Posted on 09/18/2004 4:14:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Thirteen government agents pile into unmarked sport utility vehicles and dark sedans in the basement garage of downtown's federal building. Their assignment: Crash the homes of 16 illegal immigrants and deport them.
It is an increasingly common scene across the nation. The federal government wants to catch the nearly half-million immigrants who either have ducked deportation orders or are targets for removal because they were convicted of a crime.
The size and complexity of the mission is staggering. Even as the government pours millions into enforcement, each year the number of new fugitives far exceeds the number of immigrants removed.
One spring evening in San Diego shows why.
The agents are eager to start knocking on doors: Each wears a bulletproof vest with "POLICE" emblazoned on back or a blue Department of Homeland Security jacket. But only four are full-time agents with Fugitive Operations, a unit founded in 2002 to track these immigrants - the other nine either work days processing deportation orders or are Border Patrol agents on overtime. The cobbled-together teams have five hours to finish the job.
By night's end, they've apprehended six of their 16 targets, with a seventh picked up the next morning. Given that the teams fan out just several times a week, it's barely a dent in the region's backlog of 5,000 cases.
Orders from Washington are to pursue violent criminals, a fraction of all the fugitives, but the San Diego agents catch who they can. Four of their seven had convictions unrelated to immigration, including battery, theft, sex with a minor and drunken driving.
Alvina Martinez, a 54-year-old homemaker whose husband works in construction, had no such record. Martinez was deported in 1998 for being in the United States illegally; a second offense would make her a felon. Agents talked their way into her small, single-story home and deported her to Mexico the next day.
San Diego has one of 18 Fugitive Operations teams, and with more than 550 apprehensions ranks near the top of the 22 cities where Homeland Security agents have caught fugitives since October. Others include Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and Chicago.
In all, Homeland Security wants to round up about 460,000 fugitive immigrants, about 80,000 of whom have criminal records unrelated to immigration. The Associated Press asked in May for a database with details about these fugitives, but Homeland Security hasn't ruled on that Freedom of Information Act request.
Authorities hope to eliminate their backlog by 2009, but it will be hard.
Federal agents will have detained nearly 10,000 fugitives during the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. It's impossible to know how many of those deported have already returned to the United States. During the same period, an estimated 40,000 new fugitives were added - so the list has actually grown longer.
The explanation is straightforward.
Homeland Security only has about 19,500 detention beds nationwide. While local jails hold some of the overflow, overwhelmed immigration courts often release immigrants who are challenging their deportation and trust they'll show up for court.
Some do. And many who are captured and threatened with deportation voluntarily return home. But agents acknowledge it's not surprising many skip hearings that likely would lead to their removal.
In April, the department expanded a pilot program to jail immigrants while their cases wind their way through the courts. That effort, begun in Connecticut and expanded to Atlanta and Denver, has drawn criticism from immigration lawyers who say it punishes noncriminals who are simply exercising their legal rights.
Authorities also are experimenting with new ways to track people before they disappear. In June, Homeland Security began using electronic ankle bracelets in eight cities, among them Denver, San Francisco and Portland, Ore. The department also launched a limited program under which immigrants out on bail or parole check in by telephone, with voice-recognition software verifying they are who they say they are and that they're calling from home.
When immigrants do go on the lam, Fugitive Operations agents must pursue "this population that has been out there flouting the law," said Victor Cerda, who oversees detention and removals at Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division.
Agents spend hours building dossiers: staking out homes to determine when best to come knocking, interviewing apartment managers, checking credit reports and loan applications. Some agents rely on ruses to enter people's homes, knowing they're unlikely to be let in if they explain their true intentions. It's called "knock and talk."
Homeland Security's $4 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2005 requests $69 million for Fugitive Operations, a fourfold increase from $17 million this fiscal year. The department wants to expand the number of squads, each typically with five members, from 18 to 48 nationally. Homeland Security officials said that, as a matter of policy, they won't reveal where those squads are stationed.
Agents used to track the freshest cases first, figuring they'd be easiest to find, said Doris Meissner, President Clinton's top immigration official.
"I think it is, by and large, a losing battle to go out and try to find people," said Meissner, now senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
The top priority has become getting felons - not those with simple immigration law violations.
Homeland Security officials say felons represent 47 percent of the fugitives removed this year, short of their goal of 70 percent. About 11 percent of apprehended fugitives have committed sex offenses or other violent crimes and about 15 percent were drug offenders.
