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ILLEGALS’ CRIME REPORT - PART 2
A CASE AGAINST SANCTUARY CITIES
By Heather MacDonald
PART 2
The sheer number of criminal aliens overwhelmed an innovative program
that would allow immigration officials to complete deportation
hearings while a criminal was still in state or federal prison, so
that upon his release he could be immediately ejected without taking
up precious INS detention space. But the process, begun in 1988,
immediately bogged down due to the numbers—in 2000, for example,
nearly 30 percent of federal prisoners were foreign-born. The agency
couldn’t find enough pro bono attorneys to represent such an army
of criminal aliens (who have extensive due-process rights in
contesting deportation) and so would have to request delay after
delay. Or enough immigration judges would not be available. In 1997,
the INS simply had no record of a whopping 36 percent of foreign-born
inmates who had been released from federal and four state prisons
without any review of their deportability. They included 1,198
aggravated felons, 80 of whom were soon re-arrested for new crimes.
Resource starvation is not the only reason for federal inaction. The
INS was a creature of immigration politics, and INS district
directors came under great pressure from local politicians to divert
scarce resources into distribution of such “benefits” as
permanent residency, citizenship, and work permits, and away from
criminal or other investigations. In the late 1980s, for example, the
INS refused to join an FBI task force against Haitian drug trafficking
in Miami, fearing criticism for “Haitian-bashing.” In 1997, after
Hispanic activists protested a much-publicized raid that netted
nearly two dozen illegals, the Border Patrol said that it would no
longer join Simi Valley, California, probation officers on home
searches of illegal-alien-dominated gangs.
The disastrous Citizenship USA project of 1996 was a luminous case of
politics driving the INS to sacrifice enforcement to “benefits.”
When, in the early 1990s, the prospect of welfare reform drove
immigrants to apply for citizenship in record numbers to preserve
their welfare eligibility, the Clinton administration, seeing a
political bonanza in hundreds of thousands of new welfare-dependent
citizens, ordered the naturalization process radically expedited.
Thanks to relentless administration pressure, processing errors in
1996 were 99 percent in New York and 90 percent in Los Angeles, and
tens of thousands of aliens with criminal records, including for
murder and armed robbery, were naturalized.
Another powerful political force, the immigration bar association,
has won from Congress an elaborate set of due-process rights for
criminal aliens that can keep them in the country indefinitely.
Federal probation officers in Brooklyn are supervising two
illegals—a Jordanian and an Egyptian with Saudi citizenship—who
look “ready to blow up the Statue of Liberty,” according to a
probation official, but the officers can’t get rid of them. The
Jordanian had been caught fencing stolen Social Security and
tax-refund checks; now he sells phone cards, which he uses himself to
make untraceable calls. The Saudi’s offense: using a fraudulent
Social Security number to get employment—a puzzlingly unnecessary
scam, since he receives large sums from the Middle East, including
from millionaire relatives. But intelligence links him to terrorism,
so presumably he worked in order not to draw attention to himself.
Currently, he changes his cell phone every month. Ordinarily such a
minor offense would not be prosecuted, but the government, fearing
that he had terrorist intentions, used whatever it had to put him in
prison.
Even where immigration officials successfully nab and deport criminal
aliens, the reality, says a former federal gang prosecutor, is that
“they all come back. They can’t make it in Mexico.” The tens of
thousands of illegal farmworkers and dishwashers who overpower U.S.
border controls every year carry in their wake thousands of brutal
assailants and terrorists who use the same smuggling industry and who
benefit from the same irresistible odds: there are so many more of
them than the Border Patrol.
For, of course, the government’s inability to keep out criminal
aliens is part and parcel of its inability to patrol the border,
period. For decades, the INS had as much effect on the migration of
millions of illegals as a can tied to the tail of a tiger. And the
immigrants themselves, despite the press cliché of hapless aliens
living fearfully in the shadows, seemed to regard immigration
authorities with all the concern of an elephant for a flea.
