A review of internal ICE metrics for 2013 reveals that hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens who were iden- tified in the interior of the country were released instead of removed under the administration’s sweeping “pros- ecutorial discretion” guidelines. In 2013, ICE reported 722,000 encounters with potentially deportable aliens, most of whom came to their attention after incarceration for a local arrest. Yet ICE officials followed through with immigration charges for only 195,000 of these aliens, only about one-fourth. According to ICE personnel, the vast majority of these releases occurred because of current policies that shield most illegal aliens from enforcement, not because the aliens turned out to have legal status or were qualified to stay in the United States.
A review of internal ICE metrics for 2013 reveals that hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens who were iden- tified in the interior of the country were released instead of removed under …