Criminal Alien Deportation Act

Criminal Alien Deportation Act

This bill amends the the Immigration and Nationality Act to require the detention of any alien who is: (1) unlawfully present in the United States; and (2) arrested for specified offenses, conviction of any of which would render the alien inadmissible or deportable.

Release authority is transferred from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and amended to provide that DHS:

• may release an alien held pursuant to this Act to the appropriate authority for any proceedings subsequent to the arrest,
• shall resume custody of such alien during any period pending the final disposition of any such proceedings when the alien is not in the custody of the appropriate authority, and
• shall continue to detain until removal proceedings are completed any alien not convicted of the offense for which he or she was arrested.

DHS shall complete removal proceedings for any such detained alien within 90 days.

It shall be the goal of DOJ, DHS, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review to use funds authorized under this Act to resolve promptly cases pertaining to aliens inadmissible on specified criminal grounds.

In order to help achieve this goal DOJ shall designate up to 100 temporary immigration judges and DHS shall hire 150 new immigration litigation attorneys.

It is the sense of the Senate that:

• gains made in border security and positive trends in recidivism rates are of critical importance to those living and working in the border region and to the nation as a whole;
• refusing to prosecute first time illegal border crossers under Operation Streamline will jeopardize border security gains;
• border security steps that have led to improvement on the border, such as Operation Streamline, should be preserved; and
• appropriate executive branch officials should remove any issued or related prohibition, policy, or direction to cease prosecuting first time illegal border crossers under Operation Streamline.