The House Judiciary Committee has accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of refusing to comply with requests for files on illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes in the United States.
“DHS’s failure to provide the Committee with the requested documents is unacceptable and prevents the Committee from fulfilling its constitutional oversight obligations,” reads the Committee’s April 11 letter to Mr. Mayorkas.
The Committee said it had made multiple unfilled requests dating back to October 2023.
“The Committee previously wrote to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for various documents and information, including the production of alien files (A-Files) and related immigration case information for several alleged criminal illegal aliens,” the letter continues. “However, to date, DHS has failed to comply with the Committee’s requests.”
The requests include documents related to Venezuelan nationals Diego Ibarra and Argenis Ibarra. The men are brothers of Jose Ibarra, the illegal immigrant accused of murdering 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley in February.
“Although Diego Ibarra had Tren de Aragua gang-affiliated tattoos on his body and ‘agents from Homeland Security Investigations found social media accounts where Ibarra flashed gang hand signals,’ the Biden Administration released Diego Ibarra and ‘placed [him] in [an] Alternatives to Detention program (ATD).’”
According to the letter, Diego Ibarra was removed from the ATD program in late May 2023 after his ankle monitor was discovered on the side of the road in Littleton, Colorado. He has been connected to several crimes, including shoplifting and driving under the influence.
They also asked for documents related to Venezuelan national Daniel Hernandez Martinez, who allegedly “randomly attacked three strangers and two police officers in New York City” shortly after he came to the United States.
The letter states that Mr. Martinez had “gotten arrested—and released—six times on 14 different charges within two months of his arrival in New York City.” The Committee requested the documents initially on Oct. 30 and followed up on those requests on Nov. 13 and Jan. 25.
The lawmakers want information on four men, Carlos Carreno-Carreno, Wilker Guiterrez Sierra, Yonnier Guasamucare-Garcia, and Fernando Loyo-Rodriguez, who were “charged with robbery and aggravated battery by strangulation” in a Chicago train robbery.
They also requested the documents of Pierre Lucard Emile, a Haitian national who was arrested and charged with raping a developmentally disabled person in Boston. Mr. Emile had entered the United States. through the Brownsville, Texas, port of entry in December 2022, “where he was deemed inadmissible,” but was released by DHS after being “issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge … in Boston.”
The Committee asked for the case documents related to Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana. The Honduran nation was arrested in Kenner, Louisiana, and charged with the “brutal assault of a 14-year-old girl” and the “stabbing of a man during a robbery.”
The requests include a Columbian national who was a positive match on the terror watchlist, a Venezuelan accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl, and a Haitian national who was arrested in connection with the assault of a disabled 15-year-old girl, among others.
DHS has denied claims that it has failed to comply with congressional requests for documents. An official told Fox News that it has provided more than 75 witnesses across 50 hearings and over 28,000 pages of documents in response to letters from lawmakers.
“These requests are incredibly time consuming,” the official reportedly told Fox on Monday. “A-Files can be thousands of pages long and must typically be redacted for a wide range of information including Law Enforcement Sensitive information that could jeopardize ongoing investigations, private information about junior DHS employees, and attorney client information.”
