The stepped-up deportation plan that’s supposed to target criminal immigrants is working overtime to deport any illegal immigrant found:
Last year, nearly 390,000 illegal immigrants were removed. Critics of the ongoing deportation program say the numbers tell only part of the story. Despite the focus on violent criminals, the majority of the removals handled by ICE still are noncriminals or immigrants accused of lesser infractions such as traffic violations and misdemeanors.
Just 16 percent of immigrants removed this fiscal year are the top-priority, violent criminals known as “Level 1” immigrants, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
More than 50 percent of those removed this fiscal year are considered noncriminal.
And we’re sinking $600 million into border security.
So is this bill — along with the 1,200 National Guardsmen Obama sent to the border at the beginning of the month — enough to convince holdouts that the border is secure enough to talk reform? Not likely. Sen. John McCain, for one, has asked for $2 billion and 6,000 additional Border Patrol agents, a far cry from what was passed. Though he added himself as a co-sponsor to the bill, he said the measure is “just a start.”
The budget for all this enforcement, just like the war budget, doesn’t count against the deficit, so no worries about postponing immigration reform indefinitely while we deport every illegal immigrant who’s ever talked to a cop and station Border Patrol agents hip-to-hip from San Diego to Brownsville.
mr. whipple
Think of it as a jobs program.
BR
Derrick Jensen has a great response to the wingnuts who are screaming about how we need to close the border.
His reply: “I agree with you that we need to close the border. But not just to people. To materials and goods as well. So no more people or TV sets or oil or anything else should come from Mexico into our country.”
Keith G
I don’t have a problem with this as long as it’s done humanely.
PeakVT
The budget for all this enforcement, just like the war budget, doesn’t count against the deficit
True, but it’s a couple of orders of magnitude less, and it’s being spent in the US. That doesn’t make it right, of course, but some extra spending on border
securityposturing is not what will bring the US to its knees.cleek
i’d pay $600M to get the border wingnuts to STFU. hell, give them $2B, if that’s what it takes.
morzer
@cleek:
Can’t we just ship them over to Afghanistan and have them seal the border with the Taliban?
SpotWeld
@cleek: Why would this get them to shut up?
Zifnab
@mr. whipple:
Because you know who needs a job? The insider Congressional staffer who just set up his own private “Border Fences, 5 for $5 million” start-up.
You’re handing $600 million to states like Arizona that would rather mortgage their State Houses than pass a $.01 sales tax increase? That’s fiscally responsible, yes sir.
Honestly, continuing to cave to these yahoos is the absolute worst thing Obama can do. If the Republicans can’t vote on comprehensive immigration legislation, I fail to see why their states should keep getting thick slabs of pork for paramilitary parade marches down the border line.
Bob Loblaw
@Keith G:
Is that sarcastic? I’m unclear on how the 50% deportation number could be justified economically or from a law and order perspective in any way?
Punchy
And if Obama gives McCain his $2 billion, I’d bet you $2 billion that McCain’d suddenly demand that, no, we need $4 billion. And when Obama then ponies up another $2 super large, Johnny FliesIntoTrees will insist that $6 bill is a better number, etc.
Michael
Wall off the Rio Grande. 150 years of use of that waterway, something that affects the lives of over 2,000,000 Rio Grande Valley inhabitants WRT irrigation, municipal water supplies, farming and ranching are enough. Giving in to winger poutrage is far more important.
Keith G
@Bob Loblaw: I was wasn’t being sarcastic. They were here without documentation and got caught (most likely in a workplace enforcement?) and they were deported. That’s life. And that’s a start.
Now we need to ratchet up avenues of enforcement that are already on the books while we wait for new legislation.
morzer
@Punchy:
Well, the poor man does live in abject poverty. He’s only got seven homes, after all. You can’t expect him to be content with small sums like $2 billion.
Bob Loblaw
3% of all illegal immigrants got deported last year. That means 97% did not.
If half of that 3% cannot be justified by a cost-benefit analysis nor a police action, then what exactly is being accomplished? I see a lot of activity, but that’s not an effective strategy.
What are the odds we can find more than 1.5% of that remaining 97% that are of greater deportation importance than the scrubs we’re rounding up right now?
AJ
Have a reference for that?
Firm belief: If you want to stop conservatives, ask them to pay for what they want. Want to stay longer in Afghanistan? Then vote for the tax increase to pay for it.
Chris
I, for one, propose a 500 billion dollar
jobsborder security program. Along with a 40% surtax on incomes over $1 million, to help pay for it. Let’s see how McCain likes that idea!The Moar You Know
Gotta take issue with this (although I’d be the first one to agree that the “Level 1” guys need to go first); anyone here in the country who has immigrated without the proper paperwork/visas/bureaucratic bullshit has committed a crime.
It’s like smoking pot. Just as with dope smokers, it’s not that I have an issue with what they’ve done – that’s a different story – but let’s not pretend that laws aren’t laws just because we disagree with them.
Glidwrith
Before everyone goes completely negative on this (and I’m not too thrilled myself), details matter:
“The money will fund the hiring of 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents in the Southwest, as well as 250 Customs and Border Protection officers. The bill will also maintain the employment of 270 officers already deployed along the border.
Much of the funding is allocated for “salaries and expenses” for various federal departments, including $253.9 million for the Customers and Border Protection, $80 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $8.1 million for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
An additional $196 million slated for the Department of Justice will fund salaries for the U.S. Marshals, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. prosecutors, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Federal Prison System, among other things.”
Hopefully this link will work “http://finance.yahoo.com/news/600-million-border-security-cnnm-2474280610.html?x=0”
The article also points out that most of the funding is coming from visas for non-US workers over a 5 year period. It doesn’t specify if they are H1 visas, but it wouldn’t hurt my feelings given how badly they are abused so that industry doesn’t have to pay US citizens a proper salary.
shecky
Why not? The idea for making something a crime is to discourage harm inducing behavior. However, like smoking pot, the harm caused by illegally crossing the border is pretty much one that exists because it’s been declared illegal. Not because it causes actual harm to person or property.
The easiest solution to the criminalization such a state of being is to simply declare it no longer criminal. The benefits are great. Workplace violations are no longer a big deal. And no longer a drain on the economy when busted. Under the table employment is further discouraged, since employers have less worry about legal status. Legitimate employment is encouraged. And law enforcement can focus on persons causing actual harm instead of chasing persons guilty of working/existing without the government’s permission.
shecky
Basically, this is a tax on productivity to prevent an activity that causes no actual harm and itself increases productivity. Rent seeking that punishes law abiding immigrants and employers in the cause of punishing immigrants and employers without the resources of following the law. Just what the economy needs.
The drive to enforce the law by any means necessary is nothing more than an exercise in officiousness for it’s own sake. It’s the same impulse that insists similarly victimless crimes, such as pot smoking and prostitution, be prosecuted to full extent of the law. And the same brainlessness that leads to “zero tolerance” policies.
Cacti
The moment we get rid of those migrant lettuce pickers, lettuce picking jobs will jump to $12/hr with full benefits.
So the border security
boondogglebill will pay for itself.