Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Criminal deportations fuel border crime wave
Part 3: Dumped in border cities with little money and few connections, desperate deportees sometimes turn to crime.
By NORBERTO SANTANA JR.
The Orange County Register
TIJUANA, Mexico – The two men are led out from cells deep inside the basement of "La Comandancia," the city's aging police headquarters.
They have shaven heads and a shaken look. Police officers order them to lift their shirts and show off their gang tattoos, which indicate they're from San Jose, Calif. Both had just been deported from the United States, dropped off a few weeks earlier at the public gates of Tijuana.
On an old wooden table in front of them is a display of their loot, the result of a string of petty thefts victimizing Tijuana street vendors: a backpack, two makeshift knives, some coins along with a few packets of mints, gum and a bottle of perfume.
Law enforcement officials on both sides of the border are seeing a crime wave fueled by U.S. deportation policies, which dump busloads of criminal immigrants in large groups at border cities like Tijuana.
"Nobody saw this coming," said Tijuana's Mayor Kurt Honald, who has protested the dumping of criminals at the Tijuana gates. He says deportees have triggered a 300 percent rise in petty crime during the last year, as criminals raise money for a return to the U.S. Others join narcotics cartels and smuggling organizations to pay for their return.
"They just go right back to the United States. It's a vicious cycle," Honald warns.
U.S. Border Patrol agents don't disagree. They say that apprehensions along the canyons that dot San Diego's border backcountry are increasingly turning into confrontations, since criminals know their fingerprints will be run through a U.S. database.
"The criminals are the most determined to get back in," said Border Patrol spokesman James Jacques, who works in the San Diego sector. "And once they realize that the cuffs are going on, then the fight's on."
An Orange County investigation has found that:
•Deporting criminals to Tijuana encourages their speedy return because they are dropped off close to the border, in a strange city that is closer to their adopted home than their birthplace.
•There is virtually no communication between U.S. officials deporting criminals and local law enforcement in Tijuana, who receive them. Mexican police say they seldom know whether the deportees ushered through the border gate were arrested for driving while intoxicated or served a prison term for rape or murder.
•Dumping criminals back into cities unable to absorb so many homeless, jobless new residents fuels a crime wave on both sides of the border, provides soldiers for criminal gangs and internationalizes criminal syndicates. Some deportees with no history of violent crime turn to it out of desperation.
Criminal deportees represent about one-third – 84,652 in the year ended Sept. 30 – of ICE formal deportations across the United States. And they are quickly becoming the leading category of deportee being processed by ICE. Under pressure from Congress to step up immigration enforcement, the Bush administration has expanded funding for a series of programs that seek to deport illegal immigrants out of a myriad of federal, state and local jails.
A BUS TO THE BORDER
The bus trip to Tijuana starts on most mornings at the federal building in Santa Ana, where a large tour bus with shiny metal siding and Department of Homeland Security logos picks up deportees from across Southern California.
By the late afternoon, sometimes as late as midnight, the DHS bus pulls up near the noisy revolving metal gates used by tourists walking into Tijuana.
As the public gate clangs away – creating a sound so deafening that U.S. and Mexican officials can barely hear each other – deportees are led off the bus and lined up against the border fence. After the Mexican border guard verifies their citizenship – mostly through a set of basic questions about their home state – deportees walk through the gate.
This is where ICE deportation statistics transform into human beings.
Irvin DeLeon, 22, was dropped off at the Tijuana gate on a cold day in March after being arrested for driving without a license near the intersection of Edinger and Main in Santa Ana.
DeLeon was brought to the United States at the age of 2 by his parents and grew up in Santa Ana. After finishing high school, he started working construction jobs. He also had a minor brush with law enforcement, getting arrested as a juvenile for stealing a car.
DeLeon had been arrested seven times for driving without a license between 2002 and 2006. Without documents, he can't legally obtain one. Most times, he would pay bail and be released.
Even though he speaks some Spanish, he's never thought of himself as a Mexican national. Recently married, DeLeon works as an electrician's apprentice in Orange County. Except for the juvenile case and the license problems, DeLeon had stayed out of trouble.
But this time, deputies identified DeLeon as undocumented and he found himself being deported.
In Tijuana, outside the border station, DeLeon stared at his cell phone, trying to figure out how to dial inside a foreign country. He was hoping to reach a distant aunt that had agreed to take him into her house.
"My whole life is over there," he said, gesturing toward the United States. "I don't even have a Mexican ID."
Just beyond the border gate, as tourists and others walk by, groups of criminal deportees are putting the laces back onto their shoes. Most quickly start emptying the plastic bags that contain their possessions.
Those who have been deported before say the plastic bags and deportation papers are a dead give-away to the Tijuana police, who many deportees and human rights activists accuse of harassing and robbing deportees.
Tijuana Police Subcommander Blanca Torres Gallego, 45, said instances of harassment and robbery are known to occur. But she said most police check on the deportees because they have become part of a petty crime wave in Tijuana.
The human rights activists working with deportees at the gate advise them to go to the shelters mainly because they issue an ID card, which will help them avoid jail if stopped by local police. Well-behaved deportees can stay up to two weeks.
But because many of the shelters are run by church groups – meaning no alcohol, tobacco, drugs or sex – many criminal deportees end up renting motel rooms in the city's roughest neighborhood. Those that can't afford a cheap motel room end up living on the street or along Tijuana's riverbed.
Torres Gallego heads a task force that raids neighborhoods where criminal deportees are involved in crime. She said because of their criminal records, these migrants now aren't wanted by anyone. They have no ID in the United States. No ID in Mexico. So they get shuffled from one place to another.
"It's very sad," Torres said. "They're stuck here and no society accepts them. So, many end up working with existing criminal gangs."
In some cases, the deportees end up creating their own small gangs while bonding with the bus passengers they met on the ride from Santa Ana.
Santa Ana resident Luis Aguilar, 20, got deported after he was arrested on a probation violation for possession of methamphetamine, and ended up at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange. Aguilar arrived with $5 in his pocket and a dead cell phone. He borrowed another phone to call his mother.
"Ma, estoy aqui en Tijuana," he tells her, announcing his arrival in Mexico. She can be heard shouting instructions on the phone and Aguilar replies that he's going to find a motel room with some friends he just made. "Don't worry," he tells his mother.
But after hanging up the phone, Aguilar admits, "I don't know. I'm on my own. I've got no money."
