Thread: Feds focus on migrants who illegally re-enter U.S.

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/13220918.htm

Posted on Mon, Nov. 21, 2005

Feds focus on migrants who illegally re-enter U.S.

BY CARL MANNING

Associated Press


TOPEKA - 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'll 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 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 an 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."

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.

"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."

This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if after 9/11 they would have secured the borders.