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 Americas & Beyond | June 2008 
Record Number of Illegal Immigrants Charged with Minor Crimes
 Mike Carney - USA Today
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| | Federal agents participating in this zero-tolerance program have been charging every person they catch crossing certain segments of the border with misdemeanor violations of federal law. | | |
Since 2005, the US federal government has filed criminal charges against more illegal immigrants than ever before, according to a story on the front page of The Washington Post.
The paper says federal agents participating in this zero-tolerance program have been charging every person they catch crossing certain segments of the border with misdemeanor violations of federal law.
"In areas where it has been applied - which total about 500 miles, or one-fourth of the border - Operation Streamline has slowed border traffic more substantially," the paper says. "The number of apprehensions fell by nearly 70 percent in the last quarter of 2008 along a 120-mile stretch near Yuma, Ariz., after the program was phased in between December 2006 and June 2007, and by nearly 70 percent along the 210-mile span near Del Rio. Apprehensions fell 22 percent after Operation Streamline was initiated in October along 171 miles near Laredo, Tex."
As of February, the paper says third-party data show these immigration cases accounted for more than half of the Justice Department's new prosecutions.(The Post says a Justice Department spokesman challenged the specifics, but not the overall conclusions, of the group's report.)
Some critics say the program is consuming too many resources. Others complain that the initiative should focus on companies that break the law by hiring undocumented immigrants.
"They're finding other routes," Ricardo Ahuja, the Mexican consul in Del Rio, Texas, tells the Star-Telegram, which reported on the program last week. "It's a question of supply and demand. If there weren't jobs waiting for them in the U.S., they wouldn't cross."
Charges To Be Filed Against Anyone Caught Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border
Vittorio Hernandez - AHN News
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Washington, D.C. - There are less attempts by Mexicans to cross the U.S.-Mexico borders for fear of lawsuits. Under Operation Streamline, a lawsuit would be filed against anyone caught cross the border.
Previously, Mexicans caught used to be fingerprinted only and sent back to Mexico without criminal charges. Because of its success in guarding the nation's borders against illegal immigrants, the program will be expanded beyond Texas and Arixona to other parts of the US where it shares a boundary with Mexico.
Apprehensions in the U.S.-Mexico border declined by 20 percent in 2007 to 895,000 incidents only. The Homeland Security Department seeks to further bring the figure down by 15 percent this year. A minimum of misdemeanor charge is filed against those apprehended. If convicted, the erring Mexican would be deported and could put in peril future legal applications to enter the U.S.
Despite the mounting success of the program, criticisms has been aired, particularly its penalizing border crossers, but not U.S. employers who hire illegal immigrants. TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told the Washington Post, "This strategy pretty much has it backwards... It's going after desperate people who are crossing the border in search of a better way of life, instead of going after employers who are hiring people who have no right to work in this country."
A similar observation was aired by U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley of Iowa. Braley represents Postville, where the Agriprocessors plant was raided which resulted in the arrest of almost 400 illegal foreign workers on May 12. Braley warned the New York Daily News, "Until we enforce our immigration laws equally against bother employers and employees who break the law, we will continue to have a problem with immigration." |
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