Certainly fear of immigration officers is not in evidence among the
hundreds of illegal day laborers who hang out on Roosevelt Avenue in
Queens, New York, in front of money wire services, travel agencies,
immigration-attorney offices, and phone arcades, all catering to the
local Hispanic population (as well as to drug dealers and
terrorists). “There is no chance of getting caught,” cheerfully
explains Rafael, an Ecuadoran. Like the dozen Ecuadorans and Mexicans
on his particular corner, Rafael is hoping that an SUV seeking
carpenters for $100 a day will show up soon. “We don’t worry,
because we’re not doing anything wrong. I know it’s illegal; I
need the papers, but here, nobody asks you for papers.”
Even the newly fortified Mexican border, the one spot where the
government really tries to prevent illegal immigration, looms as only
a minor inconvenience to the day laborers. The odds, they realize, are
overwhelmingly in their favor. Miguel, a reserved young carpenter,
crossed the border at Tijuana three years ago with 15 others. Border
Patrol spotted them, but with six officers to 16 illegals, only five
got caught. In illegal border crossings, you get what you pay for,
Miguel says. If you try to shave on the fee, the coyotes will abandon
you at the first problem. Miguel’s wife was flying into New York
from Los Angeles that very day; it had cost him $2,200 to get her
across the border. “Because I pay, I don’t worry,” he says
complacently.
The only way to dampen illegal immigration and its attendant train of
criminals and terrorists—short of an economic revolution in the
sending countries or an impregnably militarized border—is to remove
the jobs magnet. As long as migrants know they can easily get work,
they will find ways to evade border controls. But enforcing laws
against illegal labor is among government’s lowest priorities. In
2001, only 124 agents nationwide were trying to find and prosecute
the hundreds of thousands of employers and millions of illegal aliens
who violate the employment laws, the Associated Press reports.
Even were immigration officials to devote adequate resources to
worksite investigations, not much would change, because their legal
weapons are so weak. That’s no accident: though it is a crime to
hire illegal aliens, a coalition of libertarians, business lobbies,
and left-wing advocates has consistently blocked the fraud-proof form
of work authorization necessary to enforce that ban. Libertarians have
erupted in hysteria at such proposals as a toll-free number to the
Social Security Administration for employers to confirm Social
Security numbers. Hispanics warn just as stridently that helping
employers verify work eligibility would result in discrimination
against Hispanics—implicitly conceding that vast numbers of
Hispanics work illegally.
The result: hiring practices in illegal-immigrant-saturated
industries are a charade. Millions of illegal workers pretend to
present valid documents, and thousands of employers pretend to
believe them. The law doesn’t require the employer to verify that a
worker is actually qualified to work, and as long as the proffered
documents are not patently phony—scrawled with red crayon on a
matchbook, say—the employer will nearly always be exempt from
liability merely by having eyeballed them. To find an employer guilty
of violating the ban on hiring illegal aliens, immigration authorities
must prove that he knew he was getting fake papers—an almost
insurmountable burden. Meanwhile, the market for counterfeit
documents has exploded: in one month alone in 1998, immigration
authorities seized nearly 2 million of them in Los Angeles, destined
for immigrant workers, welfare seekers, criminals, and terrorists.
For illegal workers and employers, there is no downside to the
employment charade. If immigration officials ever do try to conduct
an industry-wide investigation—which will at least net the illegal
employees, if not the employers—local congressmen will almost
certainly head it off. An INS inquiry into the Vidalia-onion industry
in Georgia was not only aborted by Georgia’s congressional
delegation; it actually resulted in a local amnesty for the
growers’ illegal workforce. The downside to complying with the
spirit of the employment law, on the other hand, is considerable.
Ethnic advocacy groups are ready to picket employers who dismiss
illegal workers, and employers understandably fear being undercut by
less scrupulous competitors.
