Thread: Feds at war among selves on immigration

Feds at war among selves on immigration
It's insanity that two government bureaucracies are at odds over handling illegal immigration issues.

GORDON DILL
http://www.ocregister.com/news/illegal- ... y-arellano
Register columnist
GLDillow@aol.com

As a couple of recent news stories indicate, when it comes to enforcing our nation's immigration laws, the federal government isn't just at odds with "sanctuary cities" and "sanctuary churches" and pro-illegal immigration activists.

It's also at war with itself.

The first story concerned Elvira Arellano, the illegal immigrant who spent a year evading deportation in a Chicago "sanctuary church" before being arrested last week in Los Angeles. She was taken to a federal immigration facility in Santa Ana and then quickly deported to her native Mexico.

The Arellano case has prompted protests and calls by pro-illegal immigration groups for a daylong boycott next month. Some activists even compare Arellano to Rosa Parks, the black woman who in 1955 helped launch the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama.

But Arellano isn't a Rosa Parks. As Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told me, "This woman is not an icon. She's a criminal alien fugitive."

Kice is right. Arellano was first deported to Mexico in 1997 after being arrested for using fake documents to enter this country. She crossed back into the U.S. a few days later, which was a felony.

Later, after having a child in the U.S. (her son is therefore a U.S. citizen, and can remain here), Arellano got a job cleaning airplanes in Chicago by showing a counterfeit Social Security card – yet another felony. After being arrested during a post-9/11 nationwide sweep of airport employees, she pleaded guilty to using the phony card and later was ordered to report for deportation, at which point she became a fugitive.

But what's interesting about this is that Arellano – and millions of other illegal immigrants who use fraudulent Social Security cards – could have easily been caught much sooner than she was. The Social Security Administration knew – or at least its computers knew – that the Social Security number Arellano was using didn't match her name and her birth date.

But the problem is that the Social Security Administration, citing "privacy" rules, doesn't routinely share that so-called "no-match" information with federal law enforcement agencies like ICE. In other words, one government agency has information on millions of possible illegal immigrants who are using fraudulent documents – and the companies that employ them – but another government agency charged with finding illegal immigrants isn't allowed to look at the information.

Like I said, it's a government at war with itself.

(As for the estimated $7 billion a year that illegal immigrants using fraudulent Social Security numbers pay into the retirement system, it goes straight into the U.S. treasury – and since illegal immigrants can't claim Social Security benefits, that would seem to be a net gain.

But get this. Under Social Security Administration rules, if an illegal immigrant using a fraudulent Social Security card later becomes a legal resident – for example, through an amnesty – he can then claim Social Security benefits based on payments made under the fraudulent account number, even though he committed a felony by using that number in the first place!)

Meanwhile, the second case in the news of federal agencies working at cross purposes on illegal immigration concerns the U.S. Census Bureau.

As reported last week, the Census Bureau wants Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop making "immigration raids" during the 2010 census count. The theory is that illegal immigrants will hide or withhold information if they think that the guy with the clipboard who's knocking on their door might be an immigration agent.

And believe it or not, there's precedent for the request. During the census in 2000, immigration officials did agree to stop large-scale raids – which really didn't make much difference, since back then they were hardly making any raids anyway. However, in the past 10 months immigration officials have deported more than 200,000 people, many of them caught in ICE raids on factories and offices.

Well, ICE spokesmen quickly announced that they wouldn't honor the Census Bureau's request, that the raids will continue unabated. And I'm sure they're being sincere.

But remember, illegal immigrants are counted the same as citizens or legal residents for legislative apportionment and federal spending programs. The more people there are in a particular area, legal or not, the more power and money that area gets. So you can bet the farm that as the 2010 census draws near, there will be tremendous political pressure to put ICE raids on ice so the Census Bureau boys can more easily count heads.

"It's absurd," says Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C., anti-illegal immigration organization. "Bureaucracies are myopic. They focus only on what they do, with no regard for the greater issues."

But Mr. Mehlman may be too diplomatic. To have one federal agency actively working against illegal immigration while other federal agencies are actively or tacitly encouraging it isn't just absurd.

It's insane.


Contact the writer: 714-796-7953 or GLDillow@aol.com

Some Senators are insane too.Floridas Senator Nelson voted for the Dept. of Homeland Security Bill which gives billions to the border & Inland support for police agencies to help stop Illegal Immigration and deport them.The very next day Senator Bill Nelson called DHS to halt the deportation of a family in Florida ????????????

NUTS !!