Criminal aliens are not facing the proper consequences.

"Authorities in Essex County, New Jersey, recently identified a man named Jose Carranza as a principal suspect in the August 4 murder of three young people in Newark. The victims were forced to kneel against a wall and then shot in the back of the head. Carranza, a Peruvian national, is an illegal alien.

At the time of the shooting, Essex County officials reportedly considered the immigration status of criminal suspects "irrelevant." The officials refused to ask the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if the suspect was an illegal alien, unless and until the suspect was convicted and sentenced. That policy has had unfortunate consequences in this case. If DHS, which takes a special interest in child sex offenders, had known that Essex County had arrested Carranza earlier this year for molesting a five-year-old, it could very well have detained and deported him for his illegal status before the shooting.

Localities that fail to cooperate with DHS in identifying criminal aliens in their custody may end up paying a steep price. They ensure that criminal aliens, who could otherwise be deported, are released back into the community to commit further crimes, which they do at an astonishing rate. A Government Accountability Office study found that 55,322 criminal aliens were arrested a total of at least 459,614 times, averaging over eight arrests per alien. The Department of Justice expressed its surprise at the "extremely high" rate of re-arrests for criminal aliens when it found that that 73 criminal aliens in a study group were arrested a total of 429 times. Localities that adopt "sanctuary" policies, in an effort to be welcoming to both legal and illegal immigrants, need to consider whether such policies have the effect of attracting and incubating crime. ...

Localities and DHS should work together to remove criminal aliens from our streets, and send them back to their countries of origin. The legal authority for such cooperation already exists, and numerous jurisdictions have placed specially trained officers in their jails to help DHS identify criminals who should be deported. But such agreements are only one part of a larger national strategy that needs to be adopted to deal with criminal aliens.

I recently introduced the Immigration Enforcement and Border Security Act (S. 1984), which is a reflection of the concerns of a number of senators. These senators believe that the United States could do much more to combat the crimes committed by illegal aliens. Among other things, the bill would require DHS to help identify aliens incarcerated in U.S. jails before they are released, and to take custody of those aliens within 72 hours of apprehension or at the conclusion of any prosecution." -- Senator Kyl, R. Arizona