DHS: Killing Someone not Enough to Detain Illegal Immigrants

It would appear that the Obama administration is more interested in protecting the rights of immigrants who flood into our country illegally than they are the lives of American citizens.  After two high-profile cases of illegal immigrants commiting vehicular homicide against American citizens this year, Congress made some inquiries about the detention process of illegal aliens.  This month, DHS and ICE responded.

Even being convicted of homicide isn’t enough to ensure illegal immigrants are detained by federal agents, the government’s top deportation official said in a letter to Congress released Monday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana said neither Obama administration policy nor federal law required her agency to detain Edwin Mejia, who arrived in the U.S. illegally as part of the surge of unaccompanied children from Central America, after he was charged with vehicular homicide in Nebraska.

Still, she said her officers should have taken the initiative to detain him of their own volition and that she has notified all of her bureaus nationwide to do a better job of evaluating people they’re called to detain.

Mr. Mejia stands accused of a drunken-driving accident this year that killed a young Iowa woman in Omaha — but federal immigration agents never showed up to collect him. After he posted bond with local authorities, he absconded.

“After further review, we believe that further enforcement action would have served an important federal interest in this case,” Ms. Saldana said in a letter to Sen. Ben Sasse, Nebraska Republican, which the senator released Monday.

ICE said it first encountered Mr. Mejia, who also goes by the first name Eswin, at the border in Arizona in May 2013. He was a 16-year-old at the time. The Border Patrol, acting under President Obama’s interpretation of the law, admitted Mr. Mejia and turned him over to social services, then eventually sent him to live with his brother in the U.S.

Ms. Saldana did not say whether the brother was in the U.S. legally.

In January, police say, Mr. Mejia was street racing while drunk when he struck the vehicle driven by Sarah Root, 21. She died as a result of her injuries.

Mr. Mejia posted bond on the homicide charge, and ICE officers did not come pick him up for detention, allowing him to disappear into the shadows.

Now ICE is scrambling to try to find him. Ms. Saldana said her agency has asked Honduran officials to see if he shows up back there.

Repulican lawmakers have called the response by Sarah Saldana “an embarrassment,” and Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. is now taking up the issue with DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.  Don’t expect Mr. Sasse to have any better results with Johnson or anybody in the Obama administration, as they have purposely created these policies to benefit illegal immigrants over American citizens.

Source: Washington Times