OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy put the Biden-Harris administration’s chief flak on the defensive once again Monday with a pointed question about the “danger” posed to American citizens by illegal aliens who have been convicted of “murder.”
As of July 21, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that there are a total of 13,099 undocumented immigrants convicted of homicide currently living in the U.S., according to a letter sent to Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales on Wednesday. Jean-Pierre contended that the data provided by ICE is a “false representation” of reality, the Daily Caller reported.
“Thirteen-thousand people who’ve been convicted of murder crossed the border illegally and are living among us,” Doocy began in his exchange with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “So how much danger are U.S. communities in right now because of this?”
“I think it’s important to correct the record here. First of all, the false representation of the data ICE shared is what we’re seeing: false representation. I got to call that out,” Jean-Pierre said. “We got to call that out, and this has been fact-checked by some of your colleagues here, by multiple, multiple, multiple outlets. That has been debunked on what has been falsely misrepresented here, so we have to call that out.”
The press secretary explained that the figure of undocumented immigrants convicted of these crimes currently living in the open is misleading. She argued that agencies must ensure they are not “lying” to the American public.
WATCH:
Doocy asks Jean-Pierre about the ICE data showing 13,000 convicted murderers are in our country illegally.
She says that the data has been “fact checked” and “falsely represented.”
Doocy than asks her to clarify and she completely fails.💢 pic.twitter.com/JFt4GoQeLz
— Snowflake_News (@Snowflake_News) October 1, 2024
“If we’re going to report something, and data that’s out there, we got to do it in the way that is not confusing the American people and certainly not lying,” the press secretary continued. “And so, this has been fact-checked, and so the way that is being falsely represented here is just not okay and I got to be really clear about that.”
According to the letter, there are also 15,811 undocumented immigrants convicted of sexual assault and an additional 14,301 convicted of burglary currently living freely. As of July 21, ICE’s national docket included over 662,566 non-citizens with criminal histories. This total comprises 435,719 convicted criminals and another 226,847 with pending criminal charges.
The agency further elaborated on how sanctuary cities are complicating efforts for agents to arrest convicted migrants, as these cities are said to ignore detainer requests for criminal aliens.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security informed NBC News that the data is being misrepresented, as those numbers date back four decades. It is currently unclear when the first of the 13,000 undocumented migrants convicted of homicide entered the U.S.
The news is particularly heinous for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, since President Joe Biden placed her in charge of dealing with the crisis at the border early in their administration.
Last week, retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke revealed during a congressional hearing that he was directed by the Biden-Harris administration not to disclose arrests of illegal border crossers identified as “Significant Interest Aliens” who have ties to terrorism.
Heitke testified before a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday about how the Biden-Harris “open border policies have undermined our safety and security.”
“The only true consequence we have to slow down and discourage people from coming into the United States illegally is sending them back to their country of origin. Throughout the first three-plus years of this administration, I saw a steady decrease in the countries we could send people back to for the first time in my 25 years, and under five different administrations, whether through neglect or on purpose, I saw a large-scale lapse in our ability to return people to their country of origin,” Heitke testified.
“The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released. The current administration, however, from day one made a point of decreasing the amount of detention space available nationwide. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s funding for detention has steadily been cut, and private detention eliminated,” he added.