Of the incalculable changes in American politics, demographics, and
culture that the continuing surge of migrants is causing, one of the
most profound is the breakdown of the distinction between legal and
illegal entry. Everywhere, illegal aliens receive free public
education and free medical care at taxpayer expense; 13 states offer
them driver’s licenses. States everywhere have been pushed to grant
illegal aliens college scholarships and reduced in-state tuition. One
hundred banks, over 800 law-enforcement agencies, and dozens of
cities accept an identification card created by Mexico to
credentialize illegal Mexican aliens in the U.S. The Bush
administration has given its blessing to this matricula consular
card, over the strong protest of the FBI, which warns that the gaping
security loopholes that the card creates make it a boon to money
launderers, immigrant smugglers, and terrorists. Border authorities
have already caught an Iranian man sneaking across the border this
year, Mexican matricula card in hand.
Hispanic advocates have helped blur the distinction between a legal
and an illegal resident by asserting that differentiating the two is
an act of irrational bigotry. Arrests of illegal aliens inside the
border now inevitably spark protests, often led by the Mexican
government, that feature signs calling for “no más racismo.”
Immigrant advocates use the language of “human rights” to appeal
to an authority higher than such trivia as citizenship laws. They
attack the term “amnesty” for implicitly acknowledging the
validity of borders. Indeed, grouses Illinois congressman Luis
Gutierrez, “There’s an implication that somehow you did something
wrong and you need to be forgiven.”
Illegal aliens and their advocates speak loudly about what they think
the U.S. owes them, not vice versa. “I believe they have a right . .
. to work, to drive their kids to school,” said California
assemblywoman Sarah Reyes. An immigration agent says that people he
stops “get in your face about their rights, because our failure to
enforce the law emboldens them.” Taking this idea to its extreme,
Joaquín Avila, a UCLA Chicano studies professor and law lecturer,
argues that to deny non-citizens the vote, especially in the many
California cities where they constitute the majority, is a form of
apartheid.
Yet no poll has ever shown that Americans want more open borders.
Quite the reverse. By a huge majority—at least 60 percent—they
want to rein in immigration, and they endorse an observation that
Senator Alan Simpson made 20 years ago: Americans “are fed up with
efforts to make them feel that [they] do not have that fundamental
right of any people—to decide who will join them and help form the
future country in which they and their posterity will live.” But if
the elites’ and the advocates’ idea of giving voting rights to
non-citizen majorities catches on—and don’t be surprised if it
does—Americans could be faced with the ultimate absurdity of people
outside the social compact making rules for those inside it.
But the non-enforcement of immigration laws in general has an even
more destructive effect. In many immigrant communities, assimilation
into gangs seems to be outstripping assimilation into civic culture.
Toddlers are learning to flash gang signals and hate the police,
reports the Los Angeles Times. In New York City, “every high school
has its Mexican gang,” and most 12- to 14-year-olds have already
joined, claims Ernesto Vega, an illegal 18-year-old Mexican. Such
pathologies only worsen when the first lesson that immigrants learn
about U.S. law is that Americans don’t bother to enforce it.
“Institutionalizing illegal immigration creates a mindset in people
that anything goes in the U.S.,” observes Patrick Ortega, the news
and public-affairs director of Radio Nueva Vida in southern
California. “It creates a new subculture, with a sequela of social
ills.” It is broken windows writ large.
For the sake of immigrants and native-born Americans alike, it’s
time to decide what our immigration policy is—and enforce it.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
And illegal aliens are increasingly reaping welfare benefits in Los Angeles. They collected $37 million of welfare money and food stamps in November alone. We’ll report tonight on the staggering payouts to illegal aliens across the country.
.............................................