He looks over to his new friends and begins walking toward the streets of Tijuana.
His new friends are Frank Rodriguez, 30, and Oscar Martinez, 27, both from East Los Angeles.
Rodriguez said he had just finished a five-year stint at Chino State Prison for armed robbery. Martinez said he had spent 14 months in prison for possession of a firearm.
All three walk off into the night.
GOOD PEOPLE GONE BAD?
One Wednesday afternoon in June, more than two dozen Tijuana officers descend on the dark, soot-filled tunnels that are part of the river's aqueduct. The tunnels are a quick getaway from police and provide free housing for deportees with no money or prospects.
The tunnel dwellers – with filthy faces resembling those of coal miners – see the police raid coming and quickly crawl underneath a small opening in the massive steel doors that close off the channels. It takes a dozen police officers to budge the door far enough for others to enter.
On this raid, police find a small cache of coins – most likely the yield from small holdups near the tourist section of Avenida de la Revolucion. They also find flashlights run on potatoes, mattress beds and pin-up pictures of women.
Tijuana Police Subcommander Torres Gallego said deportees also hide out in abandoned buildings and crawl spaces inside bridges and highway overpasses.
Tijuana's Minister of Public Security Luis Javier Algorry said crime in Tijuana keeps rising and getting more violent. He said many of the petty criminals tell the local beat cops they were deported from U.S. jails.
Algorry and Tijuana's Mayor Honald are demanding that both the Mexican and U.S. governments come up with a better system. They want local police to interview criminal deportees before they walk off into the streets of Tijuana. They want to check them for prior offenses in Mexico. They also want deportees to be sent all the way back to their native states of origin, instead of being set loose on the border.
"You've left them too close to the temptation," Algorry said. "If you leave them in Tijuana, they're only going to seek quick money to get back across."
"They're mostly good, honest people who were going to seek the American dream," Honald said.
But once they're dropped off in a strange city with no money or place to stay, many turn to crime.
"It's turning good people into bad ones," Algorry said.
El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a Baja Mexico think tank specializing in border issues, has been polling deportees since the early 1990s. Their research points to one constant: Virtually all deportees say they plan to return to the United States.
Maria Eugenia Angian, a social science researcher at the Colegio, said her polling indicates that in the early 1990s, it took three attempts for a migrant to make it past the U.S. Border Patrol. That went up to five tries as border enforcement toughened, and today it stands at eight.
"It's made it tougher but it hasn't stopped it. It's just re-oriented the flow. It's all very organized," Angian said, referring to local smuggling networks. "And those with coyotes usually make it."
According to Angian and Border Patrol officials, migrants pay $1,500 to cross through the canyons with a coyote. The price for being smuggled through a border checkpoint in a vehicle is as much as $3,000.
In some cases, deportees are talking to coyotes – human smugglers – as soon as they reach the taxi stand, a few hundred yards from the gate where the DHS bus dropped them off. In others, they wind up working in Tijuana as day laborers trying to save enough money to return, either with the help of a coyote or on their own.
The U.S. Border Patrol's Jacques said some deportees go to work for the coyotes as guides or drivers. "They'll try to work off their debt to cross later," he said.
Harry Pachon, who studies immigration at the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC, said the growth of the coyote industry – and the criminal gangs who support it – is an outgrowth of the tougher border enforcement.
"The more successful we are in border enforcement, the more we incentivize organized crime to move in because we're creating a higher profit margin in smuggling," Pachon said.
CROSSING THROUGH EL CERRO
On a hot day in October, Jacques is patrolling the dirt roads carved through San Diego's backcountry canyons by Border Patrol plows. As he steers his Dodge, Jacques keeps an eye out for telltale signs of immigrants: empty plastic bottles, discarded clothes.
He notices a blue cap bouncing up and down below the road, in one of the deep crevices.
This is the area immigrants call El Cerro, Spanish for forest, an area near the eastern outskirts of Tijuana near the town of Tecate. It's a backcountry dominated by thick native forest, steep canyons and streams that blur border lines on maps.
Jacques stops his sport utility vehicle and sprints into the canyon after a couple trying to scurry up the rocks. He catches and handcuffs them. As he waits for another Border Patrol vehicle to pick up his catch, he interviews them and suspects they have criminal backgrounds.
Border Patrol agents run their prints and confirm it: The woman has been convicted of forgery; the man has four different drunk-driving offenses and has been formally deported once before. Both were headed for San Francisco.
On any given day, Jacques said, more than 20 percent of the illegal immigrants being caught at the Barrett Junction checkpoint in San Diego's backcountry have criminal records in the United States.
"They keep coming back," Jacques said. "You see the flavors of these people," he said, noting things like the tattoos, the shaved heads, the attitude. "And you know you're going to be seeing them later. It's a matter of when."
"We've got to find better ways of managing this," said Victor Manuel Zatarain, Tijuana's top police commander. "Until we do, we're just recycling these types of criminals."
Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or nsantana@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/article/tijuana-border-deportees-1942538-police-criminal
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=AEBF1224-44EA-4421-9E21974CD99F27BA3682509
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Felons found in police immigration screening...Part 2 of 3...
Monday, December 17, 2007
Felons found in police immigration screening
Two OC police agencies have become national leaders in deporting illegal immigrants. Petty offenders are swept up in the net.
By TONY SAAVEDRA and NORBERTO SANTANA Jr.
The Orange County Register
Social tolerance was once the hallmark of Costa Mesa, a place where bowls of free soup awaited the poor just as racks of designer shoes awaited the well-heeled.
The home of South Coast Plaza was also home to a city Human Relations Committee, a job center and a decades-long history of helping the poor, whether immigrant or native-born. The late county Supervisor Tom Riley dubbed Costa Mesa "the city with a heart."
The soup kitchen is still there. But the Human Relations Committee and the job center are gone, jettisoned by Mayor Allan Mansoor and his allies on the council after being too sympathetic to illegal immigrants.
The city's new legacy is its aggressive stance against illegal immigration, including the use of city police to identify undocumented immigrants among crime suspects.
Costa Mesa is not the first local agency to partner with immigration agents. Police in Florida and Alabama have been doing so since 2003. In California, jail-check programs vary from checking the status of convicted felons – that's what Los Angeles County does – to checking everyone in the jail – that's what Orange County started doing just one month after Costa Mesa.
