Cracking Down on Border Crossers
Immigrants are now prosecuted instead of just sent home
Crossing the U.S. border illegally has long been a criminal offense. But first-time offenders have rarely found themselves behind bars for simply trying to come into this country. Instead, most have been detained briefly before being sent back home.
That process is starting to change. Responding to pressure to curb illegal immigration, law enforcement officials along the southwestern border are not just arresting more illegal migrants but are also prosecuting them in hopes that a harsher policy will stop them from coming back. "It sends a message that it's not all right to come into this country illegally," says Raymond Kondo, assistant chief deputy U.S. marshal in Tucson, Ariz.
Though a battered U.S. economy has also played a role, the crackdown, which started in Del Rio, Texas, in 2005, appears to be cutting the number of illegal migrants. Apprehensions across the Del Rio sector dropped 66 percent to 22,920 by the end of last year. Among immigrants from countries other than Mexico, the decrease was 79 percent. In Yuma, Ariz., apprehensions have dropped 72 percent since prosecutions were stepped up in December 2006.
Enforcing the law, however, is coming at a price. Critics say the increased prosecutions are overloading an already strained court system and raising concerns about immigrants' legal rights. In Del Rio, the number of prosecutions jumped fourfold since 2005 to 14,419 in 2007. Says William Fry, a public defender: "I just can't help being a little concerned that every defendant is getting as full a measure of due process as I think they should." Some critics also suggest that the crackdown may simply force migrants to cross over elsewhere.
The change has been starkest for Mexican immigrants. For years, first-time Mexican offenders have been sent straight back across the border without any court proceeding—often many times before they ever faced a criminal charge. But migrants from other Central or South American countries have been brought to immigration court simply because they couldn't walk back home. The problem was that most of these non-Mexican migrants were released pending their court dates, and most never showed up. The new procedures are, in part, an attempt to correct this double standard.
Justice in a day. Since many cases are expected to be resolved in one day, defense lawyers say they are forced to counsel dozens of clients at a time, a load that makes it hard to investigate mitigating circumstances that might allow an individual to stay in the United States. "It's very difficult to try to get someone's case resolved in one day when they've just walked across the desert," says Heather Williams, a public defender in Tucson.
Public defender Brenda Sandoval cites one of her clients, a 31-year-old single mother who has lived in the United States legally nearly all of her life as the daughter of a U.S. citizen. (She herself never actually applied for citizenship.) When she tried to return here after a visit to Mexico earlier this year—she had crossed outside a port of entry—she was arrested.
Sandoval says she was convinced her client had been wrongly charged. But the woman carried no documentation and could not even provide a phone number for her mother since her cellphone had been confiscated. The necessary birth certificates arrived the next day, and prosecutors dropped the charges. But that was not enough to set the woman free. She still faced civil proceedings in immigration court and was to be held behind bars until then, Sandoval says. Unwilling to do more jail time, she chose her only other option: returning to Mexico and leaving her two young children with her mother in the United States. She is not sure how to come back, a predicament Sandoval finds all the more unfair because "she was sitting in jail there when she should never have been in jail to begin with."
Most of the cases being prosecuted are clearer cut than that of Sandoval's client, and many immigrants plead guilty to charges of entering illegally, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail.
Still, the program's recent expansion to other districts has further taxed resources, and the Border Patrol can't always charge everyone criminally. The U.S. Marshals Service has limited jail space, and in some places the Border Patrol has had to curb the number of prosecutions.
Meanwhile, courts are trying to reduce caseloads by hiring more attorneys and limiting the number of cases that can be heard in one day. Magistrate Judge Dennis Green, who oversees many of the cases in Del Rio, says that his docket is full. But he also says he's glad the government is taking action. "If you don't enforce the law," Green says, " nobody is going to respect it."
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NEVER BE AFRAID TO BE PROUD of AMERICA
NEVER BE AFRAID TO BE PROUD of AMERICA
America, the abundant, the place I was born
I'll cherish till the day I die.
Where the bones of past heroes lie buried in the ground
Who loved her the same as I.
