CRS Report: Criminal Alien Programs

The Congressional Research Service recently released a report on Interior Immigration Enforcement: Criminal Alien Programs.

The report begins by defining the criminal alien population. It also makes an effort to quantify the group using limited, publicly available, incarceration data.

Next, the report presents the most recent ICE enforcement priorities that emerged with the introduction of the Priority Enforcement Program in November 2014.

The report then describes the major ICE immigration enforcement programs that target criminal aliens (recognizing that “some… have been controversial”). Namely:

• Criminal Alien Program (CAP) –  an umbrella program for marshaling the agency’s resources to identify and remove criminal and other removable aliens.

• Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) – a set of enforcement priorities that describe which foreign nationals should be removed and in what priority order. PEP also comprises a data sharing infrastructure or “interoperability” between DHS and the Department of Justice that screens for immigration violations when individuals are booked into jails.

• §287(g) program – allows DHS to delegate certain immigration enforcement functions to specially trained state and local law enforcement officers, under federal supervision.

• National Fugitive Operations Program (NFOP) pursues known at-large criminal aliens and fugitive aliens outside of controlled settings (i.e., administrative offices or custodial settings).

The final section discusses selected policy considerations for programs targeting criminal aliens including  discussion of current levels of enforcement and program appropriations, as well as state and local involvement in immigration enforcement.

-KitJ