Costa Mesa's program has brought more controversy than others because city police check not only jail inmates, but minor offenders on the street – like jaywalkers and disorderly drinkers – who are not able to provide identification.
"Disorderly conduct itself isn't necessarily the most dangerous crime, but nevertheless, it is a crime," Mansoor said. "It's really cut and dried – we're trying to uphold the law."
The Register analyzed jail records, Superior Court records and crime data to determine exactly what happened during the first months of both programs:
•The sheriff's program snared 2,874 illegal immigrants between April and October, 60 percent of them (1,717) accused of felonies. Among those tagged: 45 people accused of homicide, 66 accused of robbery and 64 accused of child molestation. One 22-year-old reputed gang member was accused of participating in the killing of two 14-year-old boys.
•Costa Mesa flagged 289 illegal immigrants between December 2006 and June, 11 percent of the total arrests. Thirty-nine percent of those on ICE hold (112) were accused of felonies. Costa Mesa didn't find any accused of homicide in that period, but one man was arrested on suspicion of child molestation and four were arrested on suspicion of strong-arm robbery. Police arrested 177 on misdemeanor or infraction charges, including 44 picked up on suspicion of driving under the influence, 32 on suspicion of being drunk in public and 29 on suspicion of driving without a valid license. On Thursday, Costa Mesa released figures showing 520 deportable immigrants were picked up during the full year.
•Many of those caught in Orange County's net were small-time offenders: drug abusers, drunk drivers, probation violators, people no more criminal than the celebrities festooning supermarket tabloids. Three-fourths of those nabbed in Costa Mesa during the first six months had never before been charged with a crime in Orange County. Twenty were arrested on cases so marginal that they were rejected by the District Attorney's Office or not even presented in the first place.
•The Register was unable to identify any effect on crime in Costa Mesa, despite supporters' firmly held belief that the city is safer now.
That may not matter to many county residents.
"If they've committed a crime, there should be no recourse, appeal or anything. They should be gone," said Barbara Coe, chairwoman of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform.
"I think we have enough homegrown criminals. We need not import more."
DEPUTIZING LOCAL POLICE
The law that allows federal immigration officials to deputize local police as immigration officers dates to 1996, shortly after the first World Trade Center bombing. Under the program, known as 287g, the federal government also reimburses local agencies for most of the costs of jailing illegal immigrants.
Florida and Alabama were the first to sign up, in 2003. Today, more than 26 agencies in 12 states are participating.
Last December, after extensive lobbying by Mayor Mansoor, ICE stationed an immigration agent full time at the Costa Mesa jail. In January, sheriff's deputies trained by ICE began conducting checks on inmates at the county jail, the product of years of lobbying by Sheriff Mike Carona.
"We're now actively involved in screening 100 percent of the people that are coming through," Carona said. Federal officials confirm his claim that Orange County is turning over more inmates for deportation than any jail in the country.
In initial interviews, deputies ask about prior convictions, gang affiliations and citizenship, and decide which inmates merit a second check for immigration status. From there, inmates are referred to a deputy who has completed a four-week ICE training session.
The deputy asks about parents' surnames, place of birth and citizenship. He checks federal immigration and criminal databases. Depending on the answers, he generates an "ICE hold" that is sent to the federal immigration agency. Those with holds are picked up by ICE at the end of their sentences.
Costa Mesa's program is slightly different: An ICE agent is stationed full time at the Costa Mesa jail.
Carona said his program is catching "career criminals."
Mansoor said his is nabbing "major offenders."
That's true – to a point.
Records indicate that Costa Mesa officers are mostly bringing in minor offenders, many of whom are simply unable to provide identification – such as Abimael Ludin Sanchez, caught sleeping in his car, and Marcelino Tzir, caught riding his bicycle on the wrong side of the street.
Both were turned over for deportation.
Costa Mesa Police Chief Christopher Shawkey defended the policing efforts, saying the city program treats all offenders equally, regardless if they are petty criminals or dangerous felons. To do otherwise would be biased, Shawkey said.
"I'm not making any claim it will reduce crime. It is what it is," he said. "Can they come back? Sure, they can get back here."
Some feel the program is inherently destructive and divisive, with no real value if deportees can return.
"It's fracturing the community," said Jean Forbath, a social activist who founded the Costa Mesa charity Share Our Selves. "The future of Costa Mesa and Orange County and all America is to accept each other. This program does not create communities."
But many voters sided with Mansoor during the 2006 election. He received 26 percent of the council vote, highest of any candidate, and his ally, Wendy Leece, got 24 percent.
"To me, there is no excuse for breaking the law," said Ernie Feeney, a grandmother who lives in north Costa Mesa. "If you break the law and an officer stops you, you've got to produce identification."
A question of tactics
Mansoor, an Orange County sheriff's deputy, was first elected to the Costa Mesa council in 2002. He soon collected the support of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, a civilian border watch group. In addition to the council seat, Mansoor's campaign to crack down on illegal immigrants propelled the Costa Mesa debate onto the national airwaves. Gilchrist made Mansoor an honorary Minuteman.
The Register's analysis of those roped in by the Orange County and Costa Mesa jail checks quickly became a litmus test for law enforcement experts on both sides of the issue.
Orange County sheriff's officials agreed they caught a lot of folks who weren't necessarily dangerous. One Costa Mesa police official confirmed that they probably weren't changing crime statistics. But both agencies say those are the realities of law enforcement.
"It isn't fair to categorize criminals," said Lt. Roland Chacon, who supervises the sheriff's jail-check program. "A petty thief may just be a petty thief to some. But if he's stealing my stereo or is a petty drug dealer, I don't want (him) in my neighborhood. Would you want him in your neighborhood?"
James Hayes, Los Angeles director of Detention and Removal for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, agreed, saying small offenses, such as driving without a license, can be the first step toward major crime.
"They're going to go from not being licensed to not having insurance, to getting into accidents, to not being able to find a job, because of all those factors combined, because they're dependent on drugs, they're dependent on alcohol, and they're going to be thieves, then they're going to be rapists, then they're going to be murderers. That's the progression," Hayes said.
"I'd rather get them immediately and get them out of the country."
On the other side are law enforcers who see snaring immigrants for low-level crimes as costly and counterproductive.
"If you're deporting and removing everybody from a shoplifter to a murderer, you're creating a situation where it's much more difficult for law enforcement to focus on the serious cases," said Doris Meisner, who ran the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton administration.
