Thread: Border crackdown reporting success

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INVASION USA
Border crackdown
reporting success
Feds' zero-tolerance experiment
implemented in key Texas sector

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Posted: January 2, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern



© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com





Federal immigration authorities say they are successfully implementing an aggressive, zero-tolerance policy at a major hot spot for illegal entry into the United States.

In a desolate area in Texas between Eagle Pass and Del Rio – including a 60-mile stretch of the Rio Grande – the longstanding practice of allowing border crossers to appear voluntarily at deportation hearings has been replaced with an experimental program, the Houston Chronicle reports.



"The old days of 'catch and release' for those folks are over," U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton told the paper.

Since Dec. 12, officials have been sending scores of illegal aliens through a swift process of detention, expedited hearings and deportation.

More than 500 illegal entrants have been detained.

The zero-tolerance policy – a Homeland Security initiative called "Operation Streamline II" – is being implemented in alternating areas of the 60,000-mile Del Rio Border Patrol Sector. The plan is to expand the practice in small segments at a time

Supervisory patrol agent Hilario Leal told the Chronicle arrests have been declining since the campaign began, but that might be because of the usual holiday slowdown.

Officials expect the results in January will provide a better indicator.

About 50 illegal entrants were detained one day last week, but, two days later, the number dropped to two.

Sutton said that while the Border Patrol isn't doing its job much differently, authorities have assigned several special prosecutors to handle criminal charges generated by the initiative.

"We think it's going well. It's really important to send a message out to illegal aliens who are crossing the border unlawfully that something is going to happen to them," Sutton told the Houston paper.

In the past, non-Mexicans received a document that allowed them to be released on their own recognizance. More than 90 percent didn't show up for their court hearing, Sutton noted.

Now, however, the illegal entrants are sent home with a criminal record.

"The message quickly goes back to those countries of origin that all the money they spent on getting to Mexico so they could cross, and coyotes (smugglers) and airplane flights, that money is gone," Sutton said.


A Texas lawyer who handles immigration cases doubts the campaign will be sustained or successful.

"It's no more than just a public relations gimmick," Simon Azar-Farr of San Antonio told the Chronicle. "We will look back on this and consider it among a significant number of failed attempts at controlling immigration on our southern border."

Azar-Farr argued it will only end up creating "enormous difficulty" for people who have a legitimate claim to asylum.

In November, President Bush promised additional resources and enforcement mechanisms in the fight against illegal immigration.

In what was viewed as an attempt to assure his base that he's serious about dealing with the flood of illegal aliens crossing the southern border every day, Bush told a group of border enforcement personnel in Arizona, "Our responsibility is clear. We are going to protect the border. … We are going to build on the progress we've made."

Bush said his enforcement plan included making sure every illegal alien caught is returned to his country of origin, promising to expand a program where Mexicans are repatriated to the interior of the nation instead of the border area.

Another part of the plan, he said, included ending the "catch and release" policy by increasing the number of beds in immigration detention facilities so suspects aren't released after arrest only to fail to show up at a deportation hearing.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=48159

Bush:"We are going to protect the border. … We are going to build on the progress we've made."


What progress George ? You have done nothing, nothing to protect the Americans.

About 50 illegal entrants were detained one day last week, but, two days later, the number dropped to two.

There was a thread awhile ago that said OTM actually turned themselves in to the BP knowing they'd be released on a "promise to appear" for the hearing. I'd be willing to bet money the other 48 illegal "entrants" just kept going once they crossed the border since they aren't giving out free passes anymore.