Immigration Crackdown: More Hispanics go to federal prison

We have a "war on crime" and a "war on drugs." We also have a war on immigrants! The latest attack is called "Operation Streamline," which is the obtaining of simultaneous guilty pleas from groups of migrants caught crossing the border. This has resulted in Hispanics now comprising half of all people sentenced for felony crimes. (Re-entering the U.S. after having been deported once before is defined as a felony. The first crossing is defined as a misdemeanor.) 


For more on the U.S. government's penchant for making every problem into a "war" see our page: A Disastrous Metaphor: Waging Domestic War.

The Associated Press: AP Enterprise: More Hispanics go to federal prison: "Expedited court hearings along the border (called   "Operation Streamline" - which a Federal Appeals court recently upheld) are a major force driving a seismic demographic shift in who is being sent to federal prison. Statistics released this week revealed that Hispanics now comprise nearly half of all people sentenced for federal felony crimes, a number swollen by immigration offenses. In comparison, Hispanics last year made up 16 percent of the total U.S. population.

Sentences for felony immigration crimes, which include (repeated) illegal crossing as well as other crimes such as alien smuggling, accounted for about 87 percent of the increase in the number of Hispanics sent to prison over the past decade (AMB emphasis), according to an analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission data.

Some of the expedited border court hearings are part of a program called Operation Streamline that began in 2005 in Del Rio, Texas, and soon spread to other Border Patrol sectors.

It is a departure from the old "catch and release" policy and aims to stem the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico. Before 2005, illegal crossers were sporadically charged with federal misdemeanors, but many Mexican immigrants were often simply driven back across the border.

Operation Streamline and other fast-track programs speed illegal immigrants through accelerated legal proceedings, where most guilty pleas come in Spanish and thousands of Mexican citizens end up locked up each year for entering the country without papers.

The first time someone is caught entering the country illegally usually results in a misdemeanor that leads to deportation or a maximum of six months in federal custody. If they are caught again — as often happens — they are charged with a felony count called illegal re-entry that carries at most a two-year prison sentence or more if they have a criminal history. Some felony charges ultimately are reduced to misdemeanors through plea bargains."

Immigration Crackdown: Federal judges OK with en masse guilty pleas for illegal immigrants

Another, very concrete demonstration that our immigration courts are overwhelmed and our immigration system is dysfunctional. 

Federal judges OK with en masse guilty pleas for illegal immigrants - East Valley Tribune: Immigration: "Federal judges on Monday gave their approval to procedures used in courts to speed up the processing of illegal immigrants.

In a unanimous ruling, the judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there is nothing inherently wrong about taking guilty pleas from individuals in a large group at a single hearing. More to the point, appellate Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain said nothing in the process used short-circuited the constitutional rights of those involved.

Monday's ruling is a major victory for federal prosecutors who defended the process as a practical way to deal with the large number of illegal immigrants who have to be processed every day. It also comes more than a year after another panel of the same appellate court voided a similar process as unconstitutional."

Immigration Crackdown: Decisions benched by delays on Denver's overloaded U.S. Immigration Court

A look at the overwhelmed immigration court in Denver, Colorado

Decisions benched by delays on Denver's overloaded U.S. Immigration Court - The Denver Post: "Eleven Spanish-speaking men rise reluctantly from wooden benches in the U.S. Immigration Court in Denver. On instructions from a court interpreter, they raise their right hands and in unison they swear to tell la verdad, the truth.

They are instructed to seek attorneys to help them navigate a deportation process steeped in its own complicated language of 42Bs, 204(g)s, I-130s and 240Bs. They are collectively told to return to this court — one of the most overloaded in the country — on the same day of the month and time seven months from now.

Even with this time-saving group approach to judicial process, each will wait 501 days on average to have a full hearing on his case.

The U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review's Denver-based court is slogging through 7,200 pending cases, putting it in the nation's top 10 for overloaded immigration courts.

It's a dubious distinction that the state can't fix and the federal government isn't doing anything about."

Immigrationo Crackdown: Punishment doesn't fit this immigration crime

A good, close look - from Denver, Colorado - at one family dealing with the possible deportation of the husband and father.

Griego: Punishment doesn't fit this immigration crime - The Denver Post: "... in all the years I've been writing about immigration, I have never been in immigration court. I've never been witness to a decision that might separate a father from his children, a wife from her husband. For the life of me, I cannot see what such a thing has to do with justice."

Immigration Crackdown: How to fix 'massive crisis' in immigration courts

How to fix 'massive crisis' in immigration courts - San Jose Mercury News: "... this was immigration court, where justice often moves at a glacial pace. Files were lost. Background checks delayed. Hearings scheduled at least 12 times over five years. The woman's lawyers, fearing their fragile client had become suicidal, were so alarmed they appealed to two members of Congress—not to intervene, but to call attention to what they say is a system in desperate need of reform.

