Illegal Immigration Policy Defended By ICE Official

A U.S. Immigration official today defended his agency’s approach to curbing the flow of illegal immigration into the country from Mexico.

Kumar Kibble, deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the agency’s primary goal is to target high-profile criminals, not illegals who have been in this country long term.

“Due to the fiscal limitations, the expenditure of significant resources on cases that fall outside of DHS enforcement priorities hinders our public safety mission by consuming litigation resources and diverting resources away from higher-priority individuals,” Kibble told the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.

Kibble's testimony was provided to the media through a DHS news release today.

As the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, Kibble said ICE is obligated to protect the country.

“DHS must ensure that our immigration enforcement resources are focused on the removal of those who constitute our highest priorities, specifically individuals who pose threats to public safety, such as criminal aliens and national security threats, as well as repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants, and fugitives from justice or those who otherwise obstruct immigration controls,” he testified.

In fiscal year 2010, ICE removed 195,772 criminal illegal immigrants nationwide, more than any other year in history, Kibble said.

“Since its inception on October 27, 2008, through September 18, 2011, more than 97,600 aliens convicted of crimes, including more than 35,500 convicted of aggravated felony offenses, were removed from the United States,” Kibble told the House Committee.

Kibble said the Southwest border is the highest priority. Thanks to $80 million provided in supplemental appropriations last year, ICE now has one quarter of all its special agents assigned to the Southwest border -- more agents and officers along the border than ever before, he said.

Partnership with the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is key to maintaining this country’s security, Kibble explained.

“At the end of the third quarter of FY 2011, ICE deployed special agents to high risk locations, including Tijuana and Monterey, Mexico. ICE so far this year has initiated 9,748 investigations along the Southwest border,” he told the House Committee.

The results achieved along the Southwest border are attributable, in part, to ICE’s partnership with CBP, Kibble said.

During fiscal year ending May 31, 2011, CBP arrested 30,729 illegal immigrants at the Temecula and other Southern California checkpoints, according to CBP Agent Rodolfo Zuniga.

The arrests amount to about 84 people a day from the handful of checkpoints running locally in such places as Temecula, Escondido, San Clemente, Pine Valley and San Diego, according to the agent.

Across the nation, 215,900 illegal immigrants were deported from October 2010 to April 2011, according to local ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley, but the number of illegal immigrants arrested in Southern California represented just under 10 percent of the deportations.