Illegal re-entry topped all other charges in country’s federal courts

Tuesday, Aug. 2
By Cristina Rayas
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Illegal re-entry became the most-frequent federal criminal charge in the United States during the first six months of fiscal 2011, a pattern that was mirrored in Arizona during that period.

From October through March, federal prosecutors filed 18,552 illegal re-entry cases nationally, more than any other charge, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

First-time immigration prosecutions edged back into the lead in April, but TRAC attributed that to seasonal fluctuations. It said that illegal re-entry cases this year will be 3.5 percent higher than 2010 if prosecutions continue at the current pace.

TRAC said Arizona had 8,968 illegal re-entry cases filed through the end of April. At that pace, it estimated that re-entry cases would be 12.8 percent higher in Arizona than last year and a stunning 214 percent higher than five years ago.

The increase in re-entry prosecutions comes as the number of immigration apprehensions is falling. That means the odds of being criminally prosecuted, once caught, have increased, according to TRAC, a nonprofit center based at Syracuse University that analyzes Justice Department data.

The rise in re-entry cases is attributed to a combination of things, including a change in the factors driving immigration, new prosecutorial tools and a decision to use those tools aggressively, experts say.

Daniel Griswold, director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, said that fewer people are crossing the border because “the bottom fell out of the economyâ€