Thread: 'Zero tolerance' on immigrants praised but not by all

'Zero tolerance' on immigrants praised but not by all

By Susan Carroll
mysanantonio.com
Updated 01:08 a.m., Sunday, May 13, 2012


Roberto Gonzalez, of Eagle Pass, drives on through a canal, which converges into the Rio Grade, toward the International Bridge as continues his golf game at the Eagle Pass Golf Course on Tuesday, on March 6, 2012, in Eagle Pass. Large groups of illegal immigrants use to cross the golf course, and it was no longer safe for golfers to use facility. Apprehensions have dropped in the Del Rio Sector, with the enforcement of Operation Streamline and a 'Zero Tolerance' policy.
Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle / © 2012 Houston Chronicle

EAGLE PASS — Border Patrol station chief Cesar Cantu Jr. ambled toward the fourth hole of the Eagle Pass golf course, watching the Rio Grande lazily snake by, taking in the stillness.

This golf course once doubled as a major corridor for illegal immigration, its trampled fairways trumpeting America's failure to secure its southern border. Groups of 20, 30, even 60 illegal immigrants would clamber up the muddy banks of the Rio Grande and onto the course, looking to turn themselves in to the nearest Border Patrol agent, knowing they wouldn't go to jail.

But on a chilly December day in 2005, this stretch of border became “ground zero” for a Border Patrol experiment dubbed “Operation Streamline,” a strategy that would transform immigration enforcement along large swaths of the border.

Rather than sending illegal immigrants voluntarily back to their countries or processing them through civil immigration courts, nearly all those caught were funneled into the federal criminal justice system, prosecuted, imprisoned and sent home as convicted criminals.

Now, the golf course is quiet, save for the soft swoosh of the river, the quacking ducks on the golf course's pond and the flapping of the flag on the fourth hole.

Border Patrol officials have expanded the “zero tolerance” zone to cover all 210 miles of the Del Rio sector and other stretches of the border in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Yet the Streamline strategy has become a political flashpoint in the border security debate, with some immigration hawks lobbying to expand it along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border. Top officials in the Obama administration have resisted pressure to criminally prosecute everyone caught crossing illegally, calling Streamline only one piece of its new broader border enforcement strategy to deliver individualized punishments.

Critics also call Streamline costly and “draconian,” warning that the strategy has overwhelmed border courts. In the words of the chief public defender in Del Rio, it has created a “nightmare” for immigrants' due process rights.

While officials with the Homeland Security Department credit Streamline with helping to drive down border arrests to a 40-year low, several immigration experts said much of the decrease is likely because of the slow economy. Apprehensions declined from 1.17 million in 2005 to 327,577 in 2011.

“The Border Patrol has always tried new strategies, and the immigrants keep coming,” said Nestor Rodriguez, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “What seems to make the big difference is not the border strategy but the economic recession and things that happen in the interior, like checking for driver's licenses and IDs.”

Handful of crossings

Cantu, for his part, considers the Streamline strategy an unqualified success. On some days, he says, he can count the number of illegal immigrants his agents catch on both hands, down from more than 500 daily at the peak of the influx years ago.

“It took some time for word to go back into Central and South America, but once it did, the tide shifted,” he said.

Seven years ago, groups of up to 60 illegal immigrants would wade across the river together in broad daylight and walk up to agents on the golf course to surrender.

The Border Patrol lacked the detention center bed space and money to house the illegal immigrants while they waited to appear before an immigration judge. So thousands of non-Mexicans were issued paperwork — some called it their “diplomas” — instructing them to come back for a court hearing in 30 days. Most of them never came back, using the paperwork as a pass into the United States.

A fed-up Randy Hill, then the sector chief for the Border Patrol in Del Rio, and several fellow agents started pushing for a new “zero tolerance” strategy. The agents wanted to use a law on the books since 1952 criminalizing illegal entry to prosecute every illegal immigrant, unless there was a compelling humanitarian reason to spare them.

First-time offenders could be sentenced to up to six months in prison. Another arrest could lead to a felony charge and up to two years in prison.

The strategy would solve the Border Patrol's detention space problem by sending illegal immigrants into the federal criminal justice system, which would pick up the tab for their incarceration. Most importantly, Hill reasoned, it would finally deliver a concrete consequence for illegal entry.

“There can't be crime without punishment,” Hill said, “or you are never going to diminish or reduce crime.”

So the Border Patrol took the golf course back.

Hill said the results were amazing. Over the next six months, arrests decreased by 51 percent in Eagle Pass, compared with six months before. The zero-tolerance zone pushed out farther and farther, covering the entire Del Rio sector and parts of other states.

Convicted quickly

At the courthouse in Del Rio on a March morning, just an hour's drive from the Eagle Pass golf course, more than 50 illegal immigrants in handcuffs and leg irons were crammed into a wood-paneled courtroom.

They were charged with illegal entry, a misdemeanor.

Nationwide, the number of misdemeanor illegal entry prosecutions has increased 218 percent since the launch of Streamline, from about 15,600 in 2005 to nearly 50,000 in 2011, according to data from the Justice Department.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Collis White, a former prosecutor, asked each of the defendants if they understood the charges they faced and the consequences of pleading guilty. With the exception of one man, they all replied “Sí.”

And then one by one, the cases were dispatched.

The entire proceeding — the initial appearances, the guilty pleas, the sentences — was completed in two hours. Then, in shackles, the immigrants shuffled from the courtroom, all of them convicted criminals.

“From a due process perspective, it's a nightmare,” said William D. Fry, the branch chief of the federal public defender's office in Del Rio. “It's horrible.”