Her mountains are so tall they reach for the sky
With prairies where the green grasses grow.
There's billions of trees where wild birds nest
With creatures that flourish below.
That blue gold called water with which we are blessed
As raindrops or crystallized snow;
Changes to rivers and fresh water lakes
While the winds of our seasons blow.
There's the haunt of a whistle from a lonely freight train
Racing on ribbons of steel
With the harvest of farms and from the factories
Balanced in a box on a wheel.
Some cities have buildings a hundred stories tall
Structures of concrete, glass and steel.
A statue in a harbor, a present from France
Describes how, inside, we feel.
That flag on the moon with red and white stripes
Proves America’s dreams come true.
A country of heroes who line up to protect
The past, the present and the few.
We’ll defeat terrorism as it should be fought
Never letting Satan’s horde chase us to our door.
Safeguarding our borders and system of life
As our forefathers sacrificed before.
Never be afraid to be proud of America
And march with the brave, faithful and just.
Refusing to submit to the will of our enemies
Standing firm to preserve what we trust.
By Conservative Poet
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
MEXICAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM, ECONOMICS, AND TYRANNY
It is very economically advantageous to use cheap Mexican seasonal agricultural guest workers; it is very socially and economically disadvantageous to let them stay after the crop is harvested.
When seasonal guest workers do return to Mexico at end of the growing season, they return with money and experience, to contribute to the development of Mexico; and each year, when a new group of seasonal guest workers comes, they are eager to work for the same low non-citizen wages.
And, when they return to Mexico at end of the growing season, they do not drive down the wages of American workers, by competing for jobs in landscaping, construction, sanitation, and housekeeping; and they do not use American governmental social services.
Mexico is land rich in natural resources; what makes it so socially and economically poor are its Mexican People; and wherever they immigrate they bring their deplorable civilization with them. It is so inferior than none of them want to return to it.
The Mexican dream of regaining political control over Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California is America’s worst nightmare. Starting at all of the border towns, and spreading northward throughout America, like cancers, are thousands of deplorable Mexican neighborhoods.
America is presently occupied by 12-15 million Mexicans. With the deportation of all the illegal immigrants, students will again be able to get good paying summer jobs, to learn responsibility and earn their way through college; blue-collar wages will rise; border towns will not be slums; Spanish will not be a second language; crime will go down; hospitals and prisons will not be overcrowded; and, voter fraud will be over.
When seasonal guest workers come from all of the countries of Latin America, on a strict quota system, then every country benefits, not Mexico exclusively; and when they are well treated, the experience is mutually positive.
When all of the illegal aliens are deported, the crooked Neo-Lib Democrats and Neo-Con Republicans will lose millions of political supporters, and the large donations that they receive from the Mexican Lobby; and, those American businesses that exploit cheap non-agricultural Mexican labor will lose their illegal competitive advantages.
No rich superior civilization in the World can coexist side by side with a poor inferior civilization, without a great wall or fence, strict guest labor laws, armed border guards, and fines for hiring illegal aliens.
Those tyrannical elected Republican and Democrat leaders who serve the crooked exploitive labor lobbies, such Samuel Johnson in Texas and Nancy Pelosi in California, notoriously supporting amnesty, hindering the enforcement of immigration laws and enactment of immigration reforms, in defiance of the majority will of the American People, shall be expelled for their treason.
Turnabout is fair play!
Most of the countries with which we have the most problems with their citizens coming here illegally do not allow us or much of anyone else to enter their country illegally. Nor do they allow illegals to own property, vote, work,access welfare services or allow children born to them to become automatic citizens. Yet we allow all of this to happen here in the US. Why is it that we give these one sided rights to others when they are denied to us. Has an example After 9/11 we increased visa restrictions on Saudi Arabia which called for a much more thorough investigation of visa applications causing a hew and cry in Saudi Arabia and protests about discrimination. Never mind that 19 of the 20 terrorists were Saudi's or that we can't get any visa's into Saudi Arabia period unless hired by a Saudi business or by royal decree. And should we get into the country we have scarcely any of the rights we grant here.
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