WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema and U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) introduced the Improving Public Safety Through Immigrant Warrant Issuance Act – legislation keeping Arizona communities safe and secure by ensuring migrants accused or convicted of violent crimes can be legally held by local law enforcement.
“We’re keeping Arizona families safe and secure by providing ICE with the authority to secure warrants for dangerous criminals so they cannot be released into Arizona communities,” said Sinema, Chair of the Senate Border Management Subcommittee.
The bipartisan Improving Public Safety Through Immigrant Warrant Issuance Act allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain a warrant from a judge to hold a migrant in state or local custody until ICE can assume custody – ensuring individuals accused and convicted of violent crimes are not released into the community.
Under current law, noncitizens subject to mandatory detention may be released by state or local government pursuant to local laws – even if ICE issues a detainer, a request that a local law enforcement agency detain an individual temporarily after his or her release date to provide ICE agents extra time to decide whether to take the individual into federal custody for removal purposes. Sinema’s legislation closes the gap by:
- Providing ICE with the ability to hold a noncitizen, if they are present in a jurisdiction that does not comply with ICE detainer requests;
- Ensuring due process and consistency with the U.S. Constitution by requiring ICE to show probable cause, which is the same standard that state and local governments must meet to obtain a criminal warrant;
- Ensuring that individuals who have been charged or convicted of a felony, a crime of violence – including crimes against children – or who are a national security threat and are removable under immigration laws, remain in physical custody as appropriate;
- Ensuring that an entity holding a noncitizen, pursuant to a lawfully served warrant, notifies the federal government when such noncitizen is planned to be released.
Sinema worked with Murphy and U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) to craft a bipartisan bill that reasserts control of the border, protects border communities, disrupts the flow of fentanyl into the country, and solves the border crisis by ending catch and release, strengthening our asylum system by delivering determinations efficiently and fairly, enhancing security, and improving the legal immigration system. Unfortunately, partisans in Washington decided not to secure the border and blocked Sinema’s bipartisan legislation.