Some steps are being taken to fix the courts—federal officials are adding judges, improving training, reducing the influence of politics. But critics say these reforms are too little and long overdue. They follow a flurry of studies, congressional testimony and calls to do something about the crush of cases, complaints about erratic judges and delays that can leave thousands of immigrants in limbo for years."

Immigration Crackdown: Arizona shooting: immigration row thrust into spotlight

Arizona shooting: immigration row thrust into spotlight - Telegraph: "The row over illegal immigration in Arizona has been thrust into the national spotlight by the death in Tucson of John Roll, the state's chief federal judge.

Judge Roll, 63, attended Gabrielle Giffords's meet-the-voters event, where he died last Saturday, to discuss the unbearable load of migrant cases his colleagues faced, prosecutors have said. His funeral was held on Friday.

Immigration is the most contentious political issue around Tucson, where thousands of Mexicans arrive illegally each year after entering a 114-mile stretch of the border in Miss Giffords's constituency. 

Judge Roll had complained that the "inexhaustible number" of new officers and prosecutors in the area, had not been matched with extra judges. ... He warned a senior regional judge in November that colleagues, who already had more work than judges in 87 of the 94 districts across the US, were facing "a tsunami" of cases." Jan. 14, 2011"

Immigration Crackdown: A look at the overburdened Philadelphia Immigration Court

A look at how the Feds' immigration crackdown is overwhelming immigration courts and their judges.

Asylum Philadelphia: A look at the overburdened Philadelphia Immigration Court | Philadelphia Daily News | 01/12/2011: "(Some) cases provide a glimpse into the highly emotional issues often brought before the overburdened Philadelphia Immigration Court, where applicants can remain in limbo for years and where the number of cases pending before just three judges skyrocketed to 4,573 in fiscal year 2010 - a 20 percent increase from the previous year.

It was the court's highest number of pending cases since at least 1998, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data-research center at Syracuse University - and possibly its highest number ever.

And it's not just traumatic for applicants. The judges themselves, because of the number and nature of the cases, "suffer from significant symptoms of secondary traumatic stress and more burnout" than prison wardens or physicians, according to a nationwide survey by the University of California, San Francisco.

Last month, immigration lawyer Steven Morley was added to the Philadelphia court as its fourth judge,... but observers wonder whether the extra staffing will be enough to bear the burden triggered in large part by the Department of Homeland Security.

"I'm not even sure the fourth judge is going to make much of a difference, because enforcement [by Homeland Security] is cranking up, is still running full-tilt," said James Orlow, a veteran immigration lawyer in Philadelphia and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Even with more judges being sworn in, immigration judges nationwide "are still in a crisis phase," said Judge Dana Marks, of San Francisco, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges."

Immigration Crackdown - the Reality: Enforcement and deportation costs skyrocket

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch is doing a very thorough investigative reporting series on the reality of the government's immigration crackdown. The paper calls the series, "Deportation Nation."

Enforcement and deportation costs skyrocket | The Columbus Dispatch: "It would cost each U.S. taxpayer about $500 to deport all 11.1 million immigrants estimated to be living here without permission.

On average, each deportation cost taxpayers more than $6,000 in 2010, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget numbers.

The amount Americans spend annually to detain and deport immigrants increased by more than 100 percent since 2005, to $2.55 billion in 2010. During the same period, the number of people deported more than doubled, to more than 390,000. ...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws, has been referring re-entry cases to prosecutors in the hope that the prospect of prison time will send illegal immigrants a message: Don't come back.

Prosecuting and imprisoning illegal immigrants takes up much of the federal court system's time.

Almost half the cases prosecuted in federal courts during the first 11months of 2010 were immigration-related, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which gathers and analyzes data from public agencies.

Federal courts heard more cases that involved illegally entering the country, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail for the first offense, than for any other crime, including drug offenses.

In February, Judge Sam Sparks of U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas, questioned prosecutors about the value of prosecuting people with no "significant criminal history" for immigration-law violations. His docket, like many others in federal courts across the country, was awash in immigration-related cases.

The cost of prosecuting immigrants with no criminal history other than re-entering the country, rather than deporting them again, "is simply mind-boggling," Sparks wrote."The U.S. Attorney's policy of prosecuting all aliens presents a cost to the American taxpayer at this time that is neither meritorious nor reasonable."" Dec. 28, 2010

Immigration crackdown creates backlog

Now just how is it that we are going to rid ourselves of all those "illegal aliens?"

Immigration crackdown creates backlog - UPI.com: "A crackdown on illegal immigrants has created such a backlog of cases that judges in Georgia have scheduled hearings into 2013, officials said.

