Posted on 07/22/2006 1:57:09 PM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
NASHVILLE (AP) -- Federal immigration officials here say they simply do not have enough agents to process every person assumed to be in the country illegally. At the request of Gov. Phil Bredesen, representatives of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, met Friday with state and local law enforcement officials to improve communication among all agencies in handling illegal immigration. "Our biggest issue is manpower," said Katherine Molyneux, who represented ICE. "It would be impossible to handle every single (illegal immigrant)." Bredesen said he wants to determine what kinds of criminal offenses need to take priority with immigration officials and make state and local law enforcement aware of those priorities.
"We have to figure out how to turn the heat up without overwhelming them," he said. An illegal immigrant who commits a felony will always be a priority, Molyneux said. But something as simple as a speeding ticket or other traffic stop would not take priority. Molyneux said the federal government has plans to expand the number of agents within Immigration and Customs Enforcement across the country. She has fewer agents "than you can count on your fingers" to handle calls from other law enforcement agencies about illegal immigrants. "They need more like 250," the governor said.
Bredesen also said he would like to create a law enforcement database of information of every arrest that involves a person suspected to be an illegal immigrant. That way, he said, authorities will be able to track people who are arrested repeatedly without being deported. At least two immigrants accused recently of serious crimes in the Nashville area have been arrested numerous times. A Davidson County grand jury report blamed poor communication among local and federal law enforcement officials. Gustavo Reyes Garcia had been jailed at least 14 times prior to allegedly driving drunk and smashing into a sedan last month, killing a Mt. Juliet couple. Ruben Hernandez Martinez was cited or arrested three times on misdemeanor charges before police said he began terrorizing women, committing a series of armed home invasions and rapes in Nashville in 1997 and 1998. He was jailed in Nashville last month after being extradited from Mexico.
Davidson County District Attorney General Torry Johnson said that either officials with his office or local authorities notify ICE every time a person in their custody tells them they are in the country illegally. "In all but the most serious offenses they are dealt within the system, punished and we have no other option but to release them," he said during the Friday meeting. Bredesen said he had hoped that the federal government would have put in place a better structure to handle illegal immigration problems. But the U.S. Senate and House have failed to reconcile competing immigration bills. Bredesen said other areas that need a more focused approach to illegal immigration include the state's social programs, such as TennCare, and the state's business community.
The meeting came a day after Bredesen told The Associated Press that he felt Republicans are trying to make illegal immigration a "wedge issue." He said he's trying to implement a more measured and nonpartisan approach to illegal immigration. "I dislike that it's turned into a political food fight," Bredesen said Friday. "Everybody is throwing things at everyone else."
This is the reconquest. It is the beginning of the end of the American republic. These people will be voting soon to take away your money to support them.
Get used to it.
And another fine example of the gift from Washington --- Thank You President Bush and to all the good Senators. The gift that will just keep on giving (TAKING). It will just continue to get worse, while the pols worry about how to capture the Mexican vote.
Get used to it.
I've tried to tell people this very thing. I just get flamed.
No Gov. Bredensen, Illegal Immigration, besides being Illegal, is the ELEPHANT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM!
This truly is Bush's fault. We need a leader in Wahington and I have yet to see one.
No they don't.
I agree and they people can not tell us that they can not do anything about it. They have all of the resources they need to do the job; if they are really willing to do it.
What is this all about? Don't have enough people so they dialogue? How is that going to do anything for the situation? Whole thing is garbage.
The law signed by President Bush less than two months ago to add thousands of border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has crashed into the reality of Bush's austere federal budget proposal, officials said Tuesday.
Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 after extensive bickering in Congress, the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. Roughly 80 percent of the agents were to patrol the southern U.S. border from Texas to California, along which thousands of people cross into the United States illegally every year.
But Bush's proposed 2006 budget, revealed Monday, funds only 210 new border agents.
The shrunken increase reflects the lack of money for an army of border guards and the capacity to train them, officials said.
Retired Adm. James Loy, acting head of the Department of Homeland Security until nominee Michael Chertoff takes over, said funding only 210 new agents was a "recognition that we need to balance those things as we go on down the road with other priorities."
The White House referred questions about the border agents to the Homeland Security Department.
The law signed by Bush had a caveat that went virtually unreported at the time. A summary, published by the Senate Government Affairs Committee, required the government to increase the number of border patrol agents by at least 2,000 per year, "subject to available appropriations."
Democrats were unhappy that the proposed budget used the escape clause so soon after the president approved the huge boost in border agents.
"We know we must do more to shore up security along our borders," said Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, top Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "The president's budget does not even attempt to meet this challenge."
Some Republicans also were displeased.
"This is an area of homeland security that needs to be ramped up in order to increase surveillance and patrols of our nation's vast and often remote borders," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
A Jan. 24 letter signed by leading Republican lawmakers implored the president to fully fund the new law "in order to secure our borders against infiltration by terrorists."
The lead signer was Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a leader of GOP efforts to toughen immigration laws and anti-terrorism statutes.
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Bush purposely undermined enforcement in the past so he could create the dilemma whereby he offers us security and law enforcement if we give him and his lobbies mass amnesties and new and additional guest worker programs to depress lower and middle class wages.
You're not the only one.
Sad to say
So the message to the world is: any problem that can be made "politically sensitive" and large can be ignored until it changes the face of America.
85% of the proposed 6,000 National Guard still aren't on the border yet. 'Officials' say they are still in training. If so, then they've been in training for 2 months, for their 2-week stint on the border.
Maybe they could shorten the training time and increase the stint-on-the-border time.
Hows this:
Get what you can get today. Maybe put in an extra half hour of OT, we'll pay you for it.
Then come back in the morning, and get some more.
Stop whining, get busy.
Federal immigration officials here say they simply do not have enough agents to process every person assumed to be in the country illegally
Why???? Don't we pay our Taxes??? Cuff these criminals hand to hand..and march these invaders south..when we get to the line push them over and close the Gate.
How Damn hard is that ????? oh I FORGOT! WE Are talking about federal Govt Workers. total wastes of a Paycheck.
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