From the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Washington Post:
For much of this year, the Obama administration touted its tougher-than-ever approach to immigration enforcement, culminating in a record number of deportations.But in reaching 392,862 deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement included more than 19,000 immigrants who exited the previous fiscal year, according to agency statistics. ICE also ran a Mexican repatriation program five weeks longer than ever before, allowing the agency to count at least 6,500 exits that, without the program, would normally have been tallied by the U.S. Border Patrol.
When ICE officials realized in the final weeks of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, that the agency still was in jeopardy of falling short of last year’s mark, they scrambled to reach the goal. Officials quietly directed immigration officers to bypass backlogged immigration courts and time-consuming deportation hearings whenever possible, internal emails and interviews show.
Instead, officials told immigration officers to encourage eligible foreign nationals to accept a quick pass to their countries without a negative mark on their immigration record, ICE employees said.
The option, known as voluntary return, may have allowed hundreds of immigrants, who typically would have gone before an immigration judge to contest deportation for offenses such as drunken driving, domestic violence and misdemeanor assault, to leave the country. A voluntary return doesn’t bar a foreigner from applying for legal residence or traveling to the United States in the future.
Once the agency closed the books for the 2010 fiscal year and the record was broken, agents say they were told to stop widely offering the voluntary return option and revert to business as usual.
Read the rest of this article, by Andrew Becker, here.
And now, allow me to remind of you of Fredd Reyes, the recently-arrested North Carolina college student currently being held in a for-profit prison, awaiting deportation. He’s no hardened criminal. In fact, he would qualify for the DREAM Act, which the Obama administration is trying to push through Congress as I type. It will help Fredd, and students like him who came to America as children and know no other home, to become legal citizens.
But, hey, so long as ICE broke a record, right?
Here’s Fredd singing “She will be loved.” (Scary, huh? Get this guy out of the country! He’s not only trying to improve his lot in life through education, but he’s talented, too. Horrors!)
Rhiannon “Rhi” Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing’s CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
This article appears in Dec 7-13, 2010.
If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.
Wow, Billy Bob, what a deep insight into a big national problem. “If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime” — wisdom for the ages, my friend. NOT!! But that type of idiocy is all you can expect these days from conservatards, who seem to live in a simpleton’s world of shallow bumpersticker slogans. If there’s a way to sum up a complicated, ugly national problem with simplistic stupidity, the conservatards will find a way to do it.
THE AFTERMATH CONSEQUENCES OF THE DREAM ACT.
Has anybody thought about the aftermath of the Dream Act if the bill is enacted? It’s the amplification of Dream Act provisions, that when students become naturalized, that in reality is another-AMNESTY, which causes a CHAIN MIGRATION of immediate family members. A projection of 800.000 students could be eligible, but they could then sponsor their parents, brothers and sisters, grandfather and mother. That could even escalate more as other siblings, would have their own babies and the never ceasing chain immigration would be never ending nemesis. This has happened with each of the six amnesties since the 1986 Reform and Control Act, which after each law has passed, millions of family members have been sponsored, as long as their sponsor promises to financially support them. This is an empty promise because this is generally dropped after each family member is admitted, as the feds are under staffed for this massive task.
The initial sponsor could also find themselves jobless or neglect to carry out through with subsidizing that relative. In conclusion to the whole irrational situation, the oldest family members who are unlikely to have health insurance or not enough have no choice but to fall on the compassion of the hard pressed taxpayer. Any immigration law, whether the Dream Act or a mass Immigration reform has monolithic financial consequences on all Americans. Any person only has to gaze into the overcrowded classrooms of big cities, full to the rafters with non speaking foreign alien children. Go to any major city or even some towns and it’s evident that illegal immigration is rampant, as one only has to observe the crammed county hospital s, over exerted by a larger majority of foreign nations seeking help. Even the community food banks are now subject, to the destitute who came from across the Southern border, or stayed in the US after their visa expired.
We just cannot afford to subsidize every person who trespasses in this country without permission. We cannot afford yet another unnecessary tax and spend amnesty of any kind forced on us by Liberal Democrats as it has became a major obstacle in revitalizing this nations sinking economy. The Dream Act if passed will become another financial weighty trouble to this nation, from the obvious rise in overpopulation growth from chain migration. An example the rising costs attributed to the instant citizenship given to children of illegal aliens as then the Mother can then collect a wide range of benefits, including food stamps, section 8 housing under that child’s name. There is a hope within the Republican Party that this law will be amended, and only able to benefit the baby with one parent a citizen. The Tea Party will exercise their power against any politician who panders to the Student Dream Act, until the whole text of the act is re-assessed as it copious with bad policies. Tea Party members should expand their anger at Senators such as Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) who helped the Democrats salt down the E-Verify illegal labor verification program and cutting funding to the doubleelectrified border fencing. Each day more and more average Americans have seen through the corruption spawned in Washington and signing onto the membership of the TEA PARTY. This includes blocs of major minorities, who came to America through the front door, who are also completely enraged at the illegal immigration invasion.
BOMBARD your Senators with your furious words and your Members of Congress to oppose the DREAM Act Amnesty — 202-224-3121 NumbersUSA for details. NumbersUSA will inform you of the truth.
Viva la Mexico
Viva la Raza
They’re far better people than overpriveleged, overweight, undereducated bigots like Francis here.
The real funny part is you can boil Grand Wizard Francis’ post down to:
“If it ain’t white, it ain’t right”
This country needs more hardworking immigrants to boost the economy. I guarantee you if you replaced every ignorant, mouth breathing, inbred Tea Party drone with a Mexican this country would be back on it’s feet in a matter of weeks.
The people that come here illegally know the consequences for ignoring the legal pathway is deportation. It doesn’t matter if they commit a more serious offense or not.
Even ICE has a limited budget and can’t afford to deport all the illegal residents that are discovered, so it’s correct to prioritize the most serious offenders. We must reject the argument that only serious offemders should be deported. ICE should deport as many as possible, with a future goal of zero tolerance.
I’m thankful Secure Communities is used by my sheriff and local police. It has improved public safety and security. The only draw back is they all aren’t deported.
Good policing prevents racial profiling. Police are taught to criminally profile and ignore race. Unfortunately, when some illegal residents get stopped for a broken tail light, speeding, DUI, they play the “race card”, for they don’t want any laws enforced against them.
Visit NumbersUSA and fight illegal immigration.