Thread: ICE looking to deport 400,000 criminal illegal aliens!

ICE Eyes 400,000 Deportations

by Jennifer Ludden

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All Things Considered, May 27, 2008 · For decades, the nation's jails and prisons had little formal role in immigration enforcement. It was possible for an illegal immigrant to be arrested for a crime, be convicted, serve time, then be released, without ever being turned over for deportation. Now, the federal immigration agency has a plan to keep that from happening.

About a year ago, Arlington County Jail in northern Virginia stepped up its partnership with the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

These days, officers compile a list of inmates who say they were not born in the U.S. Then, three times a week, federal immigration agent Brian Lewis stops by to interview them and figure out who can be deported — that could be an illegal immigrant and one here legally, but who lost that status because of a criminal conviction.

Jim Pendergraph of ICE says the plan is for each detention facility in the country to eventually fingerprint every inmate, not just those charged with felonies. Those fingerprints will then be checked against the federal agency's own database.

"We know that's going to be a huge workload increase for ICE because of the numbers that's gonna be turned up just on a routine fingerprint," he says. "Therefore in the initial phases we're going to do it on a tier system — the worst go first."

So, for example, he says, immigrants with a serious criminal record will be held for deportation, but those with lesser transgressions will be released with a notice to appear in court. Pendergraph admits they may well not show, but if they're ever arrested and fingerprinted again, that will pop up in their record and flag them as a priority for deportation.

The Arlington County jail is now holding twice as many deportable immigrants than before the new checks began. Julie Myers, the head of ICE, says there are efforts to keep detentions centers from being overwhelmed.

"A core part of our plan is looking at what sort of incentives first of all can we provide for nonviolent aliens to go home sooner," she says, "and how can we speed up the process for individuals who aren't eligible to adjust."

In other words, if an immigrant has no legal way to stay in the U.S., he can get out of jail early by agreeing to be deported.

Judy Rabinovitz of the American Civil Liberties Union says early parole could certainly be good for some, but she points out immigrants have no right to a lawyer for deportation proceedings and immigration law is incredibly complex.

"There's a real, real concern that they're going to be giving up their rights unknowingly. And they're going to say, 'Yes, sure, I want to get out of jail.' And they're gonna say, 'I'll accept deportation,' without realizing that they actually may have defenses to deportation."

Overall, checking the legal status of inmates is one of the immigration agency's less controversial programs; even many police officers who object to acting as immigration agents on the streets have little problem with doing such checks in jails. But when it comes to the larger effort against illegal immigration, Ruben Rumbaut of the University of California at Irvine, says jail deportations can have only limited impact.

"Almost three-quarters of American adults believe that immigration is causally related to more crime, and yet we find consistently that the opposite is the case. Less than seven-tenths of 1 percent of the foreign born were incarcerated."

ICE believes that could still mean several hundred thousand deportable immigrant inmates. But the agency estimates it will take $2 billion to $3 billion a year to remove them all — money Congress will have to approve.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=90864847

"So, for example, he says, immigrants with a serious criminal record will be held for deportation, but those with lesser transgressions will be released with a notice to appear in court. Pendergraph admits they may well not show, but if they're ever arrested and fingerprinted again, that will pop up in their record and flag them as a priority for deportation."

stupidity compounded with stupidity

Almost three-quarters of American adults believe that immigration is causally related to more crime, and yet we find consistently that the opposite is the case. Less than seven-tenths of 1 percent of the foreign born were incarcerated
Then according to her figures there are currently Approx. 43 million foriegn born people currently in the US !
Do you get the feeling she's cooked up her numbers ?

Actually, regarding the typically used OBL line about the relative rates of crime.... (actually, and even in this circumstance, the author or the source quote failed to distinguish between those foreign born persons that were immigrants - ie. legally in the US and those that were IAs - illegally in the US). Any study or summary of such a complex phenomenon without trying to distinguish illegal non-natives from legal ones is utterly meaningless.
Please disregard and flush when finished.


However, if you do feel inclined to entertain such drivel, then please read on a bit....

If you further do a couple basic calculations as a reality check, you'll find a very interesting (but curiously omitted) result.

Article contends: incarceration 'rate' of 'foreign-born' person is US is %0.7.

Even more curious to me, is they fail to identify exactly how many persons consist of a). the entire US prison population, and b). the total number of foreign-born persons.

For your edification, the numbers (from memory) are roughly 2,000,000 for the former, and about 36,000,000 for the latter.

Moving on... Interestingly though, if you find the total US native born population (304 million - 36 million) = 268 million, and then divide that by the number of incarcerated total (about 2 mil) you derive 0.00746; or, in other words 0.7%. The exact same percentage quoted as pertaining to the 'foreign-born' prison population. While some may take that as vindication of the OBL stats. cited in the article, the reality actually is far different.

Recall, as I stated above, that no summary statistic has any validity UNLESS it is broken out by legal status (the lumping together of LEGAL immigrants vs. ILLEGAL ones is highly skewed because legal ones almost always demonstrate a very strict obedience and respect for the law and do end up in prisons at a very, very low rate).

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http://www.alipac.us/article3236.html

I have said it before and I will continue to say it. It's an absolute no brainer that an illegal invader who has been arrested for ANY crime in this country should be deported back to his/her country of orgin, upon the completion of any sentence imposed by the judicial system.

How on earth can anyone who has sworn to uphold the laws of this land release a convicted illegal invader back onto the streets of this country. I will never understand how illegals who have been convicted of a crime in this country are not put on the first plane or bus back to their countries of orgin upon completion of sentence.

No Bueno: But in Illinois they have "expungement summits" hosted by not only the State Attorney General's office but coordinated with Mexican open borders groups like Centro Sin Fronteras (Emma Lozano/Elvira Arellano) where criminal illegal aliens along with any U.S. citizen criminal can apply to have many, many crimes "expunged" from their record w/o being asked about their immigration status. As long as the applicant shows up with his/her "rap" sheet and the appropriate fees...they can apply to have some of their crimes deleted from their records.....INSTEAD they should be DEPORTED.