http://americandaily.com/article/14305

Unpublicized Immigration Consequences - A Burdened Federal Judiciary
By Marion Edwyn Harrison (06/30/2006)

In seemingly unprecedented numbers, people are reading about, hearing about, talking about, the problems arising from massive lawful, and vastly more massive unlawful, disproportionately Latin American, immigration into this country. They also are reading about, hearing about, talking about, the minimal, maybe statistically nonexistent, progress first in defining, then in solving, the myriad problems the immigration situation is causing and/or yet might cause. So much for all that.

Guess what! There is an essentially unpublicized problem.

The Federal Judiciary already is burdened by 24 courts with “Judicial Emergencies” (as objectively defined and calculated by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts), 18 United States Courts of Appeals vacancies, only nine nominees (all as of June 1, 2006). The President yesterday nominated four people for the Courts of Appeals, six for the United States District Courts, but these will be the final nominees to the present (109th) Congress; hence, no more until 2007. The Federal Judiciary also is burdened by the fact that many individuals whom one would like to see on the Federal Bench and who might like to go there are declining the honor - partially because they do not want to risk months or years of public torture by liberal Senators and media, partially because many of them would suffer a substantial income diminution.

What, then, is the essentially unpublicized problem? Answer: An inundation of litigation in the Federal Judiciary the geographic jurisdiction of which includes the Mexican Border, proximate and not-so-proximate areas.

Judge George P. Kazen, United States District Court, sitting in Laredo, Texas, sums it up: “The sad truth is that America has an insatiable hunger for illegal drugs and cheap labor. The [Mexican Border] is a gateway for both . . .” When Federal Judges and their staffs must work seven days weekly and continue to face unprecedented backlogs the burden upon them is incomprehensible, the burden upon United States prosecutorial personnel, prison personnel and the like comparable. That burden also envelopes ordinary civil and criminal litigants and their counsel.

The formal statistics are wild. Three examples: (1) Cases of alleged improper alien entry into the United States rose from a low three-digits in 1996 to more than 2,000 last year. (2) Cases of alleged improper re-entry - same unlawful immigrant, back again! - rose from about 4,000 in 1996 to almost 12,000 last year. (3) Criminal felony - felonies, the serious stuff, not just unlawfully crossing the Border! - per authorized United States District Judgeship vary: 2005 national average, fewer than 100; in Southern California, almost 200; in Arizona, nearly 300; in Southern Texas, more than 300; in Western Texas, approaching 400; in New Mexico, about 400. We must remember the foregoing figures relate to Federal cases - that is, alleged crimes that have made the way from apparent grounds for arrest to arrest, to full investigation, to prosecutorial evaluation, to indictment (when a felony), to prosecution, to guilty plea or trial.

The strain upon all involved in investigating and litigating these cases - local, State, Federal - is extraordinary. Not only is it a tremendous human burden upon those of our fellow citizens doing that work but also a disruption and diversion of judicial process and a cost to American taxpayers everywhere. Further, nobody knows, and experts only can approximate, how many such unlawful entries and felony crimes are committed as to which there is no arrest, much less full prosecution.

Truly, the unlawful immigration problem manifests itself in diverse, often unimaginable and sometimes largely unpublicized ways.

Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.