An illegal immigrant convicted of attempted murder and arrested after his release for a stabbing death was not deported because his home country of Haiti refused to accept him, a congressional hearing revealed Thursday.
Jean Jacques, 40, is a Haitian illegal alien who was first convicted in the U.S for 17 years for attempted murder in relation to a 1996 shooting. Just six months after release from prison in 2015, Jacques was arrested again, this time for stabbing and killing a 25 year-old Connecticut woman. At his arraignment for the murder, the judge said, “you had a murder conviction, and you weren’t deported? OK.”
“It is stunning and shocking how many times the Haitian officials approved his return to Haiti and then reversed themselves and essentially pulled the rug out from under U.S officials and would not let him come home to his home country,” New York Rep.[crscore]Carolyn Maloney[/crscore] said in hearing about criminal alien releases in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“In Oct. 1, 2012, U.S officials submitted a request to Haiti to deport him. Haitian officials gave their verbal confirmation that he was approved to come back to Haiti,” Maloney continued to say. “And then they changed their minds. They told U.S officials that he was denied for removal.”
“One week later, unbelievably, on Oct. 10 Haitian officials acknowledged to U.S officials that they had actually approved a flight to Haiti that included Mr. Jacques, he was supposed to go. But then on the very same day they reversed themselves again. They said that he could not board the plane,” the New York congresswoman said. “What in the world was going on with these Haitian officials? And by treaty they had approved that illegal aliens and certainly criminal aliens would be accepted back into their country.”
Maloney said that again on Feb. 2, 2016 the Haitian government said it would accept Jacques, and then on the same day changed its mind.
Sarah Saldena, director of U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said, “It is tremendously frustrating. We want to send this person back, we wanted to, and there are others unfortunately in this position.”
Saldena added that Haiti has not told ICE why it refused to accept Jacques. The ICE director said that “the Haitian government has worked with us in many instances before.”
Maloney is a Democrat and in favor of “comprehensive immigration reform,” but she said she was wished to work together with Republicans to fix this problem of countries not accepting deportations of criminal aliens.
“Especially when they are ‘allies,’ when we have treaties, when we are literally giving this country aid and yet three times they really made fun of the American government and said no, we are not taking him back, reversing a verbal confirmation they are taking this criminal back,” Maloney said.
Haiti received over $350 million in aid from the U.S. in 2014.
The mother of the woman murdered by Jacques said in written testimony, “If ICE and Homeland Security had done their job Casey would not have died and I would not be here as part of the club of Homicide Survivors which no parent wants to join.”