Thread: Illegal immigrants make mockery of Border Patrol policy

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ON THE US-MEXICO BORDER

Caught, released, gone underground
Illegal immigrants make mockery of Border Patrol policy


By Michael Martinez
Tribune national correspondent

June 4, 2006

BROWNSVILLE, Texas

Before dawn on the Rio Grande one day last week, Border Patrol agents caught Teodoro Escobar sneaking into the U.S. from Mexico.

They arrested him and took him to the station. They fingerprinted, photographed and questioned him, leaving him red-eyed and tired in a room with more than a dozen other suspected illegal immigrants.

Then Border Patrol agents handed him a "Notice to Appear" before an immigration judge, and by early afternoon the 38-year-old farmworker from El Salvador was escorted out the same door he had entered. Three hours later he was on a bus to Houston, armed with a document that would allow him to pass a Border Patrol checkpoint up the road.

He said he had no intention of returning for the court hearing.

Escobar, who crossed the border with $10 and some Mexican pesos in his pocket, found freedom thanks to the Border Patrol's "catch and release" policy, cited by critics as a huge shortcoming in America's border enforcement efforts, and one that illegal immigrants are increasingly trying to exploit.

"Notice to Disappear" is what critics of the program call the document given to non-Mexican immigrants, usually from Central America, when they're stopped by the Border Patrol. Even President Bush says the "vast majority" of illegal immigrants don't show up for their hearings.

These individuals are let go because there aren't enough beds to hold them while flights to take them back to their home countries are arranged.

"You really do feel like it was all for nothing," Vanessa McKeon, 34, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, said of the release of Escobar and two other non-Mexican immigrants.

`Catch and release' on rise

Amid the ongoing national debate over immigration, an audit of the Department of Homeland Security demonstrated an increase in the frequency of "catch and release" of non-Mexican immigrants since 2001, when the release rate was about 42 percent.

By last fiscal year, that rate rose to almost 70 percent, according to Border Patrol figures, paralleling Bush's assertions that most non-Mexican immigrants were released into American society.

The situation takes on disturbing dimensions when incarcerated or dangerous illegal immigrants are released on their own recognizance because there's no space, Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner said in an April audit.

The shortages of beds, personnel and funds "encourage illegal immigration," and when other factors are included, such as some countries' reluctance to repatriate their citizens, the outcome is "an unofficial `mini-amnesty' program for criminal and other high-risk aliens," Skinner wrote.

Indeed, on the steamy banks of the Rio Grande and elsewhere along the border, a "Notice to Appear" is mistakenly viewed as a pass, or permiso, by non-Mexican immigrants to travel freely on U.S. soil. In the past, many even voluntarily surrendered to Border Patrol stations to ask for the notice, agents said.

Such requests dropped after federal authorities last year streamlined the deportation process for most non-Mexican immigrants, agents said.

Those "expedited removals" have reduced typical detention time for many non-Mexican immigrants to 20 days from 90 days, said a south Texas spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency in the Homeland Security Department.

Still, 35,000 more beds in detention facilities will be needed to end the "catch and release" program nationwide for dangerous illegal immigrants, the inspector general said.

The Bush administration's proposal for next fiscal year would add 6,700 beds, while the Senate's immigration reform proposal seeks 20,000 more. Roughly 20,000 beds exist, the audit said.

Union leaders for Border Patrol agents are skeptical about seeing more beds.

"It's a national embarrassment to have this failed policy, and no one is doing anything except giving it lip service," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents 10,500 front-line employees.

Non-Mexican immigrants aren't pervasive, accounting for about 10 percent of the apprehensions, the remainder being Mexicans, said Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Last year, 165,175 non-Mexican immigrants were arrested, and 114,912 of them were released, Border Patrol figures show.

"Holding a lot of people is not necessarily good," Heyman said. "It sounds good--that it will deter people from coming to the country--but it's not clear that deterrence works."

Border Patrol officials disagree, citing how the agency's Del Rio sector in Texas collaborated with local law-enforcement agencies, and their jails, to create a zero-tolerance zone for "catch and release" along 167 miles of the frontier.

Overall apprehensions in that area have dropped 17 percent so far this fiscal year, said sector spokesman Dennis Smith.

The Rio Grande Valley sector, framed by 320 miles of riverbank and 250 miles of the Gulf Coast, is traditionally the busiest of all nine districts along the Mexican border for non-Mexican immigrants, accounting for half of all such captures so far this year.

Border Patrol agent Daniel Serna, 34, said many undocumented border crossers who are caught now claim to be from El Salvador. Under a U.S. court injunction from the 1980s, immigrants from that Central American nation are guaranteed an immigration hearing and cannot be subjected to fast-track removals. That means an illegal immigrant posing as a Salvadoran stands a better chance of being released because of constraints on bed space.

The geography of the Rio Grande Valley sector--at the southernmost tip of Texas--makes it the shortest route between Central America and the United States. Would-be immigrants from dozens of countries have tried this year to enter through Brownsville and surrounding communities, Border Patrol spokesman Roy Cervantes said.

Last fiscal year, more than half of the sector's 134,185 detainees were non-Mexican immigrants from 70 countries, with Honduras and Brazil as the most popular origins. Since October, about half of the apprehensions have been non-Mexican crossers from 60 countries, with Salvadorans making up a fourth of all arrests, Cervantes said.

In response, agents such as Serna use questions designed to catch people in a lie about being from El Salvador. Agents ask about the recent currency switch and native foods and will even look up residences on Internet maps and inquire about surrounding landmarks, agents said.

Though Escobar didn't have any identification, agents determined he was telling the truth about being from El Salvador.

Samaritan bought bus ticket

After the Border Patrol released him Wednesday afternoon, a Brownsville resident offered him a ride and bought him a $25 bus ticket to Houston, where a nephew and brother reside, he said. Cervantes said Samaritans often do such acts.

Inside the Brownsville bus station, another illegal immigrant just released by the Border Patrol joined Escobar. The young man claimed to be Salvadoran, but Escobar, who became acquainted with him during their detention. said he believed the man was really from Honduras.

Escobar expressed relief that his ordeal seemed over for now, but his decision not to appear for his immigration hearing in August could lead to a deportation judgment in absentia, according to officials.

No matter, Escobar said.

"I thank God that he's been guiding me," he said, just before he boarded the bus.

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mjmartinez@tribune.com

why cannot these people work on a farm or pick up some strawberries while waiting for their airplanes . This would solve a problem with temporary workers and also help to pay for the return ticket .
If , according to data they caught 1800 only for one day , then if all those people would do something useful for a few days / reparing broken fences , digging the wells etc / it would teach them a lesson and also would be beneficial to the country .
I hope this is not discrimination - ask for work if someone does not have money to pay fine