The police chiefs in Huntington Beach and Santa Ana, the cities on either side of Costa Mesa, say local police should only be questioning dangerous criminals about their immigration status.
Anything else could result in immigrants becoming afraid to call police when a crime occurs or afraid to testify when they see a crime.
"There's millions of undocumented people in California; I've met many of them," said Huntington Beach Police Chief Ken Small.
"Most of them are good, hard-working people."
A safer city?
Nearly all the people placed on ICE hold in Costa Mesa were arrested in the same Westside neighborhood. Police logs indicate that 362 major crimes were reported in that neighborhood during the first six months of the immigration program. The same number was reported during the same period the previous year.
Citywide crime had fallen by 11 percent the year before the immigration program began Dec. 5, 2006. The crime stats fell another 4.7 percent citywide during the first six months of the program.
Costa Mesa Capt. Ron Smith said the number of people flagged for deportation in his city was probably too small to statistically affect crime.
"It's a little drop in a bigger bucket," he said.
Former Costa Mesa Police Chief Dave Snowden said the city never had a big problem with immigrant criminals in the first place.
"The argument was there were all these hard-core felons," said Snowden, who now heads the Beverly Hills Police Department. "Where are the hard-core felons?"
Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who voted against the immigration checks in her city, isn't sure that anti-immigration folks are necessarily focused on making the streets safer.
"At the end of the day, we should just be honest on it," Foley said. "If the crime is just being here, then the program is having an impact on crime. But I think many of our violent crimes are by citizens."
Even Carona, who sometimes brags about the success of his jail-check program, expresses some doubt that local agencies can make much of a difference on such a complex problem.
Questioned at a citizens forum in June, Carona surprised some of his supporters.
"In my opinion, it's an absolute waste of taxpayers' dollars the way we're going about it right now," he said. "I wouldn't talk about (catching) illegals; I'd talk about creating guest workers … and then I'm not getting into somebody else's life about why they're in this country."
Register reporters Jeff Overley and Niyaz Pirani contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-796-6930 or tsaavedra@ocregister.coM
http://www.ocregister.com/article/costa-mesa-crime-1942532-immigration-police%20
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=AEBF1224-44EA-4421-9E21974CD99F27BA3682509
Felons found in police immigration screening
Two OC police agencies have become national leaders in deporting illegal immigrants. Petty offenders are swept up in the net.
By TONY SAAVEDRA and NORBERTO SANTANA Jr.
The Orange County Register
Social tolerance was once the hallmark of Costa Mesa, a place where bowls of free soup awaited the poor just as racks of designer shoes awaited the well-heeled.
The home of South Coast Plaza was also home to a city Human Relations Committee, a job center and a decades-long history of helping the poor, whether immigrant or native-born. The late county Supervisor Tom Riley dubbed Costa Mesa "the city with a heart."
The soup kitchen is still there. But the Human Relations Committee and the job center are gone, jettisoned by Mayor Allan Mansoor and his allies on the council after being too sympathetic to illegal immigrants.
The city's new legacy is its aggressive stance against illegal immigration, including the use of city police to identify undocumented immigrants among crime suspects.
Costa Mesa is not the first local agency to partner with immigration agents. Police in Florida and Alabama have been doing so since 2003. In California, jail-check programs vary from checking the status of convicted felons – that's what Los Angeles County does – to checking everyone in the jail – that's what Orange County started doing just one month after Costa Mesa.
Costa Mesa's program has brought more controversy than others because city police check not only jail inmates, but minor offenders on the street – like jaywalkers and disorderly drinkers – who are not able to provide identification.
"Disorderly conduct itself isn't necessarily the most dangerous crime, but nevertheless, it is a crime," Mansoor said. "It's really cut and dried – we're trying to uphold the law."
The Register analyzed jail records, Superior Court records and crime data to determine exactly what happened during the first months of both programs:
•The sheriff's program snared 2,874 illegal immigrants between April and October, 60 percent of them (1,717) accused of felonies. Among those tagged: 45 people accused of homicide, 66 accused of robbery and 64 accused of child molestation. One 22-year-old reputed gang member was accused of participating in the killing of two 14-year-old boys.
•Costa Mesa flagged 289 illegal immigrants between December 2006 and June, 11 percent of the total arrests. Thirty-nine percent of those on ICE hold (112) were accused of felonies. Costa Mesa didn't find any accused of homicide in that period, but one man was arrested on suspicion of child molestation and four were arrested on suspicion of strong-arm robbery. Police arrested 177 on misdemeanor or infraction charges, including 44 picked up on suspicion of driving under the influence, 32 on suspicion of being drunk in public and 29 on suspicion of driving without a valid license. On Thursday, Costa Mesa released figures showing 520 deportable immigrants were picked up during the full year.
•Many of those caught in Orange County's net were small-time offenders: drug abusers, drunk drivers, probation violators, people no more criminal than the celebrities festooning supermarket tabloids. Three-fourths of those nabbed in Costa Mesa during the first six months had never before been charged with a crime in Orange County. Twenty were arrested on cases so marginal that they were rejected by the District Attorney's Office or not even presented in the first place.
•The Register was unable to identify any effect on crime in Costa Mesa, despite supporters' firmly held belief that the city is safer now.
That may not matter to many county residents.
"If they've committed a crime, there should be no recourse, appeal or anything. They should be gone," said Barbara Coe, chairwoman of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform.
"I think we have enough homegrown criminals. We need not import more."
DEPUTIZING LOCAL POLICE
The law that allows federal immigration officials to deputize local police as immigration officers dates to 1996, shortly after the first World Trade Center bombing. Under the program, known as 287g, the federal government also reimburses local agencies for most of the costs of jailing illegal immigrants.
Florida and Alabama were the first to sign up, in 2003. Today, more than 26 agencies in 12 states are participating.
Last December, after extensive lobbying by Mayor Mansoor, ICE stationed an immigration agent full time at the Costa Mesa jail. In January, sheriff's deputies trained by ICE began conducting checks on inmates at the county jail, the product of years of lobbying by Sheriff Mike Carona.
"We're now actively involved in screening 100 percent of the people that are coming through," Carona said. Federal officials confirm his claim that Orange County is turning over more inmates for deportation than any jail in the country.
