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Fox has been fanning the flames of fear lately that dangerous criminal immigrants have been let loose by the Obama administration as a response to pending sequester spending cuts. But the propaganda took a new turn for the worse as Fox & Friends presented anti-immigrant extremist Lou Barletta (R-PA) as an unquestioned authority to discuss what is in reality ICE's supervised release of some undocumented immigrants. As he made the McCarthy-esque warning that he had "been told" dangerous criminals were now on the loose, he also accused the Obama administration of preferring to endanger Americans rather than to lay off any federal employees.

It started with Steve Doocy making the unsubstantiated announcement in his introduction, “Hundreds of illegal immigrants charged with big crimes freed from jail.”

After playing a clip of Jay Carney saying the decision to release the detainees was made by “career officials at ICE without any input from the White House,” Gretchen Carlson asked, “So are we to believe the White House now?” For the answer, she brought on Barletta who, she said, “I know is skeptical.” She forgot to tell her viewers that Barletta, was described by Right Wing Watch as a “one-issue firebrand,” a “hero to anti-immigrant and nativist groups,” and one of the Ten Scariest Republicans Heading To Congress in 2010.

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I don't see any upside to this - except political. Is President Obama still chasing those mythical independent votes by acting like a hard-liner on immigration? Does he really not get how badly this undermines his support in the Latino community?

I'll give kudos to the Huffington Post for doing this kind of story, one that's far too often ignored:

WASHINGTON -- On a single day this past fall, the United States government held 13,185 people in immigration detention who had not been convicted of a crime, some of whom will not be charged with one, according to information The Huffington Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Instead, at a cost of roughly 2 million taxpayer dollars per day, the men and women were detained while immigration authorities sorted out their fates.

This case stands in stark contrast to the stated goal of immigration policy under the administration of President Barack Obama: to detain and deport unauthorized immigrants who've been convicted of crimes.

"ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens, fugitives, recent illegal border crossers and egregious immigration law violators, such as those who have been previously removed from the United States," Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Nicole Navas said in a statement. "ICE's enforcement approach is enhancing public safety in communities around the country."

[...] The FOIA request for information on all immigrants in detention on Oct. 3, 2011, turned up a list of nearly 32,300. Forty percent of those held by ICE had not been convicted of a crime, nor were they awaiting criminal trial. Despite what the term "illegal immigration" implies, simply being in the country without status is a civil, not a criminal, offense.

Rapists and murderers, frequently cited as the main unauthorized immigrants ICE is trying to remove, made up a far smaller percentage of those held that day than the innocent, traffic violators or low-level drug offenders, according to ICE's crime breakdown.

"The fact is, we're not deporting huge numbers of rapists and murderers," said Emily Tucker, director of policy and advocacy for the Detention Watch Network, which pushes for limiting detention and deportation. "They would like us to think that, but that isn't what is going on."

How can it be that a runaway teenager is deported to Colombia without even a cross-check of her identity? Here's how it happened, via WFAA.com:

News 8 learned that Jakadrien somehow ended up in Houston, where she was arrested by Houston police for theft. She gave Houston police a fake name. When police in Houston ran that name, it belonged to a 22-year-old illegal immigrant from Colombia, who had warrants for her arrest.

So ICE officials stepped in.

News 8 has learned ICE took the girl's fingerprints, but somehow didn't confirm her identity and deported her to Colombia, where the Colombian government gave her a work card and released her.

"She talked about how they had her working in this big house cleaning all day, and how tired she was," Turner said.

Through her granddaughter’s Facebook messages, Turner says she tracked Jakadrian down.

There's really no excuse for this. I don't care how much of a priority it is to enforce immigration laws. They should be enforced with accuracy, not expediency. And to require her to pay for the ticket home? Ridiculous.

Now she is pregnant, being held in a detention facility in Bogotá. God knows what has happened to that child after she was deported and now, but whatever it is, it shouldn't ever have happened. ICE likes to brag about their numbers and say they're deporting criminals and repeat offenders, but it seems that they're a bit sloppy about how they're doing it. They fingerprinted this child, for heavens' sake! How hard would it have been to compare her fingerprints to those of the person whose name she used before sending her out of the country? I wonder if they ever thought the absence of a Columbian accent would have been a clue? Evidently not.

Even if the Houston police screwed up, and I believe they did, the responsibility and ultimate screwup sits firmly with this administration's immigration authorities. An apology and restitution is the least they should do.

Step up, DHS. Get this girl home. Now.

Update: CNN just ran this report at 9 AM this morning. Note how the entire story is being twisted now to blame the victim. It's HER fault she's in Colombia. Somehow she plotted to use someone's name who was never in the ICE system? According to CNN, she jacked the whole system to get from Texas to Colombia. They can't imagine why, of course, but it's clearly this 14-year old (now 15) African-American teenager's fault that she is being held in the system in Colombia after being deported from this country.

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Remember the deportation program that Nancy Pelosi said was a waste of taxpayers' money? The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced they'll start screening for signs of bias after several states opted out of Secure Communities, saying people were being deported for minor violations like traffic tickets instead of serious crimes:

On Friday, federal officials announced that ICE would review localities in Secure Communities once every quarter for signs of bias. “Jurisdictions are different in terms of a lot of things,” Margo Schlanger, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s chief civil rights officer, told reporters. “They’re different in terms of who lives there, they’re different in terms of the criminal activity that goes on there.”

“Of course, ICE does not want to be a conduit for discrimination,” Schlanger said. “We need to do good and solid oversight to make sure that we are not.”

The reviews are one of several tweaks to Secure Communities that ICE announced last week in response to escalating criticism, as well as an upcoming review of the program by the agency’s inspector general. ICE Director John Norton also said he is considering a change related to deportation of immigrants arrested for traffic offenses. Currently, ICE can go after the suspects even before their traffic charges are heard, but the change under consideration would start deportation proceedings only after they were convicted.

Nearly three quarters of all foreigners living in the United States live in places where Secure Communities has been rolled out. But it is a program still very much in startup mode. Almost half of the 1,200 police agencies it covers joined since October.

There is a lot more ground to cover. Many states have only a few jurisdictions signed up. For example, three of Pennsylvania’s biggest counties are on board, but a spokesman for the State Police says ICE has not asked the state agency to join. The first counties in Washington State will go online very soon, but, there, the State Patrol decided it will defer to local sheriffs on whether they want to participate. “We have our hands full enforcing state law,” says state patrol spokesman Bob Calkins. “We’re not in any hurry to take on a new role that is properly the work of a federal agency.”