Colorado’s U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans and five other congressional Republicans raised concerns to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week about its enforcement strategies — and whether ICE is still prioritizing the deportation of criminals.
In the Wednesday letter sent to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, the six members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference expressed concerns “that your limited resources may be stretched to pursue individuals that do not constitute an immediate threat to public safety,” according to a copy shared online by Axios.
They wrote that immigration enforcement must follow “levels of priority,” adding: “Every minute that we spend pursuing an individual with a clean record is a minute less that we dedicate to apprehending terrorists or cartel operatives.”
Though the representatives assert that they stand in support of President Donald Trump’s border-security efforts, they wrote that “we need to give absolute priority to every violent offender and convicted criminal illegal alien present in our nation.
“Diverting limited resources to other objectives puts our national security at risk,” the letter says.
The letter is a rare expression of concern by Trump’s allies in Congress over his administration’s immigration enforcement priorities. The move comes as protests against ICE enforcement actions have spread across the country, with recent federal raids and civil resistance in Los Angeles catching the world’s attention.
This week, hundreds marched through downtown Denver, with police arresting 18 people Tuesday night.
The lawmakers cite figures, also reported by national news outlets, showing ICE had arrested over 100,000 people by early June. For months, immigration advocates have argued that the agency was detaining and deporting non-criminals.
“The point of the letter is to make sure we’re doing what we said we were going to do all along: crush the criminals and cartels who are making Colorado the second most dangerous state in the nation so we can work on a path for people who are immigrating the right way,” Evans told The Denver Post in an emailed statement.
He is the grandson of Mexican immigrants, and his grandfather became a U.S. citizen through his military service in World War II.
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The group asked ICE to provide them with an estimate of the number of deportees removed since January who were convicted criminals and the number who had ties to criminal enterprises or gangs. They also asked ICE to identify hurdles the agency has faced in the repatriation process with other countries.
ICE’s Denver field office spokesperson Steve Kotecki didn’t immediately respond to a request Thursday to provide data breaking down the numbers of Colorado detainees and deportees since Jan. 20 who have criminal ties or solely civil violations.
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