Thread: CA-REGION: Feds prosecuting more criminal immigrants

REGION: Feds prosecuting more criminal immigrants
Repeat offenders no longer being sent home
By SARAH GORDON - Staff Writer | Saturday, August 9, 2008 5:09 PM PDT ∞

For 27-year-old Maricela Teran of Vista, the third time was definitely not a charm.

In 2004, an immigration judge ordered Teran to leave the country after her conviction for armed robbery.

But she didn't stay away.

In 2007, immigration enforcement officers found Teran, a Vista Homeboys associate, during a North County gang sweep and deported her ---- again.
In July, they picked her up yet a third time in another gang sweep.

This time, instead of deporting her, immigration officials referred her to federal prosecutors. She now faces years in prison.

Prosecution of immigrants with criminal records who return to San Diego County after being deported has risen sharply over the last two years, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics and federal public defenders.

In San Diego County, federal agents are sending hundreds of people to jail who in the past probably would have been deported.

In 2006, five people arrested in San Diego County were prosecuted in U.S. District Court for felony re-entry. In 2007, the number jumped to 109. So far this year, 195 detainees are facing federal prosecution.

Felony re-entry, or being in the country after an immigration judge orders deportation, is a federal offense that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

The increased prosecutions come at a time when federal authorities are cracking down on illegal re-entries all over the country, spurred in part by the Bush administration's increased funding for immigration enforcement.

With the threat of stiffer punishment, criminals and gang members who have been deported are more likely to stay away, said San Diego ICE field office spokeswoman Lauren Mack, explaining the new prosecution effort.

"It's our turn, as an enforcement agency, to make maximum use of criminal sentences to get it through their heads that if they keep coming back, they're going to face some hefty sentences," Mack said.

Too wide a net

But defense attorneys involved in the cases say the crackdown nets people with old or insignificant criminal records who pose no threat. They also say prison is a costly punishment that will not prevent someone with a life and a family here from returning.

"Some of the people they arrest are really dangerous and it's good they get some time and get deported again," said Frank Mangan, a senior litigator with Federal Defender of San Diego Inc., a nonprofit law office that represents indigent defendants. "But they catch a lot of people in the net who are not dangerous people."

He estimated that only about 20 percent of the cases he sees are "really bad people" who have committed a violent or sexual crime. About 50 percent, he said, are nonviolent criminals who are mostly involved in the drug trade.

The last 20 percent to 30 percent he sees as unfair targets: people with arrests for drug possession or less serious crimes who live mostly decent lives.

Heather Rogers, a San Diego-based criminal defense attorney who gets about a quarter of her work from felony re-entry cases, said many of her clients' crimes were years old. Sentencing these people with families and jobs to prison does more harm than good, Rogers said.

"These can be fully rehabilitated people," she said. "I see a lot of very dated priors being used for those prosecutions."

She noted that federal immigration officials nabbed some of her clients after locating them in IRS and Department of Motor Vehicle databases.

"A lot of my clients, the reason they were caught is they were living an above-the-board life, working to support their families," she said.

Both Rogers and Mangan said the specter of prison sentences won't deter people from returning if they have built a life here and have no connections in their home country. Many are former permanent residents who had green cards revoked after a conviction.

Searching the jails

In San Diego, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement felony cases are investigated by a four-officer unit that formed in January 2007 as part of the agency's Detention and Removal Operations.

San Diego is one of five field offices that recently has focused on seeking felony prosecutions for previously deported criminals, Mack said.

From October 2007 through May 2008, ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations in San Diego, El Paso, Houston, Phoenix and San Antonio referred 3,831 illegal aliens for felony prosecution, compared with 1,808 between October 2006 and September 2007.

The enforcement initiatives are part of the Department of Homeland Security's "Secure Border Initiative," first outlined by the Bush administration in late 2005. A pot of federal funding accompanied the initiative.

Some of that money has been used to put immigration officers in local jails to check every new prisoner's immigration status, Mack said.

"Once we started beefing up inside the jails, we realized these cases were right there," Mack said. "How can we not prosecute them?"

Immigration officers review the cases they find in the jails and prisons and pursue the most serious for federal prosecution, Mack said. Most of those cases are immigrants with multiple deportations and convictions for violent crimes, she said.

However, Mangan and other defense attorneys disputed the agency's assertion that it targets mostly violent felons and they questioned whether prison sentences were worth the cost. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it costs about $25,000 annually to house an inmate.

"At least 20 percent of these people don't deserve the full treatment they're getting," Mangan said. "We're housing all these people and paying for them. It's a waste."

Contact staff writer Sarah Gordon at (760) 740-3517 or
sgordon@nctimes.com

waaaaaaaaaaaaaa

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/08 ... 74a0fb.txt

"He estimated that only about 20 percent of the cases he sees are "really bad people" who have committed a violent or sexual crime. About 50 percent, he said, are nonviolent criminals who are mostly involved in the drug trade."

"The last 20 percent to 30 percent he sees as unfair targets: people with arrests for drug possession or less serious crimes who live mostly decent lives."

What makes them so special? American citizens guilty of either GO TO PRISON!!!!