Christian Adams reports that an internal report by the Texas Department of Public Safety, obtained by PJ Media, finds that illegal immigrants have committed hundreds of thousands of crimes, including nearly 3,000 homicides, in Texas. According to the Department of Public Safety’s analysis, foreign aliens committed 611,234 unique crimes in Texas from 2008 to 2014, including thousands of homicides and sexual assaults.

The report states:

From October 2008 to April 2014, Texas identified a total 177,588 unique criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county jails. These individuals have been identified through the Secure Communities initiative, in which Texas has participated since October 2008.

As Adams points out, this total includes only illegal immigrants who had been finger-printed prior to being detained. Arrests of illegal immigrants who had not been previously been fingerprinted are not included in arrest numbers derived from the Secure Communities initiative. Thus, the staggeringly high aggregate crime totals in Texas would be even higher if crimes by the many illegal immigrants who are not in the fingerprint database were included.

Adams emphasizes that the criminal aliens identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety have been responsible for the most heinous types of crimes — and in astonishing numbers:

A review of these 177,588 defendants shows that they are responsible for at least 611,234 individual criminal charges over their criminal careers, including 2,993 homicides and 7,695 sexual assaults.

The Obama administration has released a shocking number of criminal illegal immigrants, and apparently is still doing so. Adams reports:

Yesterday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz grilled Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña about the 104,000 criminals that ICE released in 2013, and the 68,000 criminals against whom ICE refused to start deportation proceedings. Saldaña calls it “good news” that only 30,558 criminal aliens were released by ICE in 2014.

No wonder Donald Trump made so much headway by pointing out the criminality of a not insignificant number of illegal immigrants.

Ted Cruz is well-positioned to capture a decent share of Trump’s support once Republicans realize that, until recently, Trump was more liberal than conservative and more of a Democrat than a Republican. The rest of the field needs to talk less about Trump and more about the threat illegal immigrants pose to the public safety.