57,820 Illegal Aliens in Federal Custody, Thousands for Drug-related Offenses

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice jointly released their “Alien Incarceration Report Fiscal Year 2018, Quarter 1” on June 6 (posted on the Justice Department website) revealing eye-opening statistics on the arrests of illegal aliens inside the United States who are currently in federal custody pending trial or deportation. The report stated that 57,820 known or suspected aliens were in DOJ custody.

The report began by noting that President Trump’s Executive Order 13768 directs Homeland Security and Justice to collect relevant data and provide quarterly reports on the immigration status of all aliens incarcerated under the supervision of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), as federal pretrial detainees under the supervision of the United States Marshals Service and all convicted aliens incarcerated in state prisons and local detention centers.

The first quarter report for 2018 revealed:

A total of 57,820 known or suspected aliens were in DOJ custody for a range of offenses at the end of the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18)

Of those, 34,834 were confirmed aliens with orders of removal, 15,536 were still under investigation by ICE to determine alienage, 4,410 were aliens who were illegally present and undergoing removal proceedings, and 2,871 were legally present and undergoing removal proceedings.

A total of 169 aliens in DOJ custody had been granted relief or protection from removal.

Among the important facts contained in the report were: “Approximately 46 percent (17,621) of known or suspected aliens in BOP custody had committed drug trafficking or other drug-related offenses (such as conspiracy to commit drug trafficking offenses, or smuggling large amounts of drugs on the high seas) as their primary offense.”

An article about the release of the report from thegoldwater.com on June 8 said that the mainstream media has been silent about it, and observed that the media makes an effort to depict those incarcerated ICE and DHS as “Dreamers” or “innocent children,” but that the report shows “that’s the furthest thing from the truth.”