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JOANNA LYDGATE----On the same day the
Arizona Legislature passed a strict and controversial immigration bill,
the state's two U.S. Senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl announced a tough
new border enforcement plan. The federal plan got far less attention than
the headline-grabbing state initiative, but it deserves the same scrutiny.
Among other problematic suggestions, McCain and Kyl have recommended
expanding Operation Streamline, a costly initiative aimed at criminally
prosecuting and imprisoning every immigrant who crosses the U.S.-Mexico
border unlawfully. I recently conducted a study of Operation Streamline at
the Warren Institute, traveling to four border cities where the program is
in place. In each city, I observed court proceedings and interviewed
federal judges, prosecuters and defense attorneys. I also analyzed
prosecution data from the border district courts. Our report concludes
that Operation Streamline forces federal prosecutors to spend their time
and resources on people with no criminal history---men and women looking
for work in U.S. factories and farms---instead of focusing on the drug
cartels responsible for the recent surge in border violence. Before
Operation Streamline began in 2005, most unlawful border crossers were
processed in the civil immigration system. The Department of Homeland
Security returned first time border crossers to their home countries or
detained and deported them.The U.S. attorney's office usually saved
prosecution for immigrants with criminal records and for those who made
repeated attempts to cross the border. But in many border cities today,
federal prosecutors no longer get to choose which immigrants to prosecute;
they must prosecute everyone. As a result, nonviolent border crossers are
clogging up federal courts and straining the resources of judges,
attorneys, U.S. marshals and court personel. From 2002 to 2009, federal
magistrate judges along the U.S.-Mexico border saw their misdemeanor
immigration caseloads skyrocket. criminal prosecutions of petty
immigration related offenses increased by more than 340% in the border
district courts. To handle the onslaught of cases, many courts have had to
cut procedural corners. Judges conduct mass hearings, during which as many
as 80 defendants plead guilty at a time, depriving immigrants of their
legal rights. In December 2009, the U.S. 9th Court of Appeals held that
these mass plea hearings in Tucson violated federal law. More than one
judge has described Operation Streamline as assembly-line justice. The
increase in immigration cases has also meant fewer prosecutions of other
sorts. As petty immigration prosecutions more that tripled nationwide from
2003 to 2008, researchers at Syracuse University found that organized
crime prosecutions and drug prosecutions declined by 20%%, and weapons
prosecutions fell by 19%. Ironically, there is no convincing proof that
Operation streamline reduces undocumented immigration. The program's
proponents argue that unlawful border crossings have gone down since it
began, but apprehensions rates along the border have always tended to rise
and fall over time. According to experts in the fields of economics and
migration, the most recent decline is likely due to the U.S. recession,
which has greatly diminished job prospects for immigrant workers. Indeed,
California is the only border district that has not implemented Operation
Streamline, and in San Diego, apprehension rates dropped by 26% last year.
In Tucson , Where Operation Streamline is in place, the decrease was 24%.
Operation Streamline is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Rather than expand
the program as McCain and Kyl advocate, Congress should stop funding it
and the Obama Administration should put an end to it. Instead, other
border districts should follow California's lead. Here, federal
prosecutors choose whom to prosecute along the border. They focus on the
border crossers they believe are most likely to cause violence in U.S.
cities---those who have serious criminal records or are major recidivists.
Their approach avoids clogging the courts with petty immigration cases.
California's prosecution plan allows the Department of Homeland Security
to detain and deport first-time border crossers without exhausting the
courts, the U.S. attorney's office, the federal public defender or the
U.S. Marshals Service. And it has led to some impressive results. The
Southern District of California ranks first nationwide in per capita
prosecutions for drug importing and human smuggling. If McCain and Kyl are
serious about promoting border security, they should allow prosecuties and
judges to focus on the criminal enterprises responsible for border
violence. The Department of Justice calls Mexican drug cartels "the
greatest organized-crime threat to the United States." In 2008, there were
more than 6,200 drug related murders in border cities, double the previous
year's total. The violence rages on, yet Operation Streamline is tying up
law enforcement resources by prosecuting tens of thousands of people whose
greatest crime is seeking a job. |