Federal immigration officials allowed scores of violent criminals — some ordered deported decades ago — to walk away from Harris County Jail despite the inmates’ admission to local authorities that they were in the country illegally, a Houston Chronicle investigation found.
Although most of the inmates released from custody were accused of minor crimes, hundreds of convicted felons — including child molesters, rapists and drug dealers — also managed to avoid deportation after serving time in Harris County’s jails, according to the Chronicle review, which was based on documents filed over a period of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.
So much for the idea that government is institutionally racist.
It would seem common sense to me that if you have a repeat criminal, you do everything you can to keep him or her away from society at large — and if deportation becomes a weapon in your arsenal, use it!