Texas Groups Urge DOJ to Stop Prosecuting Illegal Aliens for Illegal Entry

Groups Urge DOJ to Stop Prosecuting Immigrants for Illegal Entry

https://www.texasobserver.org/wp-con...are-reddit.jpg
by Melissa del Bosque
Wednesday, July 29, 2015, at 8:00 CST

A national bipartisan movement to reduce the United States’ outsized prison population is gaining momentum, but immigration reform advocates say an important piece is still missing from the reform conversation: Thousands of men and women are being incarcerated every year because they entered the U.S. without documents.Illegal entry and re-entry — essentially, the crimes of crossing the border without authorization — are now the most-prosecuted federal crimes.

Overloaded judges struggle to make time for other cases, including violent crime and financial fraud. Thanks to the surge in illegal entry prosecutions, Latinos now make up the majority of the federal prison population.

On Tuesday, more than 170 organizations representing criminal justice, immigration reform and faith-based groups sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, urging the Department of Justice to end prosecutions for illegal entry and re-entry.

Bob Libal, director of Grassroots Leadership, an Austin immigrant advocacy group, said it’s time for the DOJ to reconsider its overzealous prosecution of undocumented immigrants. “There’s a conversation going on about how to reduce mass incarceration, but at the same time you have leaders talking about mandatory minimums for people coming back into the country for basically petty immigration offenses,” he told the Observer.

Libal said that many people caught at the border are trying to reunite with family members in the United States. “We shouldn’t be throwing immigrants en masse into the prison system,” he said. “We have tens of thousands of people languishing in prison, their only violation being a re-entry offense.”

A broad spectrum of organizations, including the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild and the Jesuit Conference, signed the letter. Libal said he hopes the move will bring immigrant detention into the broader reform movement around mass incarceration.

“We want to urge the administration to de-prioritize these immigration prosecutions,” Libal said. “If they do, it will have all kinds of positive impact.”

https://www.texasobserver.org/groups...illegal-entry/

Increase seen in criminal immigrants caught in Valley sector

by Ashly Custer
Posted: 14 mins ago

"Many times, there’s family reunification or they are looking for some economic prosperity, but there’s also that group of individual is coming across to do harm to the citizens here in this country, or they are here to steal, rob and commit other criminal acts,” said U.S. Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley Sector Spokesman Omar Zamora. “So, our job is to arrest them, to identify them, and prosecute them.”

Just after midnight on Tuesday, Border Patrol agents out of McAllen apprehended a Mexican man who had previously been arrested by the Donna Police Department and convicted of attempted murder.

"Oftentimes, they may come here, and we may deport them, and within three to four months, a year or two or three, they may come back. So those databases we have will quickly tell us if they have been previously deported, and at that point, we'll prosecute them accordingly," Zamora said, “This year we’re at 4,500 criminal immigrants or aliens that we have arrested. Last year, the same time frame or year to date, we were at 6,000 (criminal immigrants) so we've seen about a 1,500 decrease."

The numbers do show a downward trend, and it is keep in mind that those with a criminal history only make up a tiny percentage of the overall apprehensions. However, over the last three years, the likelihood or probability of an agent encountering a criminal has grown.

Action 4 News crunched the numbers and found that in 2013, fewer than 2.5% of Rio Grande Valley apprehensions were criminals, had gang-related ties, or were sex offenders. In 2014, that percentage grew to just over 3%. In 2015, just over 4.5% of those apprehended by RGV sector agents had a criminal background, were gang members, or were known sex offenders.

"The criminal aliens that I’m talking about can range anywhere from a hit-and-run, DWI, assault and all the way up to and including murder," Zamora said.
So how concerned should we be?

"It is a concern, but I mean it’s like a 3.9-percent, so isn’t something we need to go way overboard with," said Efrian Tafolla.

"It’s kind of scary, but I know law enforcement is working out there as hard as they can with all the criminals and immigration. There’s so many problems down here," said Andrea Rocha.

U.S. Border Patrol explains that it’s hard to pinpoint one specific reason for these types of trends as it could be attributed to many factors.

One thing is for sure, for every criminal apprehended, that’s one less criminal roaming the streets.

"We have increased boots on the ground; we have increased technology with the aerostats and some other ray towers that we have as well. So what we would say is that we have more agents on the ground. We're making more apprehensions; we're identifying these individuals — making the community safer," said Zamora.

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=1236834

by CAROLINE MAY
30 Jul 2015

A coalition of civil rights groups say the Obama administration should stop prosecuting illegal immigrants for entering or re-entering the U.S. illegally.

In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the 171 groups argue that such prosecutions are “profoundly immoral” and target Latinos.

“Federal criminal prosecution is the wrong response to immigration at our southern border,” the groups wrote this week in a letter addressed to Lynch.

According to the groups — which include the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, NAACP, La Raza, and MALDEF — the prosecution of illegal entry is the most prosecuted federal crime in the U.S. but, they charge, it does not meet the Justice Department’s standard for enforcement priorities.

“Yet these prosecutions further none of DOJ’s own prosecutorial priorities – national security, violent crime, financial fraud, and cases that protect our most vulnerable communities,” they write.

The groups further charge that such prosecutions disproportionately affect Latinos.

“Furthermore, the prosecutions almost exclusively target Latinos, leading directly to the disproportionate representation of Latinos in the federal prison system,” the letter reads. “DOJ should not be in the business of immigration enforcement, particularly when the strategies are unproven and highly problematic in their implementation.”

Overall, however, the organizations charge that such prosecutions are simply wrong.

“Most importantly, criminalizing migration is profoundly immoral,” the write. “The causes of migration are complex and varied, and migration per se poses no threat to public safety. Our nation can find far more humane and compassionate ways to respond to people crossing our southern border. ”

The letter, initially highlighted by Fusion, comes as the Obama administration has already cut down significantly on the level of deportations and protected entire categories of illegal immigrants from enforcement.

According to the groups, if the DOJ does not stop all prosecutions for illegal entry or re-entry at the southern border, then the department should take steps to reduce them.

“Short of complete discontinuation, we urge you to issue guidance directing U.S. Attorneys to 1) significantly reduce their use of prosecutions for illegal entry and re-entry, and 2) always decline referrals for prosecution of asylum seekers,” they write.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...rder-crossing/

Does anyone see that if Congress does not stop this before the next election, after the next election someone from one or more of these groups will just show up in D.C. to announce that they are now in charge? I think within 2 - 5 years it may be tried.

As far as I know, this is illegal lobbying. The Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Lobbying Disclosure Act require that lobbying on behalf of foreign principals be only done via registered lobbyists. If it is something that involves a foreigner----and no lawful admission does mean they are a foreigner no matter how many years they have been here---then it must be registered. We are not supposed to have willy nilly foreign advocacy and demonstrations, sit ins, phone calling. These things are organized by youthful activists trying to recreate the atmosphere of bygone civil rights era protests. They are coached by left wing and activist agitators. It is hard for officials to ignore them when they get right up in their faces---and they know that. By law this is not supposed to be happening. And Barack Obama as a Senator protested to Bush's DOJ that foreign lobbyists (American Jews) were acting on behalf of Israel and this should be cracked down on.

I often send comments about this to Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Committee on the Judiciary. because this is a procedural violation affecting US policy:
nicolas.hagen@mail.house.gov

and since it is something affecting national security I also send comments to:
homeland.security@mail.house.gov

Notice how they also went directly to Loretta Lynch instead of complaining to the state government.
That is what I mean by "lobbying a US official" IT IS ILLEGAL, unless any of these groups, individually, is already a registered lobbyist. And even then they have to file the required reports.