Do You Feel Any Safer? U.S. Government Prosecutions Prioritize Immigration Crimes Over Dangerous Crimes

An astute observer of immigration developments in the United States, Michele Waslin on Immigration Impact concludes that recent reports by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) confirm that the federal government is prioritizing immigration enforcement over potentially far more dangerous activities, such as gun smuggling. While prosecutions for illegal re-entry are up in criminal courts, prosecutions for weapons-related offenses are down in the last year.

Prosecution for illegal reentry (a felony offense) is now the most commonly recorded lead charge brought by federal prosecutors, accounting for 47% of all criminal immigration prosecutions filed. Some of the immigrants charged with reentry were deported after committing a serious crime, while others may have been deported for being in the U.S. without status or another minor offense.

KJ