President Obama has claimed that his executive orders on immigration would free up ICE agents to go after illegal aliens who had committed serious crimes.

Like so much about the president's immigration reform proposals, that's a crock

Washington Times:

The data, released by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte at the beginning of a hearing with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana, also showed that the 30,558 criminal aliens ICE knowingly released back into the community in 2014 had amassed nearly 80,000 convictions, including 250 homicides, 186 kidnappings and 373 sexual assaults.

“The nonsensical actions of this administration demonstrate its lack of desire to enforce the law even against unlawful aliens convicted of serious crimes,” Mr. Goodlatte said.

Ms. Saldana said she’s required under the laws passed by Congress to grant due process to everyone, and said both court decisions and federal law require her to make judgments about whom to hold.

“Even the Congress contemplated some people would be released,” Ms. Saldana said.

Is she really making the claim that Congress is at fault because her agency releases murderers and rapists? 

Yes, she really is:

But she said she’s also taken steps to require senior managers to review the releases in the future, which she said should being consistency and a more thorough review to the process.

“I myself have a concern — are we making the proper decisions?” she said.

According to the statistics, the aliens released by ICE had amassed 13,636 convictions for driving under the influence, 1,589 weapons offenses, 994 aggravated assaults, 56 arsons and 31 smuggling offenses.

The Obama administration has claimed that many of those releases are required by court order stemming from a years-old Supreme Court ruling, Zadvydas v. Davis, that says immigrants can’t be held indefinitely and if their home countries won’t take them back, they must eventually be released.

But the new numbers suggest those released are a small fraction. Of the nearly more than 30,000 criminal aliens released, only 2,457 were cut loose because of considerations stemming from the Zadvydas ruling, the House committee said. And for the serious crimes, only about half the homicide convictions and a third of the kidnapping convictions were Zadvydas-related releases.

What an incredible Catch-22: we can't release these criminals because they're violent and have committed henious crimes, but we can't send them back to their home country because they're too violent and have committed henious crimes.

So the best we can do is release them and hope?

Sheesh.

At bottom, this whole situation points to weak management at ICE.  That, and a deficiency in the law.  Congress should mandate that these violent criminals be held until another country is found who will take them.  The U.S. shouldn't be the dumping ground for the law enforcement problems of other countries.