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."
Reader Comments
Oddly enough
Oddly enough, her mother who is a citizen should have lost her status for aiding and abetting an illegal alien. Chances are, that she too at one time was an illegal alien. Until ICE starts going after these enablers, including churches and not-for-profit-organizations, the parody won't end.
Toss the the 31-year-old's mom in jail, strip her of her citizenship and make her a legal resident with no chance of citizenship ever again. If she does something similar again, then strip her of her residency and send her back to her country of origin. Strip any organization of their tax-exempt status if they are aiding and abetting illegal immigration and you'll see that these oases of impunity will dry up.
If we treated the bulk of our illegals in the same way that they treat their illegals, we'd never have to worry about illegal immigration from Mexico. Last week there was a ruckus because some shmoe took pictures of Mexico's military beating up central-american illegals in the state of Oaxaca. They also, presumably, raped two women and unencumbered all the detainees of any currency in exchange for their liberty... Imagine if we had the military on the border, or if anyone raped an illegal alien, let alone whop them with a baton? Then there are the immigration stations where detained immigrants may go without water or food for more than a day... adn in Napoleonic code Mexico, you'd be guilty until proven inocent and illegal immigration carries a mandatory two year sentence in a Mexican jail... Yes, imagine if we treated Mexicans the same way they treat their illegals?
Put them all together and send them to work putting in the border wall. Let's make it one of those 20 foot tall Concrete noise barriers so popular along interstates.
RE Cracking Down on Border Crossers
The "Great Wall Of China" is precedent solution to a redundant problem? Solution redundant too? By how many decades or centuries? We are all more stupid than our U.S. Fed (who is more stupid?)?
What we all seem to miss is the quality of life versus politics of U.S. Fed (government) willingness to do expected or required work. Suppose by treaty, that all aliens always paid a "country of origin entry fee" to pay for that cost overhead (like a get out of jail fine), and, "bonded for own recognizance" (like a bond to get out of jail) to enter the U.S. (and by illegal entry that bond is automatically placed against that country of origin as a 'liquidated' national debt and that system always ran 24-7) and the associated cost of aliens was in the cost of the bond (like obtaining car insurance, this is visit foreign power cost) and a country of origin entry fee to pay for that cost overhead. Result, some countries pay you to visit, some charge you to visit, or somewhere in between. Why should we U.S. citizens pay costs for what is not our fault? Why should the citizens (subjects, other name) have to pay any cost for any alien? Emergency medical,
medical, education, police, INS, other cost (used by the Fed to bankrupt state and local governments and bring them to their knees as beggars of money from the U.S. Fed). We now have a Fed that can not even do visas (in a timely manner) for U.S. citizens? Fed self fulfilling prophecy? What are your thoughts?
RE Cracking Down on Border Crossers
You forgot to mension that a primary side effect of securing particular parts of the border has the illegal drug trade routes to take other routes with the side effect of illegal drug mafias over more than the last 12 months doing about 200 murders per month in Mexico to seize and use these new routes into the country.
illegal aliens in the U.S.
The only thing that illegals are going to understand is when the all-liberal approach to illegal immigration (IE "If you make it here, you can make it ANYwhere!") is totally done away with and when the Federal and state laws against employers hiring illegals, against illegals working under the table, against document fraud, against free-in state tuition for illegals, against each illegal being given a hearing and trial unless waived by the criminal, against aiding and abetting, against illegals driving with a license, against being in the U.S. illegally ARE FINALLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY ENFORCED!!!!! Getting "mushy" with illegals--letting some stay in the U.S. "for humanitarian reason" instead of simply deporting the skanks--is what is perpetuating the problem. We CANNOT give an inch or they'll take a mile...
illeal aliens in the U.S., it's not that I don't agree with you, but I firmly believe, the liberal approach to illegal immigration will never be taken away. I thought about this one day and I realized, the leftist, liberal, Democratic ideas, have so inundated this society, so preverted the law that the task of stopping illegal immigration is going to be near impossible for all kinds of reasons. Liberal lawyers, liberal judges, open borders Republicans, open borders liberals, leftist college professors teaching students unethically that illegals can enter this nation and must be given rights, churches advocating for illegals in order to increase donations., etc. Liberal Democrats led by folks like Nancy Pelosi and Ted
Kennedy will destroy this nation domestically as the Republican neo-cons will destroy it internationally. Just my opinion.
Cracking Down on Border Crossers
The solution is simple and cost effective. After they have had their day in court, sentence them to 180 days at hard labor building the full 1200 miles of the southern border fence. They can be housed in tent work-camps, and work on guarded chain gangs. All of this is still legal punishment in the U.S.
