http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/s ... 212268.htm

Posted on Sat, Nov. 19, 2005

Prosecutions for immigration violations on rise in Kansas

CARL MANNING

Associated Press


TOPEKA, Kan. - Hardly a day passes without illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico, arriving in Kansas hoping to do better than they had back home.

If lucky, they will blend into the state's growing Hispanic population, find work, prosper and live unnoticed by authorities. Others, however, get caught for a crime, find themselves behind bars and are later deported. Still others come back, get caught and face felony charges for simply being here again.

These days, the chances of illegal immigrants returning and being caught in Kansas are greater because federal prosecutors increasingly are focused on those re-entering the United States.

Brent Anderson, an assistant U.S. attorney in Kansas, said such cases wouldn't have been a priority for prosecution in the past, but the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks changed that.

"As a result of 9/11, one of the things the government has to do is be on the lookout for dangerous people who aren't supposed to be in the United States," he said. "We focus on these cases more than we have before because of national security implications."

So far this year, 90 people have been prosecuted in federal felony cases in Kansas where the most serious offense was a criminal immigration violation, mainly illegal re-entry.

Anderson said this year will exceed last year's total of 109, an 18.4 percent increase over 2003. In 1994, there were only five such prosecutions in Kansas.

"This is going to increase as years go by, and there is no way around it," he said. "Every day there are more and more illegal aliens in the state."

Nationally, 18,525 people were charged with some immigration violation last year, a 12.8 percent increase over 2003, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Being caught for the first time illegally in the United States is a misdemeanor. If immigration officials get involved, immigrants often agree to return home. They also can ask for a civil hearing before immigration officials, but Anderson said they rarely are allowed to stay.

The Department of Justice doesn't have the resources to go after every illegal immigrant in the state on criminal charges, so it focuses on those with criminal records who returned and those who broke the law by using a Social Security card or other such document that wasn't theirs, Anderson said.

"That is the type of illegal aliens we are most interested in prosecuting, those with criminal records," Anderson said.

Trying to figure how many illegal immigrants are in Kansas is a guess at best.

"Nobody knows how many are coming every day, but trust me there are hundreds coming into Kansas every day," said Anderson, who prosecuted more than 40 immigration cases last year.

Up to 70 percent of illegal immigrants in Kansas are from Mexico, said Melinda Lewis of El Centro, a Hispanic advocacy group in the Kansas City metro area.

She said they come to find a better life where a job like scrubbing floors or cutting lawns may pay more in a day than they earn in a week back home.

"It's not like people making a choice of coming illegally today or legally tomorrow. It's whether I come illegally today and save my family," Lewis said. "It's a choice of living or dying."

She said the government should increase the current limit of 5,000 unskilled workers allowed in the country each year.

"We have an immigration system that is completely out of sync with the current economic reality," Lewis said. "Congress needs to get serious about reforming our immigration laws to the point where they are realistically enforceable."

Linton Joaquin, director of the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, said punishments have gotten more severe nationally for illegally re-entering the United States.

"It's one of the responses from the pressure to crack down on illegal immigration as well as enact laws that are more difficult for illegal immigrants," Joaquin said.

If illegal immigrants are convicted of a serious felony, they first serve their sentence and then are deported and often banned from re-entering the United States.

In the past five years, the government has implemented a more sophisticated fingerprint identification system, making it easier to check criminal records anywhere in the country.

"We are getting all that criminal history together and putting it on the person sitting in the courtroom," Anderson said. "Sentencing is driven by criminal history."

He said the average prison sentence in Kansas for illegal re-entry is 36 months, and the normal range is between one year and eight years.

Those involved in identity theft need a false identification to get a job and most likely haven't run afoul of the law in this country, but hey still face a minimum two-year sentence, Anderson said.

Lewis, from El Centro, said while officials use the term "identity theft," it's not what it sounds like.

"We don't have immigrants going around purse snatching," she said.

She said what often happens is that illegal immigrants go on the street and buy a Social Security number, which may be bogus or might belong to somebody else.

Often, she said, they borrow a legitimate identity card of a family member, adding that 80 percent of Hispanic families in the Kansas City metro area are a mix of legal and illegal residents.