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Program to expedite deportation of migrants in EP

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

A program aiming to end the "catch-and-release" practice of setting undocumented immigrants free onto U.S. streets is coming to El Paso.

It is called "expedited removal," and it allows immigration officials to deport immigrants from countries other than Mexico in half the time it took before. It saves precious immigration detention space -- only 20,000 beds in the United States, including 800 in El Paso. And it also avoids simply releasing immigrants with the promise to appear in court later, at the risk of losing track of them.

"We're going from catch-and- release to catch-and-return," said Leticia Zamarripa, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso.

Expedited removal was in effect only in Tucson and in McAllen and Laredo, Texas, until mid-September, when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expanded it to the entire Southwest border as part of his Secure Border Initiative.

Ramiro Cordero, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso, said the program has worked as a deterrent in the Rio Grande Valley. Migrants counted on "catch-and-release" to obtain temporary permits to travel in the United States and sometimes disappeared. This year, 29 percent of immigrants released in El Paso and 22 percent in the United States didn't show up for their court hearings, according to statistics by the Executive Office of Immigration Review.

Under expedited removal, they are flown back to their countries of citizenship, making a second try at crossing the border difficult and costly. Cordero said migrants might reconsider entering the United States illegally.

"The word gets around real quick" among human smugglers and migrants, Cordero said.

Since the program was expanded, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in El Paso has deported 805 migrants who were caught along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. That number comprised 659 Hondurans and 146 Brazilians.

Last week, 330 Hondurans caught in the Rio Grande Valley were deported out of the Regional Correctional Center in downtown Albuquerque on commercial flights and the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System, a fleet of aircraft managed by the U.S. Justice Department.

The migrants caught in El Paso will be deported out of El Paso.

Immigrants' advocates have expressed concerns about expedited removal in the past because it does not require the migrants to appear before an immigration judge.

"We don't know whether or not these people are victims of persecution or are eligible for immigration benefits. They could be victims of human trafficking. They may be too traumatized to speak out before they feel safe in our country," said Ouisa Davis, the executive director of the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services.

Davis said it's up to a judge to decide, not law enforcement agents.

Expedited removal targets undocumented immigrants who are not from Mexico, who have spent fewer than 14 days in the United and who are caught within 100 miles of the border. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the program cuts detention time from an average of 30 days to an average of 15.