New Britain Herald (Conn.), July 25:

Is it terrorism or is it criminal activity – or is it mental instability?

Germany is facing that question today as they investigate a 27-year-old Syrian man who detonated a bomb near a music festival, killing himself and wounding 12 others.

He had received two deportation notices. An interior ministry spokesman said he could not say “at this moment why the deportation” of the 27-year-old failed asylum seeker didn’t happen.

The “why” is of increasing importance at this time of heightened terror alerts – and Connecticut has already seen blood shed as a result of a failure by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division to expel a Haitian man just completing a 20-year prison term for murder. Free only six months, he stabbed to death 25-year-old Casey Chadwick of Norwich on June 16, 2015.

A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, done at the request of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, found that, between the time of his release and the day of her murder, ICE had made three attempts to deport him but each time, Haiti refused to accept him, saying that there was no proof he was a Haitian citizen – but they also refused U.S. officials access to his birth certificate.

Frankly, we wouldn’t want to accept him either – which is why ICE should have been more aggressive.

But, the report found, “The caseloads of deportation officers in the field make personalized follow up with the aliens under their supervision functionally impossible.” At one office, just four officers were assigned to facilitate deportation of 37,000 illegal immigrants.

Now Blumenthal and Courtney are proposing Casey’s Law to crack down on countries that refuse or delay U.S. officials’ attempts to deport dangerous criminals. And they are seeking reforms internally, including increased resources, “risk-based prioritization” of ICE’s workload, as well as a stronger partnership between ICE and the State Department, when other countries refuse to accept their own citizens.

Clearly, if we are willing to accept immigrants into our country – and we should – we should also have the resources to protect our citizens from those few with a history of criminal activity.