http://prescottdailycourier.com/main.as ... M=25312.91


Eye-opening statistics demand swift action

Wednesday, January 10, 2007


The U.S. Justice Department released some eye-opening statistics this past week about illegal immigration and crime.

The Associated Press reported that Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine checked the criminal histories of 100 illegal immigrants arrested and then released by local and state authorities in 2004 the most recent year for which complete figures are available.

Of the individuals in that sample, authorities re-ar-rested 73 of them a total of 429 times on charges ranging from traffic tickets to offenses involving guns and drugs.

In a classic understatement, the audit said the data suggests "the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high."

Indeed. This was an admittedly small sample of only illegals local authorities arrested and released before they could turn them over to Homeland Security.

For years, government policy was "catch and release" in the tradition of television fishing shows, because of insufficient jail space and other resources. But this past fall as the illegal immigration issue heated up, Homeland Security said it would detain 99 percent of non-Mexican illegals until it could return them to their home nations. The AP said the policy does not apply to Mexican illegals because the Border Patrol returns them almost immediately to Mexico after it catches them.

What the AP didn't say is that illegals who elude the Border Patrol and make it farther north and get into trouble either answer to often lesser local charges or get released because Immigration and Customs Enforcement won't come and get them.

This is all the more reason to tighten the border even more and get some kind of control and tracking of the people we do let into the country.