After they have served their time, and recompensed the American taxpaer by their labor for the costs of their incarceration and trial, they can be deported through any legal port of entry with a one-way bus ticket to their home town.
BORDER CROSSERS
Fist we have to BUILD THE FENCE. Second get rid of BARACK OBAMA and HILLERY CLINTON. Third round up all the bleeding heart liberals in this country send them to the border for some clean up of trash let them take it home and put it in their yard. Fourth take all the ILLEGALS their anchor children parents grandparents and so on send them back to where ever. Then tackle the problem of status for short term labor that we dont want to do for 5 friggn dollars a hour. Increase HB1B with labor from a people that would not kill 48.000 AMERICANS bring in METH COCAIN AND GANGS to our country. We have enough of our own . Oh that wont work. We still have the Catholic Church and the dope I mean the Pope. Who thinks its ok for us to get it in the rear since he has a big house no one can visit dont they have a wall around the Vatican along with their own ARMY? So fifth get rid of the free status for the churches in this country . Six vote SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO for PRESIDENT and put more JACK BOOT JUSTICE TO WORK. Thank you JOE. Friggn liberal Idiots in this country that feel its ok to destroy a whole class of working AMERICANS just because we dont work in the high tech fields but in the blue collar trades need to be shot. And 90 percent of them never did a bit of service for our country but is ok to let border crossers come into our country and subvert a whole class of AMERICANS not on my watch. Thank you to all that have and still care for this country.
Responding to your article, "Cracking Down on Border Crossers"
As an immigrant who used to prepare amnesty and other immigration applications, I think it is shortsighted to argue that cracking down on illegal immigration is costly.
An article which appeared in Barron's in January 2005 estimated that our underground economy was approaching $1 trillion, due largely to low-skilled illegal immigrant workers. Also, what are the human and fiscal costs of the 9/11 bombings all perpetrated by foreign nationals?
The impact of continued mass immigration does affect the political future of the U.S.
On 7/7/06, Mexican American professor Armando Navarro, who has organized many rallies to fight all U.S. measures to secure our borders, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "A new majority is forming. Everything will change. The White House will be within our reach. We might have to change the name to the Brown House… We are only doing what any good Jew would do for Israel."
Mexican American Professor Charles Truxillo of New Mexico University warned skeptic Americans that "no nation's borders have been permanent."
According to the 2000 Census, the U.S. population had increased by about 13 percent since 1990, but those who identified themselves as Mexican had grown by 53 percent. If another amnesty is granted, millions of legalized aliens will become potential voters. They could add within 20 years 100 million U.S. and foreign-born relatives to the U.S. who could become potential voters (and would use energy, need jobs, health care, education, etc.) During the 2006 pro-amnesty massive demonstrations across the U.S., many protesters waved Mexican flags and pressured the U.S. with demands identical to Mexico's.
Mexican has fought all U.S. measures to secure our borders and has actively
encouraged illegal migration to the U.S. In 1997, Ernest Zedillo, then-president of Mexico, declared in Chicago: "I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders and that Mexican migrants are an important -- a very important -- part of it." What is Mexico's real intent?
Many Americans are sympathetic to the Tibetans' struggles. Many Mexican activists here, who claim that the American Southwest belongs to Mexicans, are also very sympathetic to Palestinians' fights. What do Tibet, Israel, and the American Southwest have in common? Will the Tibetan tornado be followed by the American Southwest Tsunami? Who not adopt Mexico's immigration policies, for the sake of all legal residents?
Yeh Ling-Ling
Oakland, CA
YEH ling ling
Go put your propaganda on the Olympic web site for friggn tibet the deal is the breaking of our laws not free tibet or free the friggn philistines and for underground economy what was the tax made to pay for the infrastructure that they use zero.
Fellow Patriots!
This was sent to me by a fellow Patriot. I thought you would appreciate it
Sure sounds like a good deal to me!
Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, "Mexican visitor's lament" -- 10/25/07. She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez aid,
"They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...what happens to your country's economy if 40 million people go away?"
That's a good question - it deserves an answer. Over 80 percent of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 40 million or more vacated America? The answers may surprise you!
a.. In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominate language again.
b.. In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grandkids - would move back "home," mostly to Mexico. That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 BIL) annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.
c.. Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.
d.. Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop out/flunk out rate via thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in Colorado. Denver's four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.
e.. In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law and English.
f.. In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.
If 40 million illegal aliens returned "home," the U.S. economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local state and city coffers.
No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.
We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the "18th Street Gang" would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!
