This statement is intended to address preparations by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the possible release of detained criminal aliens, and the manner in which the INS has enforced new provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. FAIR does not receive any federal grants, contracts, subcontracts. The INS has acknowledged that it has developed plans for the release of deportable aliens, invoking a shortage of detention space as the justification. The INS would be releasing aliens convicted of crimes of moral turpitude and aggravated felonies, including narcotics trafficking, espionage, or terrorism back onto our streets, where they could commit additional crimes and very likely will disappear perhaps permanently.
Detention is the fulcrum on which all aspects of immigration policy enforcement depend.
We must remember that those laws are designed to protect the American people from unwelcome gate-crashers and guests who seriously violate the nation's hospitality. Mr. Chairman, the number of criminal aliens in detention is increasing-not decreasing. Neither the judicial process, nor the detention space available, have been able to keep pace with this disturbing trend. The INS claims that it currently has only about 14,000 detention beds and a deportable population of nearly 16,000. Congress foresaw that the new detention criteria it adopted in 1996 could create detention problems and responsibly wrote transition policies into the law to deal with the need for new resources.