http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/ ... 582730.htm

Posted on Mon, May. 15, 2006

Many unaware of enforcement level

By BRYON OKADA and DIANE SMITH
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITERS

FORT WORTH - Under President Bush, the U.S. has already deported more people than under any other president in U.S. history.

Since Bush took office, the U.S. has not deported fewer than 150,000 illegal immigrants a year and had deported an estimated 881,478 through 2005. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. deported 160,700 people in fiscal 2005. Of these, 52.5 percent were criminal illegal immigrants.

Now Bush is poised to push a harder stance by bringing in National Guard troops to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. He is expected to provide details during a prime-time address tonight.

News of the president's plan comes as hard-line immigration advocates push for better policing of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. But longtime immigration experts and former government officials say the public hasn't been paying attention.

Lynn Ligon, a retired work-site investigator for the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the agency "has been enforcing the laws all along."

But a recent Zogby poll commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies found that 70 percent of respondents agree with the statement, "Efforts in the past have been grossly inadequate and the government has never really tried to enforce immigration laws."

At its shrillest, the national hoopla -- immigrants and critics shouting at each other in the streets "Si se puede!" and "Secure the border, that's an order!" -- illustrates the no-win situation that immigration enforcement officials have to deal with every day.

"The public may want to see high-profile raids," Ligon said, "so they can say, 'Boy, I'm not going to shop there,' and then next week they're back again."

High-profile is what the public got with the April 20 bust of IFCO Systems North America, a Houston-based pallet-services company. Seven managers and 1,187 illegal immigrants were arrested in 26 states.

Same with Operation Tarmac, which was launched in December 2001 and netted more than 900 unauthorized workers at U.S. airports, including 62 at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport in November 2002.

In both cases, the rhetoric was tough. The night of the IFCO bust, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government would target the biggest offenders. Julie Myers, chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, echoed the sentiment. Talk of an amnesty program, long part of Bush's proposed policy for handling illegal immigration, subsided.

Immigrants, legal and illegal, interpreted the IFCO bust differently.

Rumors of random raids and widespread stings circulated, including in Fort Worth. Students, mostly in rural areas, stayed home from school. A rumor circulated that authorities were looking for single men and people with criminal records.

Immigration officials expressed dismay at the reaction. "I'm starting to sound like a broken record," agency spokesman Carl Rusnok said wearily after another day of trying to tell people that no random raids were being carried out.

This is the fickle, schizophrenic history that immigration enforcement officers deal with: wild swings between talk of amnesty programs and mass deportations.

"Immigration [officials] won't pick up kids coming out of school -- that is a no-no," Ligon said. "They are not going to be following kids home to see where they live."

It's not that the illegal immigrants aren't there in plain sight. Everybody knows. But these days -- post-9-11 -- the focus is on stopping terrorists, not day laborers.

History

In the 1990s, it wasn't uncommon to see immigration agents raiding North Texas construction sites. Area cities and counties built jails with the idea of cashing in on housing illegal immigrants.

It was the end of many decades of enforcement that focused on deporting illegal immigrants, imposing fines on their employers and catching criminal illegal immigrants.

By then, the bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was supposed to have shifted the focus of enforcement to employers, immigration officials said. But implementing the law was taking time. Eventually, the law would fail because employers were rarely punished with jail time, according to a 1999 Star-Telegram investigation.

Moreover, the globalizing economy created a crush of new immigrants that overwhelmed law enforcement efforts. Millions poured into the U.S. And although thousands of illegal workers were detained, processed and sent back home, the situation grew exponentially.

According to Homeland Security Department figures, the Clinton administration saw the highest deportable immigrant population figures in U.S. history.

In 1997, Clinton was the first president to deport more than 100,000 illegal immigrants in a year.

Bush came into office on the heels of a hot economy and a guest-worker program in the works.

Then 9-11 happened.

Suddenly, the focus was on the uninvited immigrant who might be a terrorist. Could it be that lurking among our population of landscapers, roofers and short-order cooks was a sleeper cell waiting for that perfect moment to attack?

The government responded with special registration of young men from certain Arab and South Asian countries. Technology was developed to track foreigners entering the U.S. Alliances were forged with other countries to try to keep terrorists from reaching U.S. soil.

But all the while, the U.S.-Mexico border remained a boundary easily crossed by those in search of a better future.

Easy access

Javier is a convenience store cashier from suburban Northeast Tarrant County. Although he is in this country illegally, he is not what immigration officials call a criminal alien. He has lived in the U.S. since 1999, working constantly and keeping out of trouble. And so far, the country has paid him back with the material success and the safe community he sought in coming here.

He has a valid driver's license and a GED, and he hopes to get a loan to buy a house, right in the heart of middle-class Texas.

A work visa would be easy enough to obtain, he says. But he couldn't get permission to bring his family to the U.S. legally. They wanted a worker, not a family man.

Javier's solution was to bring his family here illegally.

That journey was not the harrowing tale that many immigrants tell. A coyote, or immigration smuggler, posing as the husband drove Javier's wife and oldest daughter through U.S. security at the Nuevo Laredo crossing.

When an official asked if they were citizens, the coyote said yes, and they were in.

Javier's crossing was just as unexciting. He had a valid tourist visa, told customs officials that he was going to Houston to buy video games, acted the part of a rich Mexican, and was in.

With the valid visa, he was able to obtain the driver's license. Automated renewals by mail have allowed him to keep the license valid even after his visa expired.

And so, without a more sophisticated search, he appears the legit, card-carrying American.

What Javier wants is for history to repeat itself. The lesson of recent years is that if you're patient, at some point the U.S. will grant amnesty to those who stay in the country long enough -- and amnesty is the path to citizenship.

But for now, Javier knows fear, "not for me, for my children," he said. Once upon a time, as a taxi driver in Mexico City, he was held up, a gun to his temple, and he thought he was a dead man. Mexico City was too fast, too violent for a family man. When he was robbed three times in one month, that was it. In the only way available, he brought his family to the safer, slower pace of Northeast Tarrant County.

You'd think it would be a perfect fit -- except now the talk of government raids, real or unreal, has him worrying again about what will become of his children if they are suddenly orphans. His 2-year-old was born here.

"She's an American," he says. "I love this country. I love the people."

Staff writer Max Baker contributed to this report.

IN THE KNOW

Deportations by decade

In the 1990s, the U.S. experienced a booming immigration population -- and deportations likewise increased. The Clinton administration deported 863,692 people. The Bush administration has already surpassed that, with 881,478 through 2005. The administration will likely be the first to deport more than 1 million people. (Deportation figures after 1996 also include incidents where a person is denied entry into the U.S. at ports of entry.)

1991: 33,189

1992: 43,671

1993: 42,542

1994: 45,674

1995: 50,924

1996: 69,680

1997: 114,432

1998: 173,146

1999: 181,072

2000: 186,222

2001: 178,026

2002: 150,542

2003: 189,368

2004: 202,842

2005: 160,700

SOURCE: Homeland Security Department


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Bryon Okada, (817) 390-7752 okada@star-telegram.com Diane Smith, (817) 390-7675 dianesmith@star-telegram.com