Government Accountability Office Report Shows ICE Released 2,837 Convicted Alien Sex Offenders

Recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) brings to light the release of 2,837 convicted alien sex offenders back into the American public. This release by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been made to comply with the 2001 US Supreme Court decision on Zadvydas v. Davis.

The GAO report mentioned that there are circumstances in which criminal aliens who have been ordered to be removed from the United States - including those convicted of a sex offense - cannot be removed because the designated country will not accept the alien's return.


Referring to Zadvydas v. Davis, the report mentioned that it was lawfully decided that indefinite detention of removable aliens for greater than six months is unconstitutional unless there is "significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future."

While the 5-justice majority in the matter held "Freedom from imprisonment lies at the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause," the 4-justice dissent had held otherwise in the matter.

The GAO report, citing data from the ICE concluded that there is an increased risk of alien sex offenders residing in U.S. communities without being registered. The GAO based its conclusion upon ICE data that showed at least five percent of the released aliens who are sex offenders did not register as such in their communities and comply with federal law.

At the same time, out of the 4359 alien sex offenders who had been removed from the country between January and August 2012, ICE showed at least five percent returned to US and were arrested for another offense.

The GAO report found that large numbers of alien sex offenders, who are deported from the country, manage to return and again commit offenses in the United States.

Writing in dissent in Zadvydas v. Davis Justice Anthony Kennedy had noted that the majority was wrong in deciding that alien sex offenders cannot be indefinitely detained until deportation because, "the authority to detain beyond the removal period is to protect the community, not to negotiate the aliens' return … An alien's admission to this country is conditioned upon compliance with our laws, and removal is the consequence of a breach of that understanding."