U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Criminal Alien Program Faces Challenges

Through its Criminal Alien Program (CAP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can successfully identify aliens charged with or convicted of crimes. However, because ICE relies on cooperation from other law enforcement agencies, it sometimes faces challenges apprehending aliens in uncooperative jurisdictions. ICE’s inability to detain aliens identified through CAP contributes to increased risk those aliens will commit more crimes. Furthermore, having to arrest “at-large” aliens may put officer, detainee, and public safety at risk and strains ICE’s staffing resources. We made four recommendations to ICE focused on improving CAP. ICE concurred with all four recommendations and initiated corrective actions to address the findings.