Customs Freed Immigrants with Criminal Convictions

Conservatives and critics are blasting the Obama administration after a Center for Immigration Studies report showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released 36,000 convicted criminal aliens last year.

The immigrants were waiting for the final decisions in their deportation proceedings. So, the ICE could have kept them in custody but didn't.

Center for Immigration Studies policy studies director Jessica Vaughan called the findings "shocking."

"We keep hearing from the administration that they are focused like a laser on enforcement against the worst of the worst, convicted criminals, as their top priority. On the other hand, they are releasing, at a rate of about 100 a day, aliens from their custody with criminal convictions, and many of them are serious criminal convictions," Vaughan said.

She noted the Obama administration policies have often let political considerations override concerns about public safety.