House Republicans claimed government is sending violent criminals deliberately.
QUICK FACTS:
- According to House Republicans, the Venezuelan government is intentionally sending violent criminals from prison to the United States border.
- Fourteen House Republicans wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asserting the Venezuelan government is emptying their prisons to send inmates to the U.S.
- The group is led by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who said in a Sept. 22 letter that the decision by the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela has put the United States “in grave danger.”
- Nehls, whose district is in the south-central region of Houston, Texas, claimed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed that the foreign government is sending violent offenders north to the southern border of the United States.
REPUBLICANS LETTER TO MAYORKAS:
- “We write you with serious concern about a recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence report received by Border Patrol that instructs agents to look for violent criminals from Venezuela among the migrant caravans heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border,” the letter says, citing a recent report from Breitbart.
- “DHS confirms that Venezuela empties prisons and sends violent criminals to our southern border,” Nehls wrote. “President Trump warned us about this years ago.”
BACKGROUND:
- The recent DHS intelligence report instructed Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to look for Venezuelan inmates who were released and sent north.
- The report asserts that under the leadership of Nicolás Maduro Moros, inmates convicted of extortion, rape, and murder were being freed to travel in caravans toward the U.S. Mexico border.
- The report does not indicate whether the group is moving as a cohesive team, but it does say that the knowledge of the group is known among migrants traveling within a caravan to the United States in July and that many of the Venezuelan migrants in the group were convicted and hardened criminals.
