U.S. Will Free Convicted Aliens and Threatens Countries Refusing to Accept Their Return

On July 19, 2001, U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to start releasing 23,4000 nationals who have completed sentences for criminal convictions in the U.S., but whose home countries will not allow them to return and threatened to sanction their home countries that refuse to accept them. Three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the INS cannot detain alien criminals indefinitely, even if there is no country to which they can be deported, Ashcroft in a prepared statement acknowledged that the Justice Department must abide by the ruling and “apply it to those aliens who are currently detained whenever the courts order such releases” …[more]