works within the criminal justice system knows that the U.S. prisons are hotbeds of violence, gladiator schools for young prisoners and facilities that are nowhere near as clean and well-kept as the facilities run by the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said Peter Lorenzo, a former county prosecutor.

Unlike those serving as President from both political parties, Trump is the first Commander in Chief to make increased immigration enforcement a hallmark goal of his administration. But that hasn’t stopped the Democrats from making outrageous accusations against Trump, Border Patrol agents, ICE agents, and police chiefs and sheriffs.

His efforts at beefing up border security and providing additional funding to the Customs and Border Protection have yielded satisfactory results. Federal immigration apprehension climbed more than 50,000 from 2017 to 2018, according to the Justice Department data.

Unfortunately, crimes such as murder, assault, rape, other violent acts are not federal offenses but are handled by city, county and state jurisdictions.

But at the federal-level non-citizens accounted for 28% of all federal fraud arrests, 25% of all federal property arrests, and 24% of all federal drug arrests. The Justice Department identified the top five crimes non-citizens were most likely be prosecuted for: illegal re-entry, drugs, fraud, alien smuggling and misuse of visas.

Another problem are local police chiefs and county sheriffs refusing to adhere to the ICE “detainers” which are given to local law enforcement departments in order for them to contact ICE and report on the release dates for illegal aliens getting out of jails or state penitentiaries

Opponents of immigration enforcement are obsessed with trying to establish that illegal aliens and legal immigrants commit fewer crimes than Americans, and so, as their narrative goes, local law enforcement agencies should not cooperate with ICE and should adopt sanctuary policies. This is first of all not true, but also is off-point and a dangerous conclusion.

Of suspects prosecuted in U.S. district court in 2018, 57% were U.S. citizens and 43% were non-U.S. citizens. Almost all (99.7%) of the non-citizens prosecuted in U.S. district court were prosecuted for something other than first-time illegal entry.

The top five crimes non-citizens were most likely to be arrested for: (1) illegal re-entry, (2) drugs, (3) fraud, (4) alien smuggling, and (5) misuse of visas.

This is the first BJS report that comprehensively describes the citizenship of suspects arrested and prosecuted for federal offenses. The report highlights trends from 1998 through 2018, providing statistics on immigration and non-immigration offenses, U.S.-Mexico border and non-U.S.-Mexico-border districts, and country of citizenship. The findings are based on data collected by BJS’s Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP), which receives administrative data from six federal justice agencies: the U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, U.S. Sentencing Commission, and Federal Bureau of Prisons. The FJSP links and standardizes this information, enabling the production of statistics not available elsewhere.