OPINION:
“The idea that anyone will be deported without actually having committed a felony or a serious crime is going to end in my administration,” then-candidate Joe Biden promised while campaigning in December 2019.
On his first day as president, Mr. Biden delivered, signing an executive order that would rescind all deportations in his first 100 days in office. Although the order was immediately blocked by a federal judge, Mr. Biden found other ways to keep illegal aliens in the U.S.
In February 2021, Mr. Biden neutered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to deport. It issued guidance preventing ICE agents from arresting anyone outside of a jail or prison without permission from headquarters and instructed agents to prioritize arrests of immigrants who had crossed the border illegally to those suspected of engaging in terrorism or spying.
Many at the time said the guidance essentially abolished ICE without actually eliminating it.
“The men and women of ICE, they took an oath to enforce immigration laws,” Tom Homan, who served as acting ICE director under former President Donald Trump, said at the time. “It’s unfortunate they can’t do the job. … And it’s unfortunate that many criminals are going to be walking the streets of America because this administration simply thinks they’re not important enough to take off the streets.”
Alas, Mr. Homan’s prediction has come true.
Last month, according to local authorities, illegal immigrant Alonzo Pierre Mingo impersonated a UPS deliveryman and shot three people in the head in a Minnesota house as two children under the age of 5 watched.
Mingo had a 2020 conviction in federal court for being a felon in possession of a gun and previous convictions in Illinois for aggravated battery and two weapons-related offenses.
On Friday, illegal immigrant Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested and charged with felony murder, aggravated battery, kidnapping, concealing the death of another and other charges related to the slaying of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
Mr. Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant, crossed the border in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 8, 2022. He was sent to a processing center, was quickly released, and boarded a bus to New York. While in the Big Apple, Mr. Ibarra was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of a child. He later moved to Georgia to pursue a better job.
Ms. Riley’s killing was just one of many violent crimes attributed to some of the roughly 7.2 million illegals who have entered the country during Mr. Biden’s tenure.
In 2022 — the same year Mr. Ibarra crossed the U.S. border — it was widely reported that the anti-American socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro was deliberately releasing Venezuela’s violent prisoners early, including inmates convicted of murder, rape and extortion, and pushing them to join caravans heading for the United States.
This month, it was reported the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is recruiting illegal immigrants in New York for its crime ring. The gang was recently implicated in orchestrating a string of 62 thefts in the city.
Tren de Aragua leaders made their way across the border to New York last December, Deputy Inspector Nicholas Fiore of the New York Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Unit told New York TV station WNYW. He said the gang is using WhatsApp to recruit immigrants in New York.
In January, two NYPD officers were attacked trying to break up a disorderly group of migrant men near Times Square. Police initially arrested four people, and then a fifth person a few days later. But then, all were released without bail.
Since New York is a sanctuary city, it doesn’t cooperate with ICE. One of the assailants was later arrested on shoplifting charges, and another was arrested in an assault in the Bronx. Their nationality and gang affiliation are unclear.
In January 2021, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas offered Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian protection from deportation, to up to 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S.
In the last two years, nearly half a million Venezuelans have been detained along the southwestern border, forcing the administration to backtrack on its previous policy and resume deporting Venezuelan immigrants in October.
Last week, it was reported by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Maduro stopped accepting flights of migrants deported from the U.S. and Mexico, making good on a promise to obstruct U.S. immigration laws if sanctions on his regime were resumed.
It’s unlikely the Biden administration will put up much of a fight — it’s been begging Venezuela to pump more oil to lower international prices. In October, it eased sanctions on its oil sector in return for Mr. Maduro’s promise to hold free and fair elections. In the months since, Mr. Maduro’s regime has only become more repressive.
Consequently, the Biden administration restored sanctions on Venezuela’s gold industry. But it left alone its more lucrative oil sector.
Sanctions designed not to hurt — exactly what one would expect from the Biden administration, which is too squeamish to deport illegal immigrants.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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