January 28, 2014
Jim Kouri
examiner

During President Barack Obama's long-anticipated State of the Union address on Tuesday, he spoke of the need to reform the nation's immigration laws including enforcement operations. However, according to a public-interest legal group that investigates and exposes government corruption and deceit, the Obama Department of Homeland Security's directorates are selectively enforcing immigration laws depending on from which country the illegal alien emanates.

According to Judicial Watch, documents obtained by a nonprofit research group -- Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) -- they reveal "a surprising variability in immigration detainer trends by gender and nationality." Detainers are requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to local police and sheriffs' departments to hold alleged illegal aliens until ICE agents take them into custody.

Municipalities that offer illegal immigrants sanctuary have refused -- and continue to refuse -- to notify ICE, preferring instead to releasing convicted offenders back into American society.

In the spring of 2013, Judicial Watch sued Cook County, Ill. -- which includes Chicago -- challenging its leaders refusal to honor ICE detainers. The lawsuit alleged the county instead released upwards of 1,000 criminal aliens sought by ICE.

According to Judicial Watch, even when ICE agents are notified, it selectively enforces the law, with the sharpest decline in the use of detainers against individuals identified as born in Mexico.

From October 2011 to August 2013 and there was a 25% decline in detainers issued against Mexicans as well as a 32% decrease in detainers issued for women and a 22% reduction for men.

According to Judicial Watch's web site:

"In the case of Mexicans, the enforcement decline is quite sharp in a very short period. The monthly average number of illegal aliens from Mexico issued ICE detainers dropped from 16,511 in the first part of fiscal year 2012 to 13,302 a month later and 12,413 at the start of fiscal year 2013, the data shows. Other countries—such as Brazil and India—saw similar decreases percentagewise, but they don’t compare because the overall number of immigrants from each is only in the double digits.

"Mexico is by far the country that sends the most illegal aliens to the U.S. and the Obama administration has entered into a number of agreements to protect its nationals. A few years ago the Department of Labor (DOL) signed an accord to protect Mexican migrants and last year the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), penned a contract vowing to prevent workplace discrimination against illegal aliens from Mexico while educating them about their civil rights."

http://www.examiner.com/article/watc...on-enforcement