Speech #1040187243

Chairman. I held a meeting recently with many of our key law enforcement people in my part of northern California to help identify reasonable and constitutional ways in which Congress can assist them in their fight against violent crime in our communities. Not surprisingly. many of them pointed to Californias increasing problem with illegal immigration as an issue they felt deserved Congress immediate attention. I am pleased to see that H.R. 2703 has taken major steps in addressing the problem of illegal immigration by specifically focusing on the deportation of criminal aliens from our country. However. I feel that the bill fails to address a critical problem associated with criminal aliens. and that is the fact that almost all of those deported eventually find their way back to our country with a potential of committing crimes again. In California alone. the INS deports thousands of illegal immigrants every year who have committed felonies in our State. and every year thousands of those same criminal aliens return back again. In fact. the California Department of Justice recently reported that 98 percent of all immigrants who are deported for committing felonies in California will eventually return to the State. and of those. 40 percent will commit crimes again. Unfortunately. this epidemic is not unique to urban areas. but has started to infest rural America as well. Just a few years ago. in the small rural community of Lincoln. which is located in my district. an illegal alien was found guilty of a driveby shooting. which was the first driveby shooting ever in that area. After spending a short time in prison. the criminal alien was deported out of the country by the INS. Now. despite his deportation. he returned to the area after only 1 week and. without hesitation. committed another crime. With such a threat to our public safety posed by criminal aliens. one would think that we would give law enforcement all the tools it needs to remove these criminals from our streets. but unfortunately just the opposite is true. In fact. the Federal Government has tied the hands of our State and local law enforcement officials by actually prohibiting them from doing their job of protecting public safety. I was dismayed to learn that the current Fedoral law prohibits State and local law enforcement officials from arresting and detaining criminal aliens whom they encountered through their routine duties. In fact. a low reentry into the United States by deported aliens was considered a felony. Our State and local law enforcement officers are only permitted to release the felon and contact the INS with the details of the incident. Mr.