Federal plan would charge all illegal border crossers[Rio Grande Valley Sector, South Texas]

McALLEN — The Rio Grande Valley could be the next place to implement a zero-tolerance policy credited with cutting illegal immigration rates by almost 70 percent in other parts of the state.

But critics of the program fear the prosecution of every undocumented migrant caught crossing the border would overwhelm federal prosecutors and crowd local detention centers.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Border Patrol’s Laredo Sector became the second region in Texas to implement Operation Streamline — a policy that charges all illegal crossers with a federal misdemeanor and arranges for deportation. Second-time offenders face felony charges and jail time.

At a press conference announcing the policy, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, suggested that federal authorities have already begun discussing expanding the program downriver.

“We’re looking at how this works in the Laredo sector and then we’ll see what comes next,” he said Thursday.

The Border Patrol’s Del Rio and Yuma, Ariz., sectors are the only other two regions to have adopted the policy in the country. But Streamline’s results are already drawing attention, Del Rio-based Border Patrol Supervisory Agent Hilario Leal said.

“It’s gaining ground,” he said. “It appears to be very popular among congressmen. (Homeland Security Secretary Michael) Chertoff gets briefed on it every few weeks — and the president once a month.”

Currently, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector offer most first-time illegal immigrants the option of voluntary departure. Those who opt in are processed, fingerprinted and put back on a bus to Mexico.

But in the Del Rio Sector, which implemented Streamline in December 2005, illegal immigrants are arrested, charged with a misdemeanor and deported. Second-time offenders face felony charges and jail time.

In two years, the policy has slashed immigrant apprehensions in the sector by 67 percent. “The word has gotten out through the Mexican and Central American media,” Leal said. “People know not to cross in Del Rio and try to cross somewhere else.”

And now that agents spend less time processing illegal immigrants in offices, they can devote more time out in the field addressing problems like drug smuggling.

In the year before Del Rio adopted Streamline, agents seized nearly 24,000 pounds of marijuana. Last year, they took in 60,500 — a 152 percent increase over two years. Val Verde County Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan, who houses many of the prosecuted immigrants in his jail, has already noticed the effects.

During Streamline’s early days, about 90 percent of the jail’s inmates were illegal immigrants held under the custody of U.S. Marshals. But since then the numbers have dramatically dropped .

“Once the word got out, they just stopped trying to come here,” Jernigan said. “Before, we’d be getting complaints from residents asking who these people were roaming around their yard, but we’re having so few incidents now.”

At Del Rio’s federal courthouse, immigration cases have spiked to more than 14,000 in the fiscal year that ended earlier this month, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas.

But the Border Patrol has consulted with federal prosecutors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals and public defenders to clear bottlenecks and maintain the heavy case load.

OVERLOAD? But what works for the rural areas of West Texas could clog up the judicial system in more heavily populated regions like the Valley, where court dockets are filled with felony human and drug smuggling cases and detention centers are already packed with immigrants facing more serious charges.

Illegal immigration caseloads in the Southern District of Texas, which includes the Valley, are already double that of the next highest U.S. District Court, according to a report earlier this year by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. And they are only expected to rise with President Bush’s plan to double the size of the Border Patrol by 2008.

“If Operation Streamline were to become more widespread ... the caseload of the magistrate judges and the workload of court staff would probably skyrocket,” the report states.

And unlike Del Rio, where many of the prosecuted immigrants serve their sentences in the county jail, Hidalgo County has no room to house jailed border crossers. Currently, migrants serving prison sentences in the Valley are held in federal or private detention centers.

“It would kill us to take them on,” Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said.

Still, early results from Laredo’s month under Operation Streamline look promising. If similar results could be duplicated farther east, the policy might serve as an alternative to other less popular tactics like a border fence, Rep. Cuellar said.

“From what I’ve been told in Laredo, there’s already been a decrease in the people coming over,” he said. “It’s already working.” ____

Jeremy Roebuck covers courts, law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4437.

Here’s my standard post. We can do something about Illegal immigration.

RICO —Citizen Recourse
Private persons and entities may initiate civil suits to obtain injunctions and treble damages against enterprises that conspire to or actually violate federal alien smuggling, harboring, or document fraud statutes, under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO). The pattern of racketeering activity is defined as commission of two or more of the listed crimes. A RICO enterprise can be any individual legal entity, or a group of individuals who are not a legal entity but are associated in fact, and can include nonprofit associations.

Here’s what I’ve been pushing: it’s time to file Racketeering, Influencing, and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuits. RICO lawyers could turn it around in a few years and MAKE MONEY at the same time. I’m surprised they haven’t done it already.

In the absence of enforcement, we can get the word out in the meantime that there is money to be made in filing RICO lawsuits against employers who hire illegal aliens.

Employers would have no trouble shutting down the border if they could get sued by someone under the RICO statutes for hiring these people in the first place. The next time an illegal alien kills someone in a drunk driving accident or somesuch thing, I’m going to point out that the victim’s family might be able to seek compensation from the employer under these statutes in the hopes that it would catch on. If this did catch on, would see such a swift backlash against illegal immigration that no employer would go near these people and they’ll all simply want to go back home.

IRS Reporting

REWARD FOR REPORTING EMPLOYERS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

CALL THE IRS HOTLINE 1-800-829-0433 YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO A REWARD

Call the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hotline 1-800-829-0433 to report all
suspected employers of illegal aliens-—you are not required to identify
yourself and may be entitled to a reward. The Application for Reward ( Form 211 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f211.pdf)
can be downloaded from http://www.irs. gov or call 1-800-829-3676. The IRS does
not take kindly to employers that seek to evade taxes by paying cash for day
labor-this is a common practice at construction sites. Report the employer`s
license plate number and any other information you may have. Employers usually
can’t run and take the hit in their wallets. Follow up with the IRS and ask
what action is being taken; if they refuse to cooperate, notify the press and
your elected officials. Do your part-—spread the word-—help make this
nationwide campaign a success!!!

Hunter is the best candidate on Immigration.

.
Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
Posted on 11/15/2007 3:43:17 AM PST by Kevmo

Hunter’s criticism of Thompson over this issue is well aimed. We need someone in the white house who isn’t a johnny-come-lately on this issue.
Road to Des Moines Conversions on Immigration (Hunter Press release)
News Which Cannot Lose ^ | 10/25/07 | Duncan Hunter/staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1916889/posts

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