In initial interviews, deputies ask about prior convictions, gang affiliations and citizenship, and decide which inmates merit a second check for immigration status. From there, inmates are referred to a deputy who has completed a four-week ICE training session.
The deputy asks about parents' surnames, place of birth and citizenship. He checks federal immigration and criminal databases. Depending on the answers, he generates an "ICE hold" that is sent to the federal immigration agency. Those with holds are picked up by ICE at the end of their sentences.
Costa Mesa's program is slightly different: An ICE agent is stationed full time at the Costa Mesa jail.
Carona said his program is catching "career criminals."
Mansoor said his is nabbing "major offenders."
That's true – to a point.
Records indicate that Costa Mesa officers are mostly bringing in minor offenders, many of whom are simply unable to provide identification – such as Abimael Ludin Sanchez, caught sleeping in his car, and Marcelino Tzir, caught riding his bicycle on the wrong side of the street.
Both were turned over for deportation.
Costa Mesa Police Chief Christopher Shawkey defended the policing efforts, saying the city program treats all offenders equally, regardless if they are petty criminals or dangerous felons. To do otherwise would be biased, Shawkey said.
"I'm not making any claim it will reduce crime. It is what it is," he said. "Can they come back? Sure, they can get back here."
Some feel the program is inherently destructive and divisive, with no real value if deportees can return.
"It's fracturing the community," said Jean Forbath, a social activist who founded the Costa Mesa charity Share Our Selves. "The future of Costa Mesa and Orange County and all America is to accept each other. This program does not create communities."
But many voters sided with Mansoor during the 2006 election. He received 26 percent of the council vote, highest of any candidate, and his ally, Wendy Leece, got 24 percent.
"To me, there is no excuse for breaking the law," said Ernie Feeney, a grandmother who lives in north Costa Mesa. "If you break the law and an officer stops you, you've got to produce identification."
A question of tactics
Mansoor, an Orange County sheriff's deputy, was first elected to the Costa Mesa council in 2002. He soon collected the support of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, a civilian border watch group. In addition to the council seat, Mansoor's campaign to crack down on illegal immigrants propelled the Costa Mesa debate onto the national airwaves. Gilchrist made Mansoor an honorary Minuteman.
The Register's analysis of those roped in by the Orange County and Costa Mesa jail checks quickly became a litmus test for law enforcement experts on both sides of the issue.
Orange County sheriff's officials agreed they caught a lot of folks who weren't necessarily dangerous. One Costa Mesa police official confirmed that they probably weren't changing crime statistics. But both agencies say those are the realities of law enforcement.
"It isn't fair to categorize criminals," said Lt. Roland Chacon, who supervises the sheriff's jail-check program. "A petty thief may just be a petty thief to some. But if he's stealing my stereo or is a petty drug dealer, I don't want (him) in my neighborhood. Would you want him in your neighborhood?"
James Hayes, Los Angeles director of Detention and Removal for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, agreed, saying small offenses, such as driving without a license, can be the first step toward major crime.
"They're going to go from not being licensed to not having insurance, to getting into accidents, to not being able to find a job, because of all those factors combined, because they're dependent on drugs, they're dependent on alcohol, and they're going to be thieves, then they're going to be rapists, then they're going to be murderers. That's the progression," Hayes said.
"I'd rather get them immediately and get them out of the country."
On the other side are law enforcers who see snaring immigrants for low-level crimes as costly and counterproductive.
"If you're deporting and removing everybody from a shoplifter to a murderer, you're creating a situation where it's much more difficult for law enforcement to focus on the serious cases," said Doris Meisner, who ran the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton administration.
The police chiefs in Huntington Beach and Santa Ana, the cities on either side of Costa Mesa, say local police should only be questioning dangerous criminals about their immigration status.
Anything else could result in immigrants becoming afraid to call police when a crime occurs or afraid to testify when they see a crime.
"There's millions of undocumented people in California; I've met many of them," said Huntington Beach Police Chief Ken Small.
"Most of them are good, hard-working people."
A safer city?
Nearly all the people placed on ICE hold in Costa Mesa were arrested in the same Westside neighborhood. Police logs indicate that 362 major crimes were reported in that neighborhood during the first six months of the immigration program. The same number was reported during the same period the previous year.
Citywide crime had fallen by 11 percent the year before the immigration program began Dec. 5, 2006. The crime stats fell another 4.7 percent citywide during the first six months of the program.
Costa Mesa Capt. Ron Smith said the number of people flagged for deportation in his city was probably too small to statistically affect crime.
"It's a little drop in a bigger bucket," he said.
Former Costa Mesa Police Chief Dave Snowden said the city never had a big problem with immigrant criminals in the first place.
"The argument was there were all these hard-core felons," said Snowden, who now heads the Beverly Hills Police Department. "Where are the hard-core felons?"
Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who voted against the immigration checks in her city, isn't sure that anti-immigration folks are necessarily focused on making the streets safer.
"At the end of the day, we should just be honest on it," Foley said. "If the crime is just being here, then the program is having an impact on crime. But I think many of our violent crimes are by citizens."
Even Carona, who sometimes brags about the success of his jail-check program, expresses some doubt that local agencies can make much of a difference on such a complex problem.
Questioned at a citizens forum in June, Carona surprised some of his supporters.
"In my opinion, it's an absolute waste of taxpayers' dollars the way we're going about it right now," he said. "I wouldn't talk about (catching) illegals; I'd talk about creating guest workers … and then I'm not getting into somebody else's life about why they're in this country."
Register reporters Jeff Overley and Niyaz Pirani contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-796-6930 or tsaavedra@ocregister.coM
http://www.ocregister.com/article/costa-mesa-crime-1942532-immigration-police%20
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=AEBF1224-44EA-4421-9E21974CD99F27BA3682509
Bus to the border...Part 1 of 3...
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Bus to the border
A $2 billion effort to deport immigrants has little measurable effect on crime or illegal immigration. Some agencies often work at cross-purposes.
By NORBERTO SANTANA Jr. and TONY SAAVEDRA
The Orange County Register
LAKE FOREST - Juan Gutierrez Bahena peeped through a window at the Aliso Creek Apartments, watching a young boy shower. When the boy called for his mother, Gutierrez Bahena ran off.
Then he pulled his pants down and exposed himself to a woman and her 7-year-old daughter.