A Syracuse University study said as of Sept. 27, there were 261,083 pending immigration cases in the nation; Georgia ranked 11th among states based on its pending caseload." Dec. 13, 2010

Immigration Crackdown: U.S. senators call for probe into immigration dismissals

We are not sympathetic to the way President Obama is handling the immigration issue, but we do see that the Republicans get him both coming and going. On the one hand, he is portrayed as failing to "secure the border," despite deploying record Border Patrol forces and other military resources and deporting record numbers of "illegal" immigrants. On the other hand, he is attacked for having the Homeland Security Department recommend dismissals of deportation cases not involving serious criminal charges, in order to not over-burden the courts.

U.S. senators call for probe into immigration dismissals | Immigration | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle:
"The seven Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday called for an investigation into the dismissal of hundreds of immigration cases in Houston, accusing Homeland Security officials of selectively enforcing the law.

In early August, Homeland Security trial attorneys started filing unsolicited motions to dismiss hundreds of cases on Houston's immigration court docket involving suspected illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than two years without committing serious crimes.

News of the dismissals, first reported in the Houston Chronicle in late August, caused a national controversy amid allegations that the Obama administration was implementing a kind of "backdoor amnesty" — a charge officials strongly denied." Oct. 22, 2010

Immigration Crackdown: Houston immigration cases tossed by the hundreds

This will likely stir up the hornet's nest of the opposition.

Houston immigration cases tossed by the hundreds Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "In the month after Homeland Security officials started a review of Houston's immigration court docket, immigration judges dismissed more than 200 cases, an increase of more than 700 percent from the prior month, new data shows.

EOIR's (Executive Office for Immigration Review) liaison with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Raed Gonzalez, said he was briefed on the guidelines in August directly by DHS' deputy chief counsel in Houston and described a broader set of internal criteria.

Government attorneys in Houston were instructed to exercise prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis for illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for at least two years and have no serious criminal history, Gonzalez said. To qualify for dismissal, defendants also must have no felony record or any misdemeanor convictions involving DWI, sex crimes or domestic violence, he said." Oct. 16, 2010

Immigration Crackdown: Border Patrol Program Raises Due Process Concerns : NPR

Here is a three-part series from NPR that takes an in-depth look at a little-known program that is pushing the boundaries of the American justice system along the U.S.-Mexico border: Operation Streamline. Each part can be accessed from the other two parts via links part way down the page on the left side.
Border Patrol Program Raises Due Process Concerns : NPR "Operation Streamline is an initiative that takes immigrants caught entering the United States illegally and pushes them through the federal courts at unheard-of speeds. They are often arraigned and counseled, plead and are convicted in a matter of hours.

These illegal immigrants are coming for jobs or to reunite with family — and have no other criminal background. Immigrants in these circumstances used to be returned voluntarily, or they went through the normal administrative deportation process. Now, they leave as convicted federal criminals.

The government says Operation Streamline is a success — it's a deterrent and a needed change from a "catch and release" policy. But its measures of success don't always hold up. And no one can tell how much it costs."

Claims Of Border Program Success Are Unproven : NPR "The Border Patrol says three measures prove Operation Streamline is a success. First, it says, few of those convicted try to cross the border again. Second, it points to the decrease in the total number of people being apprehended crossing illegally. And third, the government says Operation Streamline has allowed it to concentrate on more serious crime.

Marc Miller, a law professor at the University of Arizona specializing in criminal procedure and sentencing, doesn’t buy that argument. He says there's no way a misdemeanor conviction will deter significant numbers of people from crossing."If dying in the desert is not a deterrent, it's hard to imagine why spending no or little time in federal prison and being returned to your home country is a deterrent," Miller says. He doesn't even think giving Operation Streamline defendants the maximum sentence would matter. "I don't think six months would make a difference here, either. The drivers of immigration are economics, not sanctions," he says."


Border Convictions: High Stakes, Unknown Price : NPR: "No one knows how much Operation Streamline costs. The Border Patrol may not be spending anything extra on the program, but it hands off its prisoners to the U.S. Marshals Service, which is part of the Justice Department. That department and the federal courts have to provide transportation, housing, food, interpreters, defense attorneys, courtrooms, clerks and judges."

Sept. 13, 2010

Immigration Crackdown: Agency Cancels Some Deportations

Immigration Agency Cancels Some Deportations: "Immigration enforcement officials have started to cancel the deportations of thousands of immigrants they have detained, a policy they said would pare huge case backlogs in the immigration courts. .. the new approach ( (is) part of a broad shift in priorities at the agency, to focus its efforts on catching and deporting immigrants who have been convicted of crimes or pose a national security threat. ... (The cancellations) refers to a particular group of illegal immigrants: those who have been detained in ICE operations because they did not have legal status, but who have active applications in the system to become legal residents. " August 26, 2010, NY Times