Each time Jacques was arrested on a parole violation, he would serve a sentence in state prison and then be released to immigration custody.
At least three times, Haiti refused to take him back, so Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in early 2015 did the same thing they do thousands of times a year they released a violent criminal immigrant from jail.
Jacques is a textbook example of the kind of immigrant living in the US illegally that the Obama administration says should be returned to his home country. But that's easier said than done.
Jacques' release and that of more than 19,700 convicted criminal immigrants during the 2015 budget year reveal yet another complication in the country's complicated immigration system. ICE has released tens of thousands of convicted criminals. Combined, those people have been convicted of hundreds of thousands of crimes, including murder and sexual assault.
ICE Director Sarah Saldana told Congress recently that agents routinely have little choice but to release immigrants. Saldana said the agency is bound by a complex set of immigration laws and rules that govern which immigrants have to be detained and which ones can be set free while they wait for an immigration judge to rule on their case.
"What is unacceptable is even one (release). Why did you release even one person?" Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, asked Saldana.
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