Thread: Non-Mexicans are 'caught, released'

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ase17.html

Non-Mexicans are 'caught, released'
Some say this practice reveals gap in security

Juan Castillo
Cox News Service
Jul. 17, 2005 12:00 AM

McALLEN, Texas - Illegal immigrants from Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and other nations routinely descend on the bus station just steps from the New World discount store in this bustling, sweltering city 10 miles from a U.S.-Mexico bridge.

They openly gather in groups, make phone calls and buy bus tickets to cities across the United States. They have little fear of being arrested: Most already have been. Happily.

Many, in fact, illegally crossed the border hoping to get caught right away and slip through a crack in the nation's immigration system known as "catch and release."
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Although Mexicans can be easily bused back to their country, arranging to deport non-Mexican immigrants can take months. There are few jails to hold them while arrangements are made. So non-Mexican immigrants deemed not to be a safety or security risk are given a summons for a distant court date at the nearby Harlingen immigration court and set free.

Between the time they are released and the date they are supposed to appear in court - which more than 90 percent of them will not do - they can legally move about the country and ultimately meld into an illegal immigrant population now estimated at 11 million.

Central and South Americans - Brazilians in particular - represent a new and rapidly multiplying wave of illegal immigration from countries other than Mexico, a trend that is frustrating the Border Patrol and federal lawmakers.

Critics charge that the relative ease with which non-Mexicans can enter the United States through Mexico, which doesn't require visas for Brazilians, reveals a weakness in the post-2001 era of homeland security.

"It simply means that an avenue by which a worker could come into the country illegally is available also to a terrorist who would want to come into our country and do us harm," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said last month in Austin.

"I think it's unconscionable that at a time when (President Bush) talks about homeland security, that he allows a catch-and-release policy for non-Mexicans," said Democratic U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso, a former Border Patrol chief in McAllen and El Paso.

"If an attack like (the London bombings) occurs here and it's traced back to one of these people who were released in south Texas, I think it could be grounds for impeachment."

A White House spokeswoman referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security.

"No one is released from Homeland Security custody that is considered to present any risk whatsoever to public safety or national security," said Russ Knocke with the department.


Nationally, with about four months still left in this fiscal year, Border Patrol agents have caught about 115,000 non-Mexicans - 153 percent more than during 2004, which itself was a record year. Of those, more than 26,000 were Brazilians, more than three times the number arrested last year.


"We have instances where they are actually flagging down our agents, and they are asking local residents to call the Border Patrol so they can get what they call their permiso," Spanish for permit or permission, Reyes said on the House floor in May. Agents are demoralized, he said.


Federal officials are supposed to return undocumented immigrants to their home countries. But with 85 percent to 90 percent of the nation's detention beds already taken by immigrants considered mandatory holds, officials release immigrants who don't have criminal records or pose a security risk.


Arrest warrants are issued for those who miss court dates, and the agency has a fugitive operations team working nationwide that "has become effective for us," Deason said.

Non-Mexicans represent a fraction of the flow of illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol caught 1.1 million immigrants entering the country illegally last year.


Trafficking rings are encouraging record Brazilian migration, the New York Times reported recently. Door-to-door transport to Boston, a popular destination for Brazilians, runs about $10,500, more than two years' income for the average Brazilian. Brazil's economy is doing well, and those who are leaving are mostly young and more educated, from the lower middle class and searching for opportunity.


Cornyn, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration and border security and has been conducting hearings on security and immigration issues, said catching and releasing non-Mexican immigrants is unacceptable because it doesn't work.

About 85 percent of non-Mexican undocumented immigrants ordered deported remain illegally in the United States, federal officials told the Senate subcommittee.

"Arresting and releasing illegal aliens doesn't work" says US SENATOR, John Cornyn, R-Texas.

WOWIE ZOWIE!!

Another American Einstein Surfaces in the US Senate!!

Has he introduced legislation to eliminate the "release" aspect of this costly charade? Or.... just talking the talk, without any intention of walking the walk.

Was this guy born in Texas?

Catch and Release is for FISHING!!!!!