When sheriff's deputies arrived, Gutierrez Bahena wanted a fight. Instead he got 50,000 volts from a Taser.
But deputies got a jolt of their own when they checked his fingerprints:
Gutierrez Bahena is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, with a California prison record for burglary and drugs. He has been deported to Mexico six times – most recently on May 26 – exactly one month before his arrest at Aliso Creek.
Undocumented immigrants accused of crime have become a major focus of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Last winter, the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the City of Costa Mesa partnered with ICE to look for undocumented immigrants in local streets and jails. Since then, they have identified and turned over more than 3,000 people for deportation – making them a national leader in this program.
"We're identifying more foreign nationals that are here illegally, that are career criminals, than anybody else in the United States," Sheriff Mike Carona told an anti-illegal immigration group at a Coco's restaurant in June.
In the words of Gutierrez Bahena, interviewed in shackles and an orange jumpsuit at the Orange County Jail, "They just take us to the border and it's over."
Actually, an Orange County Register investigation has found, it isn't.
U.S. efforts to find and deport illegal immigrants are overwhelmed by sheer numbers and hampered by public agencies working at cross-purposes. The $2 billion spent each year has little measurable effect on either crime or immigration.
Most people deported say they intend to return to the U.S. – and many do. Criminals have less trouble returning than most.
Threats of federal prison for illegal returnees are mostly empty. Federal prosecutors have neither the time nor the budget to prosecute illegal immigrants. Although tens of thousands were caught re-entering last year, U.S. attorneys in the Los Angeles basin prosecuted just 317 people for criminal re-entry.
In addition to Gutierrez Bahena, caught in Orange County for the seventh time, there was Oscar Gabriel Gallegos, 33, deported twice before he shot two Long Beach police officers last year; Adrian Guadalupe Arriano, 29, deported twice before his September arrest for raping two women in their Santa Clarita Valley homes; and Roberto Armendariz-Lozana, 41, deported three times before his June arrest in East Texas on drug trafficking charges.
Lozana had been deported just three months earlier.
"Does that happen? Yeah, that's happened. We all know that happens," said James Hayes, director of the ICE Detention and Removal Office in Los Angeles.
Hayes said the government is extending border fences, installing electronic monitoring devices and adding Border Patrol agents. In the meantime, he sees value in busing criminals to the border.
"I'd rather get them immediately and get them out of the country," Hayes said. "I do this because I believe in this."
Stepping up enforcement
Although any number is an estimate, the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies generally agree there are about 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. The Pew Center – a nonpartisan group that studies Hispanic migration – puts the number at 2.7 million in California. The Center for Immigration Studies, an independent think tank that seeks to restrict immigration, estimates there are more than 1 million in L.A. County and 311,000 in Orange County.
In the wake of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Congress passed new laws that made it easier to deport immigrants with criminal records. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 expanded the list of crimes that could trigger deportation. It also authorized immigration status checks by local police, and authorized federal officers to send immigrants back through "voluntary removal" – a signed consent form that is not reviewed by a judge.
Those new laws weren't used much until a series of criticisms were leveled at the agency two years ago. In an April 2006 report, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general said ICE was deporting less than two-thirds of the undocumented that it found.
Out of the 774,112 illegal immigrants apprehended since 2003, the inspector general estimated that more than a third were released because there weren't enough guards and jail cells to hold them while their cases went through the immigration courts.
In an effort to address these shortages, Congress boosted the funding for the ICE deportation programs, from $1.2 billion in fiscal 2005 to $2.1 billion in 2008. The agency's entire budget now hovers near the $5 billion mark.
The number of deportations to all countries rose in 2007, to just over 261,000. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 132,802 of those were sent back to Mexico.
Based on Pew's numbers, that's less than 3 percent of the illegal immigrants in the U.S.
And it's no secret to law enforcement that many of the people sneaking into the U.S. were deported just weeks ago. A U.S. Border Patrol check of the 825,505 caught crossing in the year ended Sept. 30 found 133,620 people who already had U.S. records, either for crimes or previous deportations.
One of the key federal strategies for boosting interior enforcement numbers is partnering with local jurisdictions to cull illegal immigrants from their jails. At a press conference in Los Angeles in October, ICE officials touted a two-week operation netting the arrest of 1,300 criminal aliens and fugitives. More than half of those – 797 – were found in local jails.
Last December, after extensive lobbying by Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, ICE stationed an immigration agent full time at the Costa Mesa jail. One month later, after several years of requests by Carona, ICE trained sheriff's deputies to conduct checks on inmates coming through the county jail.
"We're now actively involved in screening 100 percent of the people that are coming through," Carona said. Federal officials confirm his claim that Orange County is turning over more inmates for deportation than any jail in the country.
In the first six months of the program, Orange County identified more than 2,800 suspected illegal immigrants; Costa Mesa found 289. If that rate holds for the year, Orange County jails will have turned over more immigrants for deportation than ICE found in all its workplace raids in fiscal 2007.
Workplace raids often result in a backlash when businesses are closed and children wait in vain for a working mother to come home. Deportations from the jails incur no such backlash.
"Of all of the things that ICE does, the deportation of people convicted of crimes is the most popular," said Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who is chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Citizenship, Immigration, Refugees, Border Security and International Law.
"There's very little support in the country for people who violate the law."
Speeding up removals
While few disagree that the U.S. should deport undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime, there is a growing debate over how that should be accomplished.
Under the 1996 law, officials can interview inmates with no lawyer or advocate present and offer them the option of waiving their right to a court hearing and agreeing to an immediate return to Mexico.
Called "voluntary return," the process shuttles immigrants who have signed such a document out of the country, often within hours. Voluntary returns have been used for years at the border but ICE has dramatically expanded the practice as a tool for interior enforcement.
During the year ended Sept. 30 – the first year voluntary returns from interior enforcement actions were released – there were 39,450 removed from the United States in this fashion. According to ICE statistics, more than a third of immigrants deported each year since 2001 have not received hearings.
ICE officials say the expedited proceedings are appropriate and legal under U.S. law – and supported by Congress.
"They waive their rights. It's a voluntary thing. Nobody is compelled to accept the voluntary return," ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. "People request a hearing all the time."
But these speedy removals have raised concerns among human rights advocates.
Jorge Bustamante, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, or investigator, appointed to monitor the rights of migrants worldwide, said jailed immigrants interviewed by armed guards without a lawyer present are not agreeing to deportation of their own free will.