Study Shows 25 Percent Of L.A.'s Welfare Goes To Illegal Aliens
Supervisor says county spends more than $1 billion a year on benefits to illegals. According to new data from the Department of Public Social Services, nearly twenty five percent of Los Angeles County Â’s welfare and food stamp benefits goes directly to the children of illegal aliens, at a cost of $36 million a month for a projected annual cost of $432 million. (THESE FIGURES ARE DATED. WELFARE SOARED TO NEARLY $50 MILLION PER MONTH SHORTLY AFTER. WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN HARRY REID’S STATE OF NEVADA, WHERE 23% OF THOSE EMPLOYED ARE ILLEGALS, ALSO HAS SOARED)
"The total cost for illegal immigrants to County taxpayers far exceeds $1 billion a year – not including the millions of dollars for education," said Antonovich. "With $220 million for public safety, $400 million for healthcare, and $432 million in welfare allocations, illegal immigration continues to have a devastating impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers."
In March, illegals collected over $19 million in welfare assistance and over $16 million in food stamp allocations.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The federal government has declared war on Sheriff JOE ARPAIO of Maricopa County, Arizona, for enforcing our nation’s immigration laws. “America’s Toughest Sheriff” will give Lou an update.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Friday, October 16, 2009
E-Verify- the single most successful federal program aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the workforce- is once again threatened. This time, E-Verify was stripped from a Senate Amendment behind closed doors and without explanation. Instead of becoming a permanent program E-verify has been reduced to only three years. Critics are calling this a stall tactic and an attempt at killing an employment enforcement system. We will have a full report tonight.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, October 15, 2009
E-Verify -- the single most successful federal program aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the nation's workforce is once again being threatened. Permanent reauthorization for the program -- which has a 99.7-percent accuracy rate -- has been pulled from pending legislation. Now the program is set to expire in just 3-years. The change was made behind closed doors in the Senate -- without public comment or debate.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
New attempts to put comprehensive immigration reform back on the front burner. Congressman Luis Gutierrez -- the chair of the Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force -- is unveiling new legislation that would call for amnesty for the up to 20 million illegal immigrants in this country.
Congressman Gutierrez will join me tonight
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Obama administration could be weakening a successful joint federal and local program aimed at keeping illegal immigrants off our streets. "287 G" gives local police the training and authority to enforce federal immigration law. Supporters of the program believe the ministration wants to limit the program to criminal illegal immigrants already in custody -- limiting the investigative authority of police.
JIM PETHOKOUKIS, the money and politics columnist for Reuters,
will explain the president’s not-so-secret plan to raise your
taxes.
And Father PATRICK BASCIO has a remarkably different perspective on illegal immigration from that of most Christian clergymen-one he’s outlined in a remarkable new book entitled
On the Immorality of Illegal Immigration: An Alternative Christian View.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, September 28, 2009
And T.J. BONNER, president of the National Border Patrol Council, will weigh in on the federal government’s decision to pull nearly 400 agents from the U.S.-Mexican border. As always, Lou will take your calls to discuss the issues that matter most-and to get your thoughts on where America is headed. Call him toll-free on the Independent Hotline at 877-55 DOBBS.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Federal contractors now must use E-verify to check the status of their employees on federal projects. The rule which goes into effect today will affect almost 169,000 contractors and some 3.8 million workers. The E-verify program has an accuracy rating of 99.6% but has been repeatedly challenged by the U.S. Chamber of Congress. We will have a full report
tonight.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Friday July 25, 2008
California’s budget crisis is escalating. The deficit is so bad that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger could cut state worker pay to minimum wage. And Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado sent a letter today to Schwarzenegger to urge him to look into the millions of dollars spent on illegal aliens in California in light of the massive budget shortfalls. ...............................
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
And there are some 800,000 gang members in this country: That’s more than the combined number of troops in our Army and Marine Corps. These gangs have become one of the principle ways to import and distribute drugs in the United States. Congressman David Reichert joins Lou to tell us why those gangs are growing larger and stronger, and why he’s introduced legislation to eliminate the top three international drug gangs.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Senator Ted Kennedy kicked off a week of events and meetings focusing on immigration before he introduces legislation promoting amnesty for millions of illegal aliens living in the United States. Today, Kennedy met with Cardinal Roger Mahony, an outspoken and controversial supporter of illegal aliens and Kennedy’s bill. Senators McCain, Kennedy and Representatives
Flake and Gutierrez are expected to unveil their legislation later this month. We’ll have a full report.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Another victory for American workers in Arizona. Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the get-tough employer sanctions law in the state. The law hits employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens with strict penalties and in some cases even strips businesses of their licenses. A lower court upheld the same law in February. But open-borders and amnesty groups along with the business lobby are considering yet another appeal.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, February 11, 2008
In California, League of United Latin American Citizens has adopted a resolution to declare "California Del Norte" a sanctuary zone for immigrants. The declaration urges the Mexican government to invoke its rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo "to seek third nation neutral arbitration of ....disputes concerning immigration laws and their enforcement." We’ll have the story.
