Thread: Liberal media distort facts on immigrants

Liberal media distort facts on immigrants

Thursday, May 3, 2007

"The New York Times" is always ready and willing to serve as lead public relations staffers for the open-borders movement. On May Day, the day of mass illegal alien protests across the country, the paper saw fit to print a front-page sob story decrying rising illegal alien deportations.

"Immigration and customs enforcement officials, facing intense political pressure to toughen enforcement (read: do their jobs) removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the country over the last year," the "Times" reported ominously. That's "an increase of more than 37,000 -- about 20 percent -- over the year before, according to the agency's tally."

That's a big number -- 221,664. It certainly sounds like we're getting serious about immigration enforcement, if you believe what the "Times" tells you.

Lax enforcement

But you know better than that. It's what the paper didn't tell you on the day of the pro-amnesty demonstrations that provides the truly alarming news. Far from a nation that takes its immigration laws seriously, we remain in a shoddy, dangerous state of immigration nonenforcement nearly six years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- chaos that will only worsen if Congress and the White House join hands on a "comprehensive" illegal alien amnesty plan.

In March, the Homeland Security Department's inspector general disclosed federal officials have lost track of 623,292 fugitive illegal aliens. These "absconders" were apprehended by immigration officers, placed in the immigration court system, ordered out of the country and released. Never to be seen again.

There were 221,664 "removed" illegal aliens vs. 623,292 released illegal alien fugitives.

In other words: There are nearly three times as many officially designated illegal alien fugitives freed by federal officials as there are illegal aliens who have been removed over the last year.

This inconvenient truth was glossed over by the "Times."

So was this: Despite more than $204 million earmarked since 2003 for 52 special fugitive operations teams across the country, the "backlog of fugitive alien cases has increased each fiscal year since the fugitive apprehension program was established in February 2002."

On the lam

While pro-amnesty marchers stressed Tuesday they are "law-abiding" (except for those pesky immigration rules), more and more of the illegal aliens caught by immigration authorities and ordered to appear for deportation hearings are skipping out. The Homeland Security inspector general's office explains that thousands of illegal aliens ignore orders to appear at their immigration hearings. Of the 460,000-plus immigration judge decisions and administrative closures issued by the Executive Office of Immigration and Review between 2001 and 2004, 39 percent (181,807) were issued to illegal aliens who had been released but later failed to appear at their respective immigration hearings.

And the total number of aliens failing to appear is increasing. In fact, according to Homeland Security's Detention and Removal Office, 85 percent of the illegal aliens released who have been issued final orders of removal will abscond. That goes not just for illegal aliens from Mexico, but for illegal aliens from terror-friendly and terror-sponsoring nations. Homeland security? What homeland security?

Compounding the danger: The federal Detention and Removal Office estimates that in 2007, "there will be 605,000 foreign-born individuals admitted to state correctional facilities and local jails during the year for committing crimes in the United States. Of this number, the federal government estimates half (302,500) will be removable aliens. Currently, most of these incarcerated aliens are being released into the United States at the conclusion of their respective sentences due to the lack of resources for the Detention and Removal Office. That's upward of 300,000 convicted criminal aliens who will walk out of their cells and onto the streets. Never to be seen again.

Just doing the context-setting and number-crunching the rest of the mainstream media won't do.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled, emotion-driven, one-sided coverage of America the Oppressor. Over to you, "New York Times."

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/p ... 05/OPINION

That's a big number -- 221,664. It certainly sounds like we're getting serious about immigration enforcement, if you believe what the "Times" tells you.

This big number (221,664) is only 1% of the estimated number of illegals that need deporting. How long do we keep waiting for someone to get serious about deporting illegal aliens?