"There's nothing voluntary about this," Bustamante said. "This places the United States in a situation where they are violating human rights."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the United States in 1992, requires that non-citizen residents be allowed to have their case reviewed by a judge before they are expelled, except in pressing cases of national security.
"The (voluntary) procedures are very fast, very confusing," said Allison Parker, an attorney with New York's Human Rights Watch. "We want to see the reinstatement of fair hearings in the deportation process."
But the international objections mostly fall on deaf ears in Washington.
"UN officials' criticisms are often based on their support for open borders so I don't think they are valid," said Congressman Ed Royce, R-Fullerton. "The U.N. itself has become synonymous with corruption, mismanagement and a blatant disregard for human rights."
But earlier this year critics of the deportation policy found an incident they say highlights those same flaws in the deportation process: A Los Angeles native serving a jail term for a misdemeanor somehow signed "voluntary" deportation papers and was bused to Mexico.
The 29-year-old man, Pedro Guzman, is a high school dropout who has had several brushes with the law. In April he was finishing up a 120-day jail sentence for trespassing when deputies at the Los Angeles County Jail questioned him about his citizenship.
L.A. Sheriff's officials said Guzman signed a document attesting that he was born in Nayarit, Mexico, and had crossed illegally into the United States on Sept. 9, 1989.
On May 10, Pilar Garcia – an ICE agent working in Santa Ana – interviewed Guzman. Garcia said that she advised Guzman that he could either see an immigration judge or accept a voluntary departure. "Mr. Guzman waived his right to appear before an immigration judge and instead chose to return to what he claimed was his native country of Mexico," Garcia asserted in court documents.
Guzman was put on a bus and deported to Tijuana. His mother and brothers would spend months searching for him before he was found by the Border Patrol attempting to cross back into the U.S. at Calexico.
Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union said Guzman is cognitively impaired, easily confused and susceptible to suggestion.
Rosenbaum argues that the U.S. is now putting speedy deportation ahead of legal rights.
"There has to be due process and fairness, regardless of whether you are a U.S. citizen," Rosenbaum said. "This case emphasizes the utter insufficiency of the procedures used in the jail."
But Kice, the ICE spokeswoman, said the agency did everything correctly and Guzman created his own nightmare by lying about being a Mexican national.
That, Kice said, is "highly unusual."
Federal prosecution: an empty threat
During the public forum at Coco's earlier this year, Sheriff Carona indicated some conflicting feelings about his agency's involvement. Carona was proud to be catching so many illegal immigrants. But he also suggested that a more effective national policy might be a better use of taxpayer funds.
On one point, Carona was clear. Asked what happens to criminals who illegally return to the U.S., Carona said they are turned over to the government for federal prosecution.
The Register found that seldom happens.
U.S. prosecutors charged just 15,551 immigrants with criminal re-entry in 2006, according to federal data compiled by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
That's up from 4,029 in 1996 but still a fraction of the 1.2 million people apprehended after crossing into the U.S. illegally in 2006.
Federal prosecutors interviewed by the Register say it would be impossible to prosecute every deportee who returns.
Paul K. Charlton, of Arizona, one of seven U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration in 2006, said his office led the country in prosecutions for criminal re-entry – a total of 20,182 over two decades. But he said that number was paltry compared to the number of people caught re-entering the country.
"It's very sexy to talk about more Border Patrol or ICE agents on the street," Charlton said. "There's a value to that in that the public can readily understand."
But Charlton said federal prosecutors lack the resources to make criminal prosecution an effective deterrent.
"You will never solve the problem of illegal immigration on the backs of the criminal justice system," he said.
In the Central District of California, which covers Los Angeles, Orange and five other counties, only 317 cases for criminal re-entry were filed in fiscal 2007. While that is an increase from 10 years ago, when only 89 cases were brought, it remains a small percentage.
Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, did not dispute the numbers by the Syracuse-based clearinghouse. He said prosecutors only go after immigrants with multiple deportations and serious felony records.
"It's a resource issue," Mrozek said. "We focus on the worst of the worst. A simple illegal immigrant is probably not going to be prosecuted.
"Deported? Yes. But prosecuted? No."
Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or nsantana@ocregister.com
"We're identifying more foreign nationals that are here illegally, that are career criminals, than anybody else in the United States."
Sheriff Mike Carona
Addressing an anti-illegal immigration group in June
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If they've committed a crime, there should be no recourse, appeal or anything. They should be gone. I think we have enough homegrown criminals. We need not import more."
Barbara Coe
Chairwoman of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We know that there are 2 billion people in the world who want to come to the United States, and one of the reasons we don't have an even greater problem is because so many are willing to obey the law or are being deterred by our enforcement efforts. Of course, deportation of those with criminal records alone will not solve the most serious problems involved in illegal immigration. We need greater border security as well."
Congressman Ed Royce, R-Fullerton
http://www.ocregister.com/article/immigrants-ice-immigration-1942524-illegal-year
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=AEBF1224-44EA-4421-9E21974CD99F27BA3682509
Bus to the border
A $2 billion effort to deport immigrants has little measurable effect on crime or illegal immigration. Some agencies often work at cross-purposes.
By NORBERTO SANTANA Jr. and TONY SAAVEDRA
The Orange County Register
LAKE FOREST - Juan Gutierrez Bahena peeped through a window at the Aliso Creek Apartments, watching a young boy shower. When the boy called for his mother, Gutierrez Bahena ran off.
Then he pulled his pants down and exposed himself to a woman and her 7-year-old daughter.
When sheriff's deputies arrived, Gutierrez Bahena wanted a fight. Instead he got 50,000 volts from a Taser.
But deputies got a jolt of their own when they checked his fingerprints:
Gutierrez Bahena is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, with a California prison record for burglary and drugs. He has been deported to Mexico six times – most recently on May 26 – exactly one month before his arrest at Aliso Creek.
Undocumented immigrants accused of crime have become a major focus of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Last winter, the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the City of Costa Mesa partnered with ICE to look for undocumented immigrants in local streets and jails. Since then, they have identified and turned over more than 3,000 people for deportation – making them a national leader in this program.
"We're identifying more foreign nationals that are here illegally, that are career criminals, than anybody else in the United States," Sheriff Mike Carona told an anti-illegal immigration group at a Coco's restaurant in June.