Last year, Prince William County, Virginia passed an initiative to allow local police to check the immigration status of anyone in police custody. The county recently held its first immigration training session for local police officers. We’ll have a look inside the training.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon is in New York today on the first leg his five day tour across America to meddle in immigration issues in the United States. This is his first visit to the U.S. since he became President in 2006, but he will not meet with President Bush or any of the presidential candidates, who he has accused of spewing anti immigrant rhetoric. Join us for that report.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight Wednesday
March 5, 2008
Immigration experts are appearing on Capitol Hill today to release the results of a study showing the cost of illegal immigration on the criminal justices system in the 24 U.S. counties bordering Mexico–more $1 billion in less than a decade.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Gov. Schwarzenegger said California is facing “financial Armageddon”. He is making drastic cuts in the budget for education, health care and services. But there is one place he isn’t making cuts… services for illegal immigrants. These services are estimated to cost the state four to five billion dollars a year. Schwarzenegger said he is “happy” to offer these services. We will have a full report tonight.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Plus drug cartel violence is spreading across our border with Mexico further into the United States. Mexican drug cartels are increasingly being linked to crimes in this country. Joining Lou tonight, from our border with Mexico is the new “border czar” Alan Bersin, the Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, April 20, 2009
And compelling new evidence that H-1B visas for foreign workers lower the pay of information technology workers in this country. Critics say the report, by NYU’s Stern School of Business and Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, proves that corporate elites are importing cheap overseas labor simply to lower the wages of American workers. We’ll have a special report.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Plus, outrage after President Obama prepares to push ahead with his plan for so-called comprehensive immigration reform. Pres. Obama is fulfilling a campaign promise to give
legal status to millions of illegal aliens as he panders to the pro-amnesty, open borders lobby. Tonight we will have complete coverage.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, February 16, 2009
Construction of the 670 miles of border fence mandated by the Bush administration is almost complete. The Border Patrol says the new fencing, more agents and new technology
have reduced illegal alien apprehensions. But fence opponents are trying to stop the last few miles from being finished. We will have a full report, tonight.
Plus, even open border advocates agree that the most effective way of fighting illegal immigration is to crack down on the employment of illegal aliens. Yet, those same groups are
opposed to E-Verify, which has an initial accuracy rate of 99.6% making it one the most accurate programs ever. E-Verify was stripped from the stimulus bill but who stripped it out and who is opposed to verifying employment status is still not clear.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tonight, a Supreme Court ruling is putting our democracy at risk. The court today overturned a federal appeals court decision that would have forced Ohio to do more to verify questionable voter registrations. We’ll have the very latest in our special report.
Plus, in the War on the Middle Class tonight, a government program is found to be rampant with fraud and abuse, giving even more American jobs to foreign workers. A new Department of Homeland Security report shows cases of violations, forgery and shell businesses in the H-1B visa program. We’ll have that and much more.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
In Colorado, over 1,300 illegal aliens are being investigated for applying for improper tax refunds. The ACLU has written a letter to the judge threatening to sue if the judge convenes a grand jury to investigate the case. We will have all the latest developments of the case as well as the ACLU’s bullying in pursuit of their amnesty agenda.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
And WILLIAM GHEEN, the president of Americans for Legal Immigration, breaks down his push for E-Verify—and why the Obama administration is wrong to delay its implementation when it comes to federal contractors.
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