More criminal immigrants in US than people in Pittsburgh

There are more undocumented criminal immigrants in the United States than the entire population of some large American cities, according to Representative Trey Gowdy. Gowdy claims to be frustrated by the Obama administration being more focused on aiding undocumented immigrants than they are concerned for the victims of undocumented criminals.

The Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee was opening a hearing dedicated to examining those victims when he pointed out that there are more than 350,000 undocumented criminal immigrants operating in the United States that are known by authorities but have not been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a figure he says is larger than that of the Pennsylvania city of Pittsburgh, the Kentucky city of Lexington and the California city of Anaheim.

Statistics from Immigration and Customs Enforcement reveal that criminal immigrants were released more than 100,000 times between October 2011 and December 2014. Those released, Gowdy says, have been in receipt of criminal convictions for offences ranging from assault, kidnapping, sexual assault and homicide. Gowdy slammed the effort by the Obama administration to offer relief from deportation to millions of undocumented immigrants.

Gowdy took particular umbrage at the argument made on Monday in front of the Supreme Court by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in regards to “tearing apart families”, acidly commenting that he hoped Verrilli was watching their hearing, during which time emotional testimonies were made by two mothers whose children were killed by undocumented criminal immigrants.