Immigration and Customs Enforcement nationally released more than 36,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions, including about 170 convicted of killing people.
According to Channel 2 Action News, some of those convicted killers were freed in metro Atlanta. Seven of the convicts were released in the area, including three in Atlanta and one whose last address was in Mableton.
In an interview with the television station, Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren called the releases a threat to public safety.
“As a law enforcement officer, I’m really disgusted with it. Plain disgusted with it,” said Warren.
Warren has been outspoken about President Obama’s policy on immigration.
Warren said he wonders if the detainees’ probation officers know where they are. “That’d be a question if I knew who they were.”
Channel 2’s Carl Willis reached out to ICE for a statement, and he was to a letter an assistant secretary wrote when questioned about the release.
“ICE had no discretion for the releases of many of these individuals. In general, the various types of releases from custody include bond, order of recognizance, order of supervision, alternatives to detention, and parole.”
The names of those released were not made public, only the zip codes associated with their last address.
The Obama administration said it’s bound by a 2001 court decision that ruled immigration detention cannot be punitive or indefinite. That applies when governments refuse to take back their citizens.
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