Last week’s roundup of 163 foreign nationals in Northern Virginia by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents was staged to convince local residents that the agency is finally doing its job and deporting criminals whose illegal presence in their communities continues to pose a serious risk to life and property. Indeed, at his press conference in Manassas, ICE Director John Morton bragged that his agency removed a record 195,000 illegal immigrants from the United States last year. But the sweep should have had exactly the opposite effect, reminding citizens that ICE did virtually nothing to protect them from these known predators for months and years. And when you compare the 163 people ICE arrested during its three-day enforcement surge with the 3,000-plus criminals turned over to ICE in recent years by Prince William County alone, you begin to gauge the extent of the problem, as well as the federal government’s too-little, too-late response.
Of the 163 illegals captured during last week’s roundup, 130 had criminal records, including a combined 85 felony convictions for hit-and-run, drunken driving, felony child abuse, assault and battery, embezzlement, sexual assault, manslaughter, drug possession and burglary. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release the names of those arrested, but we do know that all 130 were in the country illegally before they committed their crimes and should have been immediately deported afterward. Prince William Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart dismissed the roundup as a “dog and pony show” and threw down the gauntlet: “ICE and the federal government will show that they are serious about dealing with criminal illegal aliens when they begin to hold criminal illegals in custody until they are deported.”
