Murders by illegals who were blocked from deportation

Due to a very questionable U.S. policy, thousands of criminal aliens from countries like Pakistan, Cuba, Mexico, China and Vietnam remain free to commit additional crimes because their home nations won’t take them back, Fox News reports.

Based on a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. immigration officials are only allowed to hold someone for six months after their incarceration. If the immigrant’s home country refuses to take back their national, the U.S. is required to let them walk — no matter what crime they have committed.

While some lawmakers are attempting to correct the problem by punishing nations that won’t take back their own criminals, the Obama administration and several Democrats in Congress are blocking punitive legislation, advocating that the State Department handle the issue through diplomatic measures.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) wants to change the law to include the withholding of visas to countries that refuse to take back their nationals.

“I don’t know why the State Department seems to take the side of foreign countries over our own American interest in the United States,” Poe said, urging the U.S. to tell those countries: “Look, you take these people back or the consequence is going to be no visas for your nation.”

More than 50,000 criminal illegal aliens ordered deported remain in the U.S.

Poe says there were three particularly gruesome crimes committed by illegal aliens that brought the issue to his attention:

In June, a judge sentenced 22-year-old Shafiqul Islam from Bangladesh for the murder of 73-year-old Lois Decker. Before murdering Decker, Islam served a year in prison for sexually assaulting a child. After his release from prison, a judge ordered Islam be deported, however, Bangladesh would not take him back. So he remained in the United States and went on to kill a U.S. citizen.

Binh Thai Luc, 35, was a career criminal who spent eight years in a California prison when a judge ruled he be deported. Vietnam refused to take him back, so he was released onto the streets of San Francisco. He would go on to allegedly bludgeon to death a family of five in March of 2012.

In Boston, a Cambodian thug stabbed and beat 16-year-old Ashton Cline-McMurray to death with a golf club. The boy suffered from cerebral palsy and was attacked while on his way home from a football game. After striking a plea deal in 2003, Loeun Heng was supposed to be deported last year following his release from prison. Instead, his country refused to take him back and he was cut loose in the U.S. He remains free.

Fox News has more:

But these cases caught Poe’s attention. His first bill introduced last year refused any visas — student, business or tourist — to any country that refused to repatriate their criminals. That bill went nowhere, opposed by the travel industry, the administration and Democrats in Congress

Back again in the House Immigration Subcommittee, Poe is trying again. This year, his bill only applies to visas for diplomatic staff from countries that refuse deported nationals. But many Democrats believe even that is too aggressive.

“What Poe’s bill will do is throw a monkey wrench into diplomatic relations. It is a nonstarter for that reason,” says immigration attorney Dave Leopold. “It makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the secretary of State and the secretary of Homeland Security to make intelligent decisions about when to stop issuing visas to countries that refuse to take their criminal alien deportees.”

Poe argues that the State Department already retains the power to withhold visas from offending nations but has only used it once in 2005 against the small country of Guyana, who then agreed to take back its 100 citizens. His current bill in committee would make the sanctions mandatory.

“These people don’t go back. They stay here. They commit crimes. And the countries that are responsible for them don’t do anything about it. It’s time the United States do something about it and hold these countries accountable,” Poe added. “They aren’t going to have any choice if we pass this law.”

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Gov. Jan Brewer's Lawyers Fight for Arizona Immigration Laws

Do Arizona immigration laws use racial profiling?  Many opponents claim so, but Gov. Jan Brewer's lawyers argue those claims are merely speculations, and have asked a federal judge to reject a bid to prevent police from enforcing the statute's most contentious section.

The Republican governor's attorneys told U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in a filing Friday that the law's requirement that police check the immigration status of people they stop for violations other than immigration should be allowed to take effect.

Opponents have called this the "show me your papers provision" and say that it will inevitably lead to discrimination against Hispanics.

A coalition of civil rights, religious and business groups that oppose the law launched a fresh attack after the U.S. Supreme Court in late June upheld the section in question and rejected others.

The opponents asked Bolton to block enforcement of the provision before it takes effect, arguing that Latinos in Arizona would face systematic racial profiling and unreasonably long detentions if that section is enforced.

They also argued that special patrols, known as immigration sweeps, launched in recent years by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio show that the law's requirement will disproportionately affect Latinos.

Arpaio's office has been accused by both a small group of Latinos and the U.S. Justice Department of racial profiling, a charge the sheriff has vigorously denied.

Written closing arguments are due Thursday in a racial profiling case filed by the group of Latinos against Arpaio's office. No trial date has yet been set in a separate civil rights case filed against the sheriff's office by the Justice Department.

Brewer's lawyers said the opponents haven't shown that enforcement of the questioning requirement will lead to racial profiling or prolonged detentions of Latinos. They also said the allegations against the sheriff's department are unrelated to the 2010 law.

The governor's attorneys also pointed out that the law explicitly prohibits discriminatory policing and that the state's police training and licensing board developed standards for enforcement that avoid profiling.

If the judge agrees with Brewer's lawyers it's unclear exactly when police could begin to enforce the requirement.

Legal experts say the opponents face an uphill battle in trying to persuade Bolton to bar enforcement of the requirement because the lower courts might want to wait until the requirement is enforced to consider actual injuries from the law, rather than confront the potential for harm.

Even if opponents don't succeed in getting the requirement put on hold, some backers of the law are questioning the level of cooperation they will get from federal immigration authorities, who will be called to verify people's immigration status and be responsible for picking up illegal immigrants from local officers.

Federal immigration officers have said they will help, but only if doing so conforms to their priorities, including catching repeat violators and identifying and removing those who threaten public safety and national security.

If federal agents decline to pick up illegal immigrants, local officers in some cases will likely have to let them go unless they're suspected of committing a crime that would require them to be brought to jail.

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