Mr. Speaker. Americas policymakers face an information gap that undermines our ability to make the immigration policy decisions needed to protect American lives from the threat posed by illegal aliens. What information gap? It is crime statistics that reflect criminal conduct by illegal aliens. The horrifying murder of 32yearold Kate Steinle in San Francisco has. once again. put crime by illegal aliens in the national spotlight. but this issue should always be in the spotlight because it daily affects American citizens across the country. despite proamnesty forces best efforts to suppress politically inconvenient truths about illegal alien crime in America. The fact is Americas crime data for illegal aliens is inadequate. While we have access to Federal sentencing data for illegal aliens. illegal aliens crime data for cities. counties. and States is just not there. For example. while illegal aliens are roughly 3.5 percent of Americas population. the United States Sentencing Commission data reflects that. out of 74.911 Federal sentencing cases. illegal aliens committed 17 percent of drug trafficking. 20 percent of kidnapping/hostage taking. 12 percent of money laundering. 12 percent of murders. and a whopping 74 percent of drug possession felonies. If this Federal data is any indicator. illegal aliens are far more likely to commit violent and dangerous crimes than the average American or lawful immigrant. The absence of State and local law enforcement data is critical because most heinous crimessuch as murder. rape. violent assaults. and the likeare prosecuted at the State level. As of today. the Federal Government does not publicly report State and local illegal alien crime data. thus undermining our understanding of how bad the illegal alien crime problem is and what we must do to address it. A report released this past Monday. July 20. by the Center for Immigration Studies found that. according to Census Bureau data. 2.5 million illegal aliens. at the rate of 400.000 per year. have been added to Americas illegal alien problem since President Obama took office. Americas policymakers need empirical data showing how many Americans are horribly victimized by the millions of illegal aliens this and other administrations have allowed into our country. While we have daily access to the endless stream of anecdotal. gruesome news reports of yet another illegal alien taking yet another American citizens life. we need "big picture" data to rebut the liberal lefts mantra that illegal aliens are as clean. innocent. and pure as freshly fallen snow. For example. in my district. which has Redstone Arsenal. one of Americas premier military facilities. more Americans have been killed by illegal aliens than my district has lost in Afghanistan. in Iraq. to the Islamic State. to al Qaeda. and to the Taliban combined. Is Alabamas Fifth Congressional Districts experience with illegal aliens an anomaly? Or is illegal alien crime as bad in the rest of America? Mr. Speaker. in order to make good policy decisions.
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Illegal aliens are more likely to commit violent and dangerous crimes.