Fry said many of illegal immigrants do not understand the impact of a criminal conviction, which can lead to a ban on legally immigrating. Others, he said, are so desperate that a few days in jail is hardly a deterrent. And the volume of cases churning through the system means that mistakes are inevitable, he added.

“The program got its arms around everything, its tentacles into everything,” Fry said. “As a consequence, believe it or not, you can sometimes find an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident on the Streamline docket.”

Alia Moses Ludlum, a U.S. district judge in Del Rio, said she's heard due process concerns about the program for years and that she takes them seriously. But the main point raised by advocates, she said, is the high case load for defense attorneys, which she said is simply part of “reality on the border.”

Some magistrates and judges in border states including Texas have complained that the courts are straining under the weight of the Streamline prosecutions. In a 2010 ruling, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks from the Western District of Texas demanded that federal prosecutors justify their decisions to prosecute illegal entry and re-entry cases, calling the expense to taxpayers “simply mind-boggling.”

The government declared a judicial emergency in the federal courts in Arizona last year, citing Streamline as contributing to the district's “crushing criminal case load.”

Costs hidden from public

Critics say the government has failed to provide key information about Streamline, including how much it costs. And some academics caution there is too little publicly available data on the program to credit it with the 40-year low in border arrests.

Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald Vitiello said the agency has been collecting data to measure the effectiveness of Streamline and other border enforcement strategies since January. But he declined to release any of it, calling the results so far preliminary.

Since the start of Streamline, the ranks of the Border Patrol have more than doubled, to more than 20,000 agents. The agency has added more than 700 miles of fencing and other border barriers and technology such as cameras and drones.

And, perhaps most important, some academics say, the U.S. dipped into a recession in 2008, and border arrests began to nosedive.

“Everything the Border Patrol claims Streamline has created could just as easily be attributed to the falling number of open jobs in the United States,” said Brittney Nystrom, director of policy and legal affairs for the National Immigration Forum.

Vitiello said the Border Patrol is testing out a variety of “individualized” punishments, including criminal prosecution and repatriation to distant stretches of the border.

“Streamline is important,” he said, “but it is a big piece of a bigger system.”

susan.carroll@chron.com

Read more: 'Zero tolerance' on immigrants praised but not by all - San Antonio Express-News

Further proof enforcing the law works!

I always ask whenever someone uses the "too much for the courts and prison system" excuse. '"Why then has'nt it become something for the military?" They, over the last 10 years, have become border security specialists.

'Zero tolerance' border policy praised, doubted

May 14, 2012
Associated Press
PoliceOne


The zero-tolerance zone for Operation Streamline has been extended to include all 210 miles (340 kilometers) of the Del Rio sector and other stretches of Mexico's border with Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. (AP Photo)

HOUSTON — Since December 2005, a golf course on the banks of the Rio Grande has been a laboratory for a U.S. Border Patrol experiment called Operation Streamline.

Before, illegal immigrants tramped across Eagle Pass' fairways and into the hands of Border Patrol agents, knowing they wouldn't face jail.

But now, officials are using a "zero tolerance" policy, prosecuting and imprisoning the illegal immigrant before sending them home as criminal convicts. U.S. Homeland Security officials have credited the experiment with helping drive border arrests to a 40-year low, and the Houston Chronicle newspaper reports that immigration hawks want the policy to be extended along the extent of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Some experts, though, say the United States' sluggish economy is a major factor for the drop.

"The Border Patrol has always tried new strategies, and the immigrants keep coming," Nestor Rodriguez, a University of Texas sociology professor, told the Chronicle. "What seems to make the big difference is not the border strategy but the economic recession and things that happen in the (U.S.) interior, like checking for driver's licenses and IDs."

Brittney Nystrom, director of policy and legal affairs for the National Immigration Forum, agrees with Rodriguez.

"Everything the Border Patrol claims Streamline has created could just as easily be attributed to the falling number of open jobs in the United States," she said.

Under a 1952 federal law that made it a crime to illegally enter the United States, first-time offenders can be sentenced to up to six months in prison. It rises to up to two years for a second offense. The zero-tolerance zone for Operation Streamline has been extended to include all 210 miles (340 kilometers) of the Del Rio sector and other stretches of Mexico's border with Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Since Operation Streamline started, reports from the Justice Department show nationwide prosecutions of first-offense misdemeanor illegal entry cases increased 218 percent -- from 15,600 in 2005 to nearly 50,000 in 2011.

Critics say the prosecutions and imprisonments have overwhelmed courts along the border, creating what federal public defender William Fry of Del Rio calls a "nightmare" for the due process rights of immigrants.

Fry told the Chronicle that many of the first offenders do not know that their convictions could disqualify them from obtaining legal entry into the United States. Also, the number of cases flooding the courts inevitably lead to mistakes, he said.

"As a consequence, believe it or not, you can sometimes find an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident on the Streamline docket," he said.

In a 2010 ruling, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin called Streamline's cost to taxpayers "simply mind-boggling."

Top Obama administration officials say the policy is just one part of its new border enforcement strategy.

"Streamline is important, but it is a big piece of a bigger system," said Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald Vitiello.

But Border Patrol officials are happy with the program's results. Some days, Cesar Cantu Jr., chief of the Border Patrol's Eagle Pass Station, says he can count the number of illegal immigrants his agents catch on his two hands. That's down from a peak that he says exceeded 500 a day.

"It took some time for word to go back into Central and South America, but once it did the tide shifted," he said.

'Zero tolerance' border policy praised, doubted