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(Freedom.news) Apparently, the recent terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., by Muslim extremists is still not enough for the Obama administration to get serious about doing all it can to protect Americans, a primary responsibility of any administration.
Rather than clamping down on individuals who are not only in the country illegally and have no inherent right to stay, but are convicted criminals as well, the White House instead continues to direct its immigration bureaucracy to ignore federal law and put more Americans at risk.
As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, federal immigration officials disclosed in a recent congressional hearing that more than 179,000 illegal immigrants who have been convicted of various crimes – many of them violent – are allowed to roam free across the country, even as reports indicate that members of this criminal alien group commit new crimes “every day,” say lawmakers and the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Last week Sarah Saldana, the ICE director, told lawmakers that her agency is in fact apprehending and removing fewer illegal aliens than in past years, which could only come at the direction of the Executive Branch.
Close to 179,029 “undocumented criminals with final orders of removal” from the United States are currently still at large across the country but are essentially untraceable, according to data from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who disclosed these numbers during the Dec. 2 hearing, the WFB reported.
In all, however, the total number of illegal aliens residing in the U.S. is in the millions and, in fact, the actual number is nearly impossible to know. Most estimates put the number of illegals in the U.S. at between 11 and 15 million.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a member of the Judiciary Committee and an immigration reform hawk, said that illegal immigrant criminals are known to be committing new crimes daily.
Focus on illegal aliens in general comes as more Americans have become concerned about who is in their country in an age of widening Islamic-inspired terrorism. But the administration doesn’t seem nearly as concerned.
In fact, as The Washington Post noted in July, ICE and other federal agencies have been ordered by the president to scale back deportations under constitutionally questionable executive orders issued by Obama earlier this year.
“In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of the United States’ 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border,” the paper reported.
Federal courts have ruled against Obama’s executive orders on immigration, in a case that appears destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.
In any event, the administration does not appear to be taking enforcement serious despite its public claims, according to ICE officials and Congress.
The Washington Free Beacon disclosed in August that the White House moved to hide the release of violent criminal aliens and only moved to notify local law enforcement agencies within the past few months.
Obama’s efforts to keep as many illegal aliens as possible in the U.S. and, if he can, legalize them, is a political effort aimed at boosting Democratic voter rolls, many critics of his policy charge.
In fact, many Democrats have called for allowing illegal aliens to vote in American elections, something disallowed by the citizenship requirement of the 26th Amendment and U.S. statutory law.
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