Some critics say the government relies too much on enforcement instead of addressing the fundamental reasons immigrants come. In some other cases, the critics say, government is stoking anti-immigrant sentiment.
"By trying to characterize undocumented immigrants as criminals, it makes it easier to scapegoat them," said Gail Pendleton, associate director of an immigration project at the National Lawyers Guild.
Jaime Garcia Zuniga is the kind of criminal Homeland Security wants to deport. The 23-year-old Mexican, who has been convicted of fighting in public and having sex with a minor, was perhaps the biggest catch for the San Diego agents that evening.
While agents were chatting with someone who answered the door, Garcia removed a screen and sneaked out the window of his first-floor apartment.
"We've got a runner!" one agent shouted.
Agents cornered Garcia in an alley, where he surrendered.
The agents returned to their cars, still catching their breath - one down, more than 400,000 to go.
Fugitive Operations page
http://www.bakersfield.com/24hour/nation/story/1664674p-9411377c.html
(AP) - The Department of Homeland Security created the Fugitive Operations program in 2002 to track down illegal immigrants who have received government orders to leave the country or report to immigration officials. The following is a look at the program.
- Estimated number of fugitives in the United States: more than 460,000.
- Estimated number of new fugitives each year: 40,000.
- Number of fugitive operations apprehensions between October 2003 and August 2004: 9,571.
- Number of fugitive operations apprehensions between October 2002 and October 2003: 3,411.
- Approximate number of fugitive operation agents nationwide: 90.
- Estimated average cost of removing one fugitive: $8,000.
- Estimated cost of removing all 460,000 fugitives: $3.68 billion
- Budget for fugitive operations between Oct. 1, 2003 and Sept. 30, 2004: $16.8 million.
- Budget request for fiscal year 2005: $66.8 million.
- Estimated percentage of fugitives apprehended nationwide who have a criminal record in the United States: 47 percent; Percentage goal: 70 percent.
- Estimated percentage of fugitives apprehended who have committed sex offenses and other violent crimes: 11 percent.
Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics.
Try an army next time. But ofcourse if your in Houston, you can't even ask them if their legal(in spanish ofcourse)
One down, 13,000,000 to go. Guess they'd better hire a couple more 13 man crews. Hey, but this could solve the unemployment problem. Just hire all the out of work union thugs as border agents. Solves two problems.
Get the local LEAs in on the action: Offer a bonus for each one caught. If they are conviced criminals, it is likely they have default warrants, too.
Jeez. These guys sound like they never solved a scale-up problem in a business.
We need someone to do the job that Americans won't do.
They should focus on guys with names like Muhammed, Abu, and Osama first off.
A long journey starts with a single step.
Putin should move the Chechens to Siberia. Now that I think of it we should help the Russians populate Sibera with illegal Mexicans.
Half Million?
They're wasting time. Just compare SS numbers with names and birth dates. No match, no work. Then watch them deport themselves voluntarily.
A several thousand dollar fine on all employers that employ illegals would really help finance deporting them.
Yes, of course. But they also have to know they won't stay long. That will take the pressure off at the borders, and make it possible to make them secure against even terrorist infiltrators.
Oh you haven't heard....Houston is run by dumb dums. The ones that make the big bucks are Repubs. It's called by some BS PC name. I had to go for minor surgery this week, and I took the person going with me down the illegal lane, otherwise known as Westpark. He bitched for a mile about why the cops didn't do something about it. I explain the situation, then he went on about the people HIRING them. When I had my store in Corpus, the INS came in to check my employees docs. Ofcourse REAGAN was Prez them. it is a nightmare here.
There is a law, It's not enforced like Reagan did, becasue no one likes being called a racist. that's their favorite tactic.
I believe it. Half of Brasil lives in Massachusetts now.
And this POS is an attorney??? UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS ARE CRIMINALS!!! DON'T YOU GET IT??????? Damn, they need to take this guy out of his comfy condo and make him own some border land - and farm it for a living. Then we'll see what his attitude is about "undocumented immigrants" after about 6 months of that.
Pardon me for beating a dead horse, but, IMHO, we're attacking this problem backwards. We've got a bunch of agents chasing the bad guyz. And for every bad guy they catch, four more waltz over the border in AZ or NM.This makes no sense to me.
Let's close the border first. Nice and tight. Then we can chase the bad guyz.
At least then we won't be going backwards.
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