Thread: Tough Immigration Policies Push Latino Majority Into Federal

Tough Immigration Policies Push Latino Majority Into Federal Prisons

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Monday, September 12 2011, 9:45 AM EST
by Julianne Hing

Illegal reentry is a felony, where first-time illegal entry is considered a misdemeanor. While the sentences people receive vary, the average prison sentence for someone convicted of illegal reentry today is 14 months, according to TRAC.

Deportation is clearly not punishment enough for the Obama administration. Not only has President Obama deported more people in his tenure than in any of his predecessors, his administration is responsible for the most aggressive spike in federal prosecutions of immigration offenses. Now, Latinos are the majority of those who are sent to federal prison for felonies, according to a new report (pdf) from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
http://www.ussc.gov/Data_and_Statistics ... Report.pdf

The spike, other numbers show, has been driven in large part by the federal government’s aggressive prosecution of immigration offenses.

Where once people who were caught trying to enter the country without papers were allowed to opt for voluntary removal and kicked back across the border, today the federal government is choosing to file charges against people and incarcerate people before deporting them. It’s a profound enough change in policy that it’s changing the demographics of incarceration rates.

In the first nine months of the year Latinos were 50.3 percent of all those who were sentenced to federal prison for felony convictions. Blacks made up 19.7 percent and whites 26.4 percent. Latinos are just 16 percent of the general population though, according to the Census. This is the first year that Latinos have become the majority of those sent to prison for federal felonies.

The aggressive prosecutions are driven by a failed political strategy, immigration experts say. The Obama administration has stepped up its enforcement efforts with the hopes of encouraging a recalcitrant Congress to take up comprehensive immigration reform. “They seem to be trying to look tougher and tougher on enforcement as a down payment on immigration reform in the future,â€

Illegal reentry is a felony, where first-time illegal entry is considered a misdemeanor. While the sentences people receive vary, the average prison sentence for someone convicted of illegal reentry today is 14 months, according to TRAC.

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Our government is it's own criminal felon manufacturing machine. By not securing our border, and not prosecuting the employers of illegal aliens and allowing them to lobby congress it has reshaped our nation into the world's largest prison system.

We are prisoners in our own nation, held captive by a government more prone to protect the (non-existent) rights of illegal aliens over those of American-born citizens.

RELATED

Immigration Offenses Make Latinos Majority in Federal Prison
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-249402-prison.html

Jay Stansell, an assistant federal public defender in Seattle, said many of his clients and those who are being prosecuted for illegal reentry are only trying to provide for their families and be good parents. Stansell laid out a common scenario where a father, for instance, was initially deported when he lost his job and turned to some quick cash that resulted in a drug conviction, but returned to the country because his wife couldn’t raise their kids on her own.

Then the wife and kiddles should go back with him. How can one be a "good parent" by breaking any law?

Originally Posted by miguelina

Jay Stansell, an assistant federal public defender in Seattle, said many of his clients and those who are being prosecuted for illegal reentry are only trying to provide for their families and be good parents. Stansell laid out a common scenario where a father, for instance, was initially deported when he lost his job and turned to some quick cash that resulted in a drug conviction, but returned to the country because his wife couldn’t raise their kids on her own.

Then the wife and kiddles should go back with him. How can one be a "good parent" by breaking any law?

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Exactly!

But congress refuses to close the largest single legal loophole allowing them to PERPETUALLY break the law.

End anchor baby automatic citizenship.
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-249629.html