As part of their required by executive order, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have released a quarterly Alien Incarceration Report, in which they found 94 percent of confirmed aliens in custody are unlawfully present.
Additionally, they determined that more than one-fifth of those in Bureau of Prisons custody were foreign-born. In the process, they found that 58,766 known or suspected aliens are currently in DOJ custody, of which 37,557 were found to be aliens and 21,209 to be foreign-born people still under investigation to determine their alienage or removability by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“While the administration is working diligently to remove dangerous criminal aliens from our streets, this report highlights the fact that more must be done,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen said. “We will continue to pursue President Trump’s immigration priorities, including securing the border, enhancing interior enforcement, and pursuing a merit-based immigration system, but Congress must act immediately to adopt obvious solutions to strengthen DHS and DOJ efforts to confront dangerous criminal aliens.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has backed these calls, saying that the American people deserve what he calls a more lawful system of immigration. He also denounced non-citizens as committing a “substantially disproportionate number of drug-related offenses.”
Such data collection is required under the executive order on enhancing public safety in the interior of the United States. Both the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security are required by this order to provide quarterly reports on the immigration status of all aliens incarcerated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the immigration status of all aliens in the custody of the United States Marshals Services and the immigration status of all convicted aliens in state prisons and local detention centers in the United States.