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Washington, DC – U.S. Rep. Brian Babin (TX-36) on Friday introduced the Criminal Alien Deportation Enforcement Act of 2016 (H.R. 5224), which would withhold foreign aid and travel visas from any country that refuses to take back their own citizens who have been criminally detained in the United States.

H.R. 5224, which was filed in response to the House Oversight Committee’s recent uncovering that many countries refuse to repatriate criminal aliens when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeks to deport criminal aliens who are about to be released from prison.  According to this report, a total of 86,288 criminals, who committed 231,074 crimes, have been released by the Obama Administration since 2013.  

Among them was an illegal immigrant named Jean Jacques, whose native Haiti refused to accept him back after he served 17 years for attempted murder.  Within six months of his release from prison, Jacques murdered Casey Chadwick in New London, Conn.  Had Haiti been compelled to take Jacques back, Casey would be alive today.  

“My bill puts the interests of American citizens, like Casey Chadwick, first,” said Rep. Brian Babin. “In just the past three years, the Obama Administration has allowed tens of thousands of dangerous criminal aliens back onto U.S. Streets – including 14,000 in Texas alone. Hundreds of Americans have died at the hands of these criminal aliens, and to make things worse, some of them were simply let go because their countries of origin refused to take them back. This is absolutely insane – and my bill holds uncooperative countries accountable by stripping them of U.S. foreign aid and travel visas.”

The Criminal Alien Deportation Enforcement Act of 2016, which was introduced with twenty Republican cosponsors, also requires that the DHS to submit a report to Congress every three months listing those countries that refuse to take back their citizens. The countries listed in this report, like Haiti, will be subject to the bill’s restrictions, which also provides victims of these crimes standing to sue in a Federal district court.