U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials under the Biden-Harris administration “knowingly released murderers and rapists from their immigration detention centers onto American streets,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said. by publishing the data he obtained in a lawsuit.

“Our office will continue to fight to hold the federal government accountable for its catastrophic and ongoing failure to enforce immigration laws,” he said in the statement. social media post.

Skrmetti’s office obtained the records after Gov. Bill Lee first learned in December 2022 that ICE had contacted Nashville officials in an effort to coordinate the release of a large number of foreign nationals in the city ​​before Title 42 of the federal public health authority ends in May. 2023. The city and state asked ICE for information on how many people were sent, from where and what resources were being provided to help, among other questions. They also submitted questions via Freedom of Information Act requests, did not receive the requested information and then sued to obtain it, Skrmetti said.

Multiple states continued on the end of Title 42, including Tennessee. Florida and Texas were sued separately to prevent a Biden-Harris administration plan to release illegal border crossers into the United States en masse instead of detaining them and processing them for deportation under the federal law, The Center Square. reported. The courts ruled in favor of the states, although Title 42 ended with the end of the COVID-19-era national emergency.

“Records show ICE’s plan to release migrants in the state was derailed by pushback from Tennessee’s governor and U.S. senators and was ultimately stopped thanks to a successful lawsuit by the U.S. Attorney’s Office general of Tennessee and other states,” Skrmetti said. said in a press release last week. “The information further reveals that although ICE abandoned its failed plan for a mass release of detainees to Tennessee, the agency nonetheless released more than 7,000 detainees directly from its Louisiana facilities at that time, including more than of 30 who were assigned ICE’s highest security threat level.

THE 384 pages of documents reveal that ICE’s New Orleans field office was coordinating closely with city officials and religious and nonprofit organizations in its area to transport, house and assist illegal border crossers, preparing for release massive as Title 42 drew to a close.

The documents also show where thousands of single adult foreign nationals have been detained in facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Of those, about 7,000 had criminal records including homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault with a weapon, armed robbery, kidnapping, alien smuggling, drug trafficking, burglary and fraud, the documents show.

They are citizens of many countries, including Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belize, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

The US Department of State has designated Cuba and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism; China and Russia are among 20 countries designated as countries of particular concern. Under current law, citizens of these countries are rarely eligible for asylum.

The document shows that people with criminal records were released on parole, bail, released on their own recognizance or released with a supervision order. Few of them applied for asylum, according to the documents.

The documents were released nearly two years after ICE-New Orleans contacted Tennessee officials and after ICE recently reported that hundreds of thousands of illegal alien nationals released into the United States had records judicial.

Report says more than 662,000 criminal foreign nationals have been identified for deportation, two-thirds of whom are convicted felons, The Center Square reported. Among the worst are those convicted or charged with homicide (14,914), sexual assault (20,061), assault (105,146), kidnapping (3,372) and commercialized sex offenses, including including sex trafficking (3,971).

In a separate database, ICE reported arresting more than 387,000 non-citizen criminals between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, including violent offenders, The Center Square. first reported.

“The federal government’s most important job is keeping dangerous people out of our country. Instead, he let killers and rapists illegally cross our border and roam freely on our streets,” Skrmetti said. “As the urgent work to fix our broken immigration system continues in Washington, my office will continue to fight for transparency and accountability. »