ICE Director: 'Bunch' of Countries Refuse U.S. Efforts to Deport Criminal Aliens

Sarah Saldana, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Congress on Wednesday that ICE cannot deport criminal aliens without the cooperation of their home countries -- and there's "a whole bunch" of countries that do not cooperate in taking back their criminals.

Saldana said Haiti, China, and India are three of those countries, but she couldn't remember the others. She told Sen. Richard Blumenthal she'd get him a list.

Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, last week asked the inspector-general of the Homeland Security Department to investigate ICE's failure to deport Jean Jacques, an illegal immigrant from Haiti, who is accused of murdering a 25-year-old Connecticut woman in June. At the time, Jacques was free after serving a 15-year prison term in the U.S. for attempted murder.

Three attempts by ICE to deport him, dating back to 2002, failed.

At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Blumenthal asked Saldana why "ICE failed to deport him as it should have done."

"Haiti does not, apparently, have the interest, the resources to assist us in doing that. And so we can't just drop them off without the country being in a position to accept them.

Blumenthal wasn't buying it:

"Apart from what Haiti is or is not willing to do, I maintain, and I think the inspector-general investigation will affirm, that much more could have been done by ICE. But if that's a problem, why haven't you come to the Congress, why haven't you gone to the State Department? Haiti receives a lot of aid from this country and it ought to be held accountable," the senator said.

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