Thread: U.S. can't get handle on this wanted list

U.S. can't get handle on this wanted list
March 26, 2007, 11:44PM

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON — The number of foreigners targeted for removal from the United States has soared to more than 623,000 even as the federal government has dedicated nearly $205 million over the past four years to deploy new fugitive apprehension teams.

In a report issued Monday, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general said the 52 fugitive operations teams have been hobbled by insufficient detention space, inadequate databases and the inability to track individual teams' performance.

Though Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials didn't quibble with the inspector general's findings, the agency's detention and removal operations chief said the report represents a dated snapshot that doesn't reflect a huge infusion of funds to add more teams and jail beds, and improve an antiquated database.

Still, the inspector general found that the foreigners — defined by the agency as "fugitives" because they had either been ordered deported or had criminal records that made them ineligible to remain in the country — has swelled from 314,000 in 2001 to 623,292 as of last August. The fugitives are just one subset of the illegal immigrant population, which is estimated at 12 million.

The fugitive population is growing faster than the teams can cope with it, the inspector general said, estimating the backlog rises by 50,000 each year.

John Torres, the immigration agency's detention and removal chief, acknowledged the findings.

"We find a lot of common agreement with regards to what (the inspector general's staff) are trying to portray, which is we have not had the resources over the years and now that we're just getting the resources, they want to ensure through oversight that we are applying them appropriately," Torres said in an interview. "We couldn't agree with them more."


Going in 'right direction'
But he noted that $110 million of the $205 million for the fugitive operations teams was provided only last year, and that it takes time to hire, train and deploy the team members as well as add the necessary detention space.
Last month marked the first time that the agency actually removed more fugitives than were added to the list, Torres said. "I don't want to state that one month indicates a trend, but considering the trend has been increasing annually, we feel that finally we are starting to go in the right direction," he said.

Each of the fugitive operations teams, which will number 75 by year's end, is under orders to find and remove 1,000 fugitives annually — a lofty goal considering fewer than 12,000 were apprehended last year.

But some team supervisors reported to the inspector general that their teams were idled for weeks at a time because of insufficient detention space.

The immigration agency, which has added several thousand detention beds over the past year, now has close to 27,500 beds, Torres said, adding that teams are no longer sidelined by the lack of jail space.

He acknowledged, however, that the agency has yet to solve one of the inspector general's other complaints: The inability to track the performance of each team.


Ailing database
In the report, the inspector general said the agency improperly had commingled the teams' arrests along with those of fugitives apprehended by other agency officials, or federal, state and local law officers. The figures also include cases that were closed because the foreigners either were determined to have left the country voluntarily, because they died or because they found some way to legalize their status.
"Each fugitive operations team must now arrest 1,000 fugitives a year, yet it cannot be determined whether the teams have ever met any performance threshold based on the past reporting of apprehensions," the report said.

Torres said the agency is spending $62 million modernizing a 25-year-old database so that it can better track individual cases and teams' performance. For example, the agency has removed 19,000 names from the database since October because those individuals have left the country, died or legalized their status, he said.

The inspector general cited one database analyst who estimated only about half the information in the database is accurate.

michelle.mittelstadt@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4663696.html

Related article:

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=58566

and here's another article on this:

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Immigrants Avoiding Deportation Doubled Since 9/11, Audit Says

By Neil Roland

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- The number of undocumented immigrants who remain in the U.S. after deportation orders were issued has likely doubled since 2001, even as authorities spent more money to find them, an audit said.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigators are hampered by a paucity of beds for those caught and an inaccurate and incomplete database on undocumented immigrants, the agency's inspector general said in a report today.

The department, headed by Secretary Michael Chertoff, set a deadline of apprehending all immigrants under deportation orders by the end of 2009. The study said that as of last year there were more than 623,000 immigrants hiding from deportation orders, a number that must be estimated because of faulty government records.

Of this backlog, the 63-page report said, ``It is highly improbable that it will be eliminated in the near future.''

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Justice Department made such apprehensions a priority to try to reduce the opportunity for would-be terrorists to conduct operations in the U.S. Congress provided $205 million for the operations in the last four years, including $111 million in fiscal 2006 alone.

Immigration authorities at the homeland security agency have set up 53 five-person teams around the country dedicated to finding and deporting those under deportation orders.

Still, the number of immigrants who have ignored orders to leave the country has grown at a rate of more than 50,000 a year, the report said, while only 37,443 were caught between March 2003 and June 2006.

``The fugitive alien population is growing at a rate that exceeds the teams' ability to apprehend,'' the report said.

Finding More Beds

Homeland security officials said the agency has recently used congressional funding to increase the number of beds. It also is trying to ``develop a cohesive, comprehensive infrastructure that would improve coordinated removal efforts,'' DHS Assistant Secretary Julie Myers said in a Dec. 22 letter attached to the report.

The agency also is identifying ``air hubs'' with detention space so that it can fly detained fugitives to facilities with available space around the country, Myers said.

``The IG report does a good job at highlighting exactly why we needed fugitive operations teams,' DHS spokesman Marc Raimondi said in an e-mail today. ``Prior to the creation of Homeland Security, there were no dedicated fugitive teams to deal with the backlog of hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens.''

The report cited two DHS managers in different cities who said they had to stop or slow fugitive operations for six weeks because of inadequate space to house illegal immigrants. Half the fugitive aliens are held in local jails, though they also can stay at other government and contractor-run facilities.

The agency database on fugitives is about 50 percent accurate, said a system analyst cited in the report. The database has been neglected for the past 25 years, according to a supervisor cited.

To contact the reporter on this story: Neil Roland in Washington at nroland@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 26, 2007 15:53 EDT

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