Thread: AZ:Stanton: At the federal courthouse, the show goes on

Published: 03.05.2008
Stanton: At the federal courthouse, the show goes on
Charges vary for illegal immigrants streaming through our turnstiles
BILLIE STANTON
Tucson Citizen
The cattle call commences at 1 p.m. with the clink of shackles and the awkward shuffle of humiliated humans in handcuffs.
Most keep their heads down until the magistrate does roll call and asks if they're all here.
"¡Presénte!" The word rings out cheerily. "Present!" the translator needlessly intones.
But that will be the last of the merriment on this day.
For this is Operation Streamline, a federal initiative new to Tucson this year.
Authorities insist it will deter illegal immigrants by treating a fraction of them to a courtroom show, misdemeanor conviction, stern warning, brief jail visit and trip home.
It will deter no one, of course.
What it will do is cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year - $2.5 million alone in defense work for Tucson lawyers. Add prosecutors, jail time, medical costs, transportation and courtroom staff, from the translator to the magistrate, from the bailiff to Border Patrol agents who must be on hand, and we have ourselves a pricey proposition.
Now consider how well this dog-and-pony show might work.
Mexicans and other Central Americans are lucky to make $5 a day. Here, they can make $5 an hour.
If these economic refugees are undaunted by hundreds of agonizing deaths in our desert each year - plus the constant threat of rape, theft and murder by roaming bandits - will a courtroom scolding do the trick?
Get real.
But come downtown and see for yourself, Monday through Friday, 1 to 3 p.m. or thereabouts, in our very own Evo A. DeConcini U.S. Courthouse.
Dozens of men and a couple of women come before the bench, individually or in groups, depending on their offense or sloppy federal record thereof.
They'll break your heart. Guaranteed.
They wear the same tattered jeans and filthy shirts they had on many days ago in our desert.
None is fat. All are thin. And some, like the mother with toothpick arms, are emaciated.
Now comes a 20-year-old man from Chiapas, far, far away. The prosecutor says he has "one prior voluntary," having been apprehended before and voluntarily sent home.
His defense lawyer is quick to "respectfully disagree." A court document itself shows he has no "prior voluntaries," and the man says he "has never been to the U.S. before," the lawyer notes.
He came because his mother has cancer. He earns $7 a day; his father works the fields.
They need $2,000 for the mother's tests, $1,000 for her medicine and who knows how much if she needs surgery.
They scraped together $400 for his journey.
The migrant tells the magistrate in Spanish: "I would like to request you give me (a sentence of) time served, and I will not come back to this country. I came with relatives and they went back; I don't want to stay here.
"I will never come back here."
A week earlier, several men made the very same promise. They were recaptured and are back in court again today.
Nonetheless, Magistrate Hector C. Estrada grants the Chiapas migrant time served.
But a weeping mother, who left her three young children with a friend after her husband abandoned her, gets seven days.
Sobbing, she implores Estrada to let her return to her children. No dice.
Several men were accused of smuggling 300 pounds of marijuana. Police reports said they were spotted on a Homeland Security camera near the drugs, and some wore boots that matched footprints at the site.
No photos of said evidence were provided, however, and the case never went to trial.
"Shepard v. United States said police reports can't be used as evidence. They're inherently unreliable, and judges aren't supposed to take these on face value," defense attorney Raul A. Miranda says in an interview later.
Never mind that. Estrada says that just because they weren't prosecuted "doesn't mean that it didn't happen." He gives one man 30 days, another 40 and three men 35 days.
The man who gets 40 days has a wife and three children - ages 1, 7 and 10 - and helps support his mother and sister in Hermosilla, his lawyer says.
"You were in the process of allegedly carrying marijuana," Estrada chides.
Innocent until proven guilty? Maybe if you're American.
Next comes a man who has served 90 days for possession of narcotics and has a prior voluntary and several convictions.
He gets 20 days. Go figure.
Yet under Operation Streamline, he's not unusual.
Forty to 50 of the 1,000 or so people captured daily in the Tucson sector are randomly chosen for court appearances and misdemeanor convictions.
Felons whose crimes would merit many years in prison under normal circumstances will get about 30 or 180 days under Operation Streamline.
So will these deported immigrants warn their friends back home of the harsh judicial system that awaits them in America? Highly unlikely.
Despite the humiliation, jail time and family separations, people with hungry children and sick family members will keep on comin'.
And we taxpayers will keep on needlessly coughing up millions more each year.
The show must go on.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/all_headlines/78649

That's why it's so imperative that we remove ALL incentives to come. No free education, no free food stamps, no free housing vouchers, no free WIC, no free medical and NO jobs!

They WILL stop coming if there is nothing to gain.

I have no sympathy but for America at this point ... our country is collapsing from the weight of these people...

soon, very soon... you America, you will be begging for that 5.00 a day job