Quote:The Obama administration took fire at a House hearing Thursday for releasing back into society thousands of illegal immigrants who had committed crimes on U.S. soil – including those behind more than 200 murders.

“These are people that were here illegally, got caught committing a crime, were convicted of that crime and instead of deporting them, they were just released back out in the United States of America,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said.

According to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2015 “freed 19,723 criminal aliens, who had a total of 64,197 convictions among them.”

This included “8,234 violent convictions and 208 homicide convictions.”

Quote:“I can’t tell you how disheartening it is to hear a very important issue being bandied about as a political football,” Saldana said. “I would ask we focus on solutions rather than political banter.”

Saldana described the number of releases in 2015 as an improvement over prior years. The agency also made modest gains in detaining illegal immigrants but still released nearly 20,000 criminal offenders last year who had been convicted of crimes ranging from arson to embezzlement to sexual assault, according to the CIS report.

Quote:The report also said dozens of freed criminals were later charged with homicide as well.

 Among the murders detailed was that of Grant Ronnebeck, an Arizona convenience store clerk. He allegedly was killed over a pack of cigarettes by an illegal immigrant -- who had been facing deportation proceedings following a burglary charge, but was released on bond.

And more recently, Iowa woman Sarah Root was killed in January, allegedly by an illegal immigrant drunk driver. The suspect was later bailed out and disappeared.

Though the total number of 2015 releases is lower compared to the past two years, the rate of releases is about the same, according to the report. Of the crimes on record, 12,307 involved drunk-driving convictions; 1,728 were cases of assault; and 216 were kidnapping cases. 

Quote:Simple Solution, Stop all TRADE with any Country that does NOT prevent their people from COMING to the USA WITHOUT proper Papers as well as ANY AND ALL AID to them…..Also STOP all individual money transfers to those Countries.

This APPLIES also to any country such as Canada and Mexico, who AIDS AND ABET these illegals.

Quote:Pinal County, AZ Sheriff and Congressional candidate Paul Babeu ® stated that 500 criminal illegal immigrants had been released in his county alone on Friday’s “Risk & Reward with Deirdre Bolton” on the Fox Business Network.

Babeu said, “At the same time President Obama has put a target on the back of our heroes in law enforcement across the country, and yet they’re releasing these violent criminals, who are not even citizens, into our communities. They’ve released 500 right here in Pinal County, Arizona alone.

These aren’t just regular criminals from America. These are criminals from foreign countries. 208, of the number you just gave, are convicted of murder. 900 are convicted of rape, sexual assault, child molestation, and they release them into our communities, and you don’t have to be the sheriff to figure out bad things are going to happen because of this. And the president has to be directly held accountable for these actions, and for the crimes that will occur because of this.”

Babeu added that there are “thousands” of people like Kate Steinle, just with different names.

He concluded, “It’s not the cops, it’s not ICE, it’s not our heroes in the Border Patrol, it’s President Obama, and this administration, by their policies. This is absolute lawlessness. With a wave of their hand, it’s the continuation of this executive action and orders, and through rule-making, they’re having the same impact as law. And they’re handcuffing all of us in law enforcement, across America. And this is where we need to put America, our families, our interests first for once, not illegals, not criminal illegals, from foreign countries. These people, that have been released, should be deported, never to return to America again. Yet, this president will never do so, and that’s why he should be fired, and all his cohorts, and should be replaced with Americans who are going to do their job, enforce the laws that are on the books, and put America first.”

Quote:“If you look at the demographics of Mexico, right now, the family units that we saw in Mexico when I was growing up, when you had families with 10 plus kids, that isn’t a common thing anymore. Now it’s two or three kids, so the economy in Mexico and here has some factors,” Padilla said.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS contacted Stratfor – an intelligence gathering agency based out of Austin – to compare data. Agency analyst Scott Stewart agreed the improving economy in Mexico might be discouraging Mexicans from making the treacherous trek to cross the border illegally.

“The flow is very, especially for Mexico, is very dependent on the economy. And we definitely saw that in the recession in 2007-2008. We saw reduction of Mexicans coming over just because there weren’t the jobs,” Stewart said.

Quote:Border Patrol Union President Chris Cabrera’s findings are different. He said Central Americans have found the way in and they’ll keep coming.

“Until we start enforcing the laws, they’re going to continue to exploit the loopholes in the system,” he said.

He said the people from Mexico crossing illegally aren’t being caught.

Cabrera said the struggle to secure the border will continue.

“What happens there is now you need to bring other agents, from other parts of the county to help transport these people, make sure they’re safe secure and get them into the station. While in doing that, you leave huge voids all across the area,” he said.

The impact will be felt by the more than 3,000 agents who serve in the Rio Grande Valley.