Illegal immigration heats up U.S. politics

Presidential hopefuls take hard-line stance

By Bill Straub

Posted October 22, 2011 at 10:52 p.m.

WASHINGTON — States like Arizona and Alabama have passed laws cracking down on illegal immigrants that are tougher than those enforced on the federal level. Candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are competing to determine who can come down the hardest on undocumented workers.

"And the reason we're so animated about stopping illegal immigration is there are 4.5 million people who want to come here who are in line legally; we want that to happen in an orderly and legal process," said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, viewed in many quarters as the frontrunner. "And in terms of how to secure the border, it's really not that hard. You have a fence, you have enough Border Patrol agents to oversee the fence, and you turn off the magnets. And that's employers that hire people who they know are here illegally."

A study released in July 2010 by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that illegal immigration costs taxpayers about $100 billion a year based on an analysis of federal, state and local government spending data. Dan Stein, the organization's president, said the study establishes that illegal aliens are "a drain on government coffers."

Critics maintain that cost estimate is hysterically overblown. The Congressional Budget Office, in a December 2007 report, found that unauthorized immigrants impose a net cost on state and local budgets but added there is no way to determine the size of, or even the best way of measuring, the impact. The CBO indicated that the costs are considerably less on the federal level because education, usually a state responsibility, represents the largest expenditure and most unauthorized immigrants are prohibited from receiving many of the benefits that the federal government provides through Social Security and such need-based programs as Food Stamps and Medicaid.

President Obama has called for comprehensive reform of what he characterizes as a "broken" immigration system but he has been unable to sufficiently generate congressional interest.

"Regardless of how they came, the overwhelming majority of these folks are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families," Obama said in a speech delivered in El Paso, TX, in May. "But we have to acknowledge they've broken the rules. They've cut in front of the line. And what is also true is that the presence of so many illegal immigrants makes a mockery of all those who are trying to immigrate legally."

Obama notes that the Border Patrol now has 20,000 agents, more than twice as many as there were in 2004. A fence along the Mexican border is virtually complete. The number of intelligence analysts has tripled, and unmanned aerial vehicles have been deployed to patrol the skies from Texas to California. The U.S. has joined with Mexico to fight the transnational criminal organizations that have affected both countries.

The president said any comprehensive reform should hold businesses accountable for hiring illegal aliens. Undocumented workers should undergo "a lengthy process" before becoming eligible for citizenship. And there should be a process to help farmers hire the out-of-country workers they need.

The renewed emphasis on immigration issues, ironically, arrives at a time when statistics indicate the number of undocumented workers entering the U.S. is declining and expulsions are increasing.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States in March 2009, down by about 1 million from 2007. The Department of Homeland Security marked a similar decline, placing the number of illegal residents at 10.8 million in January 2010, down from 11.8 million in January 2007.

Although the numbers are well dispersed, most of the population lives in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and New Jersey.

Pew attributes the reduction to developments in both the U.S. and Mexico. On the U.S. side, declining job opportunities and increased border enforcement renders the U.S. less attractive. Recent economic growth in Mexico, meanwhile, likely reduced the factors that often lead Mexicans to cross the border.

The number of undocumented workers being returned to their homelands also is at an all-time high. The Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency reported last week that 396,906 illegal aliens were deported between October 1, 2010 and Sep. 30, 2011. Of those, almost 55 percent were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors — an 89 percent increase over 2008.

"These year-end totals indicate that we are making progress, with more convicted criminals, recent border crossers, egregious immigration law violators and immigration fugitives being removed from the country than ever before," said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Though we still have work to do, this progress is a testament to the hard work and dedication of thousands of ICE agents, officers and attorneys around the country."

The numbers were reached despite a significant, and controversial, policy change. In a memorandum issued on June 17, Morton advised ICE officials to exercise "prosecutorial discretion" in an effort to clear a backed-up immigration court docket and focus resources on high priority cases. The change, which could lead to the closure of low priority cases, potentially affects 300,000 removal proceedings.

Morton asserted that the agency "has limited resources to remove those illegally in the United States."

"ICE must prioritize the use of its enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to ensure that the aliens it removes represent, as much as reasonably possible, the agency's enforcement priorities, namely the promotion of national security, border security, public safety and the integrity of the immigration system," Morton said in the memorandum.

Janice Kephart, director of national security policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the directive shows "the extent the Obama administration is willing to go to deceive America into accepting unprecedented executive branch immigration law rewrites and changes in immigration processing to get around their federal responsibility to enforce immigration law."

The change, she said, "sets a course that prevents the enforcement of immigration law, provides a de facto amnesty, and is effectively worker authorization for much of the current illegal population."

But Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-IL, a critic of the administration's strong immigration enforcement, said the initiative represented a sensible immigration policy.

"Focusing scarce resources on deporting serious criminals, gang bangers and drug dealers, and setting aside non-criminals with deep roots in the U.S. until Congress fixes our laws is the right thing to do," said Guitierrez, adding that the administration is "standing up for a more rational approach to enforcing our current immigration laws."

Regardless, polls continue to show that Americans are suspicious of immigration of any sort. A Washington Post/Bloomberg New poll, conducted Oct. 6-9, showed 59 percent of those questioned oppose increasing the number of visas for talented foreign nationals even if U.S. companies say they can't find enough highly-skilled Americans to fill their jobs. A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken in January established that 55 percent of those questioned would oppose any legislation that would give some illegal immigrants living in the U.S. a path to legal status.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP presidential contender who has had experience dealing with illegal aliens along the border, touts what he called a "virtual defense zone.

"You use Predator drones that are being trained right up here at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada to use that real-time information to give those boots on the ground that information, and they can instantly move to those areas," Perry said during last week's Republican debate. "And that is the way to shut that border down, to secure that border, and really make America safe from individuals, like those Iranians that are using the drug cartels to penetrate this country."

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