Thread: TX: Del Rio adopts 'catch and detain' policy on border

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5802815.html

May 27, 2008, 12:18AM
Del Rio adopts 'catch and detain' policy on border
Critics protest, but backers say jailing illegal immigrants reduce crime, border crossings

By JAY ROOT, McClatchy-Tribune
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RESOURCES

DEL RIO — Many in Congress are counting on border walls to discourage illegal immigration and dope smuggling from Mexico. Here in Del Rio, authorities are using jail cells instead.

The ever-expanding Val Verde County jail is filled with would-be yardmen and maids, immigrants awaiting deportation. They've been caught in a law enforcement dragnet known as "Operation Streamline," a zero-tolerance program that began here and has since spread both east and west along the Mexican border.

Critics of the lock-'em-up approach question the skyrocketing costs, complain of poor conditions inside the detention facilities, and predict that ultimately the efforts won't stop immigrants and drugs from making their way north.

But supporters say the approach is reducing crime and discouraging immigrants from trying to cross into the United States. The number of illegal immigrants caught in the Border Patrol's Del Rio Sector is at its lowest level since the early 1970s.

"Enforcement works," said Val Verde County Sheriff D'Wayne Jernigan. "We're definitely seeing a reduction in crime throughout the border area and a reduction in the number of aliens running loose in our community."

The new approach is aimed at ending the controversial "catch and release" practice. For years, thousands of undocumented foreigners apprehended along the border were released for lack of jail space and given a notice to appear in court. Most simply vanished into the underground economy.

Instead, the buzz phrase is "catch and detain," meaning virtually everybody who gets caught is sent to federal court or returned home immediately.

The result has been a burden for the U.S. Department of Justice, which must add attorneys and staff to bring charges against those being held. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently called the burden "staggering."

Along with it has come an almost insatiable demand for jail space.

Eight years ago, for example, the Val Verde Correctional Facility had only 180 beds. This year, after completing its second 600-bed expansion, the maximum-security jail has room for 1,425 prisoners, an increase of almost 800 percent.

While the state prisoner population has remained flat at about 70 to 80 a day on average, the numbers serving time for immigration and drug offenses have skyrocketed, officials say.


'Prisonville' booming
Two brand new prisons specializing in federal detainees are also rising up along the Texas-Mexico border south of here — a 654-bed unit being erected in Eagle Pass and a 1,500-bed jail nearing completion in Laredo.

Even the largest jail for illegal immigrants, the Willacy County Detention Center, was too small to accommodate federal demands. Located in Raymondville — nicknamed "prisonville" — it's expanding capacity from 2,000 to 3,000 beds this year, officials say.

Critics say the get-tough policies have been extraordinarily costly, both in financial and human terms. The U.S. already locks up far more people than any other country, according to the London-based International Centre for Prison Studies.

But supporters of the crackdown say the data proves it's working and that the alternative is a suspension of the rule of law on the border. While Del Rio Sector apprehensions dropped 67 percent about two years after Operation Streamline was introduced there, they've gone down just 14 percent in the heavily crossed Tucson area. U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, is now pushing Congress to expand the zero-tolerance polices border wide.

"This has an unbelievable deterrent effect," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at a recent news conference.

All tools that discourage illegal immigration need to be used in conjunction with each other to maxamize the effect.