January 11, 2007

Get ready to be outraged again over illegal immigration. A new government audit released this week finds that criminal aliens who have been set free instead of being deported at the end of their sentences are being re-arrested as many as six more times by American authorities.

The 91-page audit, which was requested by congress, said the limited sampling found that of the 100 selected aliens, 73 had an average of six arrests each after their release from custody. They were arrested, collectively, 429 times on 878 charges, ranging from traffic violations and trespassing to drug crimes, burglary, robbery, assault and weapons violations.

My question is: why are they still in America? Why isn’t the crime of violating our immigration laws sufficient to have them deported? And why, after committing these new crimes and even more crimes, do they remain in the United States? Forget the number of businesses that benefit from illegals, these are criminals. Who benefits from them? Will the Bush administration do nothing about this? If not, the public must turn up the heat.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.