Sen. Grassley and Rep. Smith Request Deportation Data from DHS

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who serves as the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Lamar Smith, who serves as the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, have sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking for more specific data on illegal aliens living in the United States that have been ordered deported. The request was prompted by the arrest of a foreign national in San Francisco who was ordered to be deported but hasn’t because his home country did not cooperate with U.S. officials.

In the letter, Sen. Grassley and Rep. Smith tell the story of a Vietnamese national who was to be deported in 2006 but never was because Vietnam did not provide U.S. officials with the necessary paperwork to deport him. When he was arrested earlier this year on murder charges, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official couldn’t say how many foreign nationals with deportation orders haven’t been deported due to a lack of cooperation from their home countries are still living in the U.S.

Sen. Grassley and Rep. Smith also asked the Department of Homeland Security and the Obama Administration would support a policy that allowed DHS to detain these foreign nationals for more than 6 months. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. could only hold detainees for 6 months.

Click here to read the full letter sent to the Department of Homeland Security.