Losing more than 40 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths and murder over 48.000 since 9/11 by illegal aliens!
Drain on America's economy; taxpayers harmed, employers get rich
Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to their home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America's economy - which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.
At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupted out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.
Our cities would see 40 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the "progressives" on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our greenhouse gases.
Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New York Times called, "colonias" or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America's new "Third World" inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 40 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.
Finally, if we didn't allow them here, the California wild fires would not have occurred: "Radical Hispanic separatist organization MEChA ("Moviminto Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan") took responsibility for setting the wildfires in California," confirmed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also included was a rambling manifesto, stating that the reason for the act of arson was that "Aztlán belongs to indigenous people, the Chicanas and Chicaos of Aztlán. We are sovereign and not subject to a foreign culture."
High integrity, ethical invitation
We invite 40 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico. We invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation.
It's time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization an= our way of life.
And, to those who say we simply can't deport 40 million people, I remind them that we don't have to. They managed to drag themselves north without out help when they saw they could parasitize our society, and when we finally wake up and arrange for them to no longer be able to do that, they'll drag themselves back south...again without our help. It's not like they have magnetite in their skulls and can only orient north!
I am shocked that the ACLU, La Rasa and other anti-law enforcement groups have not come out against the racist and demeaning assumption that illegal aliens are only capable of traveling in a northerly direction. Why do you suppose they're not all over that?
Semper AMERICAN PATRIOTS
criminal illegal immigration
I don't understand, I've always been told that the illegal crossingo of the border was a civil violation and not a criminal violation.
Would the magazine people be kind enough to explain this to me?
Lynn
It is both. Crossing the border into the US is a violation of not only US Immigration laws but also nationality laws as well.
Let's calm down here and be civil with one another. I agree that illegal immigration should be dealt with harshly and quickly. I also know that the reason the ACLU and those types haven't come out en masse is because they know that the immigration problems are making their paychecks smaller and smaller.
Does anyone know how much the US government GIVES immigrants to buy houses, businesses, etc? Look it up... I've seen varying numbers when I myself was looking into Veteran's benefits for my husband...but the usual number is about $500,000. That doesn't include the Mexican workers that get temporary SSNs so that they can go out and buy $30-40,000 pickup trucks and not have to even keep up with the payments. That's on top of getting housing allowances, Medicare, Child support payments from the government(that's why they have so many kids!) through Welfare.
I just moved out of a "Military Friendly" apartment complex and had neighbors that couldn't even talk to me in English, let alone be friendly enough to attempt to say hi.
My husband just got back from Iraq and he has Mexican Nationals cutting in line at the grocery store while he's in uniform...and holding our five month old.
"Ilegal Immigration
Jsut one question for all you ignorant people: Who works the jobs that lazy welfare americans reject??????? GUESS WHO"?????
BECOMING AMERICAN
BECOMING AMERICAN
We have always been a nation of immigrants
Yet immigrants cause us to divide.
Newcomers are welcome when legitimate
For their energy, talents and pride.
To many besides the undocumented
Break our laws despite what they say.
As the anxious by the thousands
Pour over our borders each day.
The absolute one way to bring America to ruin
Is to let it become a clash of nationalities.
Even now as we argue and debate
We’re ignoring our long-term realities.
It’s time to bring back the melting pot
Or at least an updated application.
For one and all to assimilate and embrace
The laws that sustain our nation.
Everyone must learn about America’s heritage
Our democratic principles and freedom of choice.
All must be taught the values by which we’re defined
And English both printed word and voice.
We can volunteer to teach English to immigrants
And invite them to our church, synagogue or home.
What each of us does can make a difference
As the seeds of our culture are sown.
By Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
THEY NEED TO GO BACK
illegals need to be deported back to where they came from, there are other legal ways of coming into the US, besides, smuggling a flock on them in a minivan... It makes me sick to see them come here, have children and use the state welfare system to live of of. and to support their children. working under the table for cash and not even contrbuting to taxes.. and stil get all the benefits of a citizen. And you wonder why the economy its self is in a deficiet!!! GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM... Just recently in Cottonwood, MN an no good for nothing mexican killed three innocent school kids who were on their way to school on the bus... because this person was speeding.!!!! teenager mexican girls come here and get knocked up and expect the rest of us to pay for their medical expenses...stoping fucking if you cant support them...
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responsibility
"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."
The young woman in this case and her U.S. citizen parent had roughly 31 years to get this young woman's paper work taken care of, and to make sure she got citizenship or at least legal status. Apparently, neither she nor they has ever been too concerned about that before.
Apr 19, 2008 16:03:20 PM [permalink] [report comment]