In the words of Gutierrez Bahena, interviewed in shackles and an orange jumpsuit at the Orange County Jail, "They just take us to the border and it's over."
Actually, an Orange County Register investigation has found, it isn't.
U.S. efforts to find and deport illegal immigrants are overwhelmed by sheer numbers and hampered by public agencies working at cross-purposes. The $2 billion spent each year has little measurable effect on either crime or immigration.
Most people deported say they intend to return to the U.S. – and many do. Criminals have less trouble returning than most.
Threats of federal prison for illegal returnees are mostly empty. Federal prosecutors have neither the time nor the budget to prosecute illegal immigrants. Although tens of thousands were caught re-entering last year, U.S. attorneys in the Los Angeles basin prosecuted just 317 people for criminal re-entry.
In addition to Gutierrez Bahena, caught in Orange County for the seventh time, there was Oscar Gabriel Gallegos, 33, deported twice before he shot two Long Beach police officers last year; Adrian Guadalupe Arriano, 29, deported twice before his September arrest for raping two women in their Santa Clarita Valley homes; and Roberto Armendariz-Lozana, 41, deported three times before his June arrest in East Texas on drug trafficking charges.
Lozana had been deported just three months earlier.
"Does that happen? Yeah, that's happened. We all know that happens," said James Hayes, director of the ICE Detention and Removal Office in Los Angeles.
Hayes said the government is extending border fences, installing electronic monitoring devices and adding Border Patrol agents. In the meantime, he sees value in busing criminals to the border.
"I'd rather get them immediately and get them out of the country," Hayes said. "I do this because I believe in this."
Stepping up enforcement
Although any number is an estimate, the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies generally agree there are about 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. The Pew Center – a nonpartisan group that studies Hispanic migration – puts the number at 2.7 million in California. The Center for Immigration Studies, an independent think tank that seeks to restrict immigration, estimates there are more than 1 million in L.A. County and 311,000 in Orange County.
In the wake of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Congress passed new laws that made it easier to deport immigrants with criminal records. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 expanded the list of crimes that could trigger deportation. It also authorized immigration status checks by local police, and authorized federal officers to send immigrants back through "voluntary removal" – a signed consent form that is not reviewed by a judge.
Those new laws weren't used much until a series of criticisms were leveled at the agency two years ago. In an April 2006 report, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general said ICE was deporting less than two-thirds of the undocumented that it found.
Out of the 774,112 illegal immigrants apprehended since 2003, the inspector general estimated that more than a third were released because there weren't enough guards and jail cells to hold them while their cases went through the immigration courts.
In an effort to address these shortages, Congress boosted the funding for the ICE deportation programs, from $1.2 billion in fiscal 2005 to $2.1 billion in 2008. The agency's entire budget now hovers near the $5 billion mark.
The number of deportations to all countries rose in 2007, to just over 261,000. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 132,802 of those were sent back to Mexico.
Based on Pew's numbers, that's less than 3 percent of the illegal immigrants in the U.S.
And it's no secret to law enforcement that many of the people sneaking into the U.S. were deported just weeks ago. A U.S. Border Patrol check of the 825,505 caught crossing in the year ended Sept. 30 found 133,620 people who already had U.S. records, either for crimes or previous deportations.
One of the key federal strategies for boosting interior enforcement numbers is partnering with local jurisdictions to cull illegal immigrants from their jails. At a press conference in Los Angeles in October, ICE officials touted a two-week operation netting the arrest of 1,300 criminal aliens and fugitives. More than half of those – 797 – were found in local jails.
Last December, after extensive lobbying by Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, ICE stationed an immigration agent full time at the Costa Mesa jail. One month later, after several years of requests by Carona, ICE trained sheriff's deputies to conduct checks on inmates coming through the county jail.
"We're now actively involved in screening 100 percent of the people that are coming through," Carona said. Federal officials confirm his claim that Orange County is turning over more inmates for deportation than any jail in the country.
In the first six months of the program, Orange County identified more than 2,800 suspected illegal immigrants; Costa Mesa found 289. If that rate holds for the year, Orange County jails will have turned over more immigrants for deportation than ICE found in all its workplace raids in fiscal 2007.
Workplace raids often result in a backlash when businesses are closed and children wait in vain for a working mother to come home. Deportations from the jails incur no such backlash.
"Of all of the things that ICE does, the deportation of people convicted of crimes is the most popular," said Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who is chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Citizenship, Immigration, Refugees, Border Security and International Law.
"There's very little support in the country for people who violate the law."
Speeding up removals
While few disagree that the U.S. should deport undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime, there is a growing debate over how that should be accomplished.
Under the 1996 law, officials can interview inmates with no lawyer or advocate present and offer them the option of waiving their right to a court hearing and agreeing to an immediate return to Mexico.
Called "voluntary return," the process shuttles immigrants who have signed such a document out of the country, often within hours. Voluntary returns have been used for years at the border but ICE has dramatically expanded the practice as a tool for interior enforcement.
During the year ended Sept. 30 – the first year voluntary returns from interior enforcement actions were released – there were 39,450 removed from the United States in this fashion. According to ICE statistics, more than a third of immigrants deported each year since 2001 have not received hearings.
ICE officials say the expedited proceedings are appropriate and legal under U.S. law – and supported by Congress.
"They waive their rights. It's a voluntary thing. Nobody is compelled to accept the voluntary return," ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. "People request a hearing all the time."
But these speedy removals have raised concerns among human rights advocates.
Jorge Bustamante, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, or investigator, appointed to monitor the rights of migrants worldwide, said jailed immigrants interviewed by armed guards without a lawyer present are not agreeing to deportation of their own free will.
"There's nothing voluntary about this," Bustamante said. "This places the United States in a situation where they are violating human rights."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the United States in 1992, requires that non-citizen residents be allowed to have their case reviewed by a judge before they are expelled, except in pressing cases of national security.
"The (voluntary) procedures are very fast, very confusing," said Allison Parker, an attorney with New York's Human Rights Watch. "We want to see the reinstatement of fair hearings in the deportation process."
But the international objections mostly fall on deaf ears in Washington.
"UN officials' criticisms are often based on their support for open borders so I don't think they are valid," said Congressman Ed Royce, R-Fullerton. "The U.N. itself has become synonymous with corruption, mismanagement and a blatant disregard for human rights."
But earlier this year critics of the deportation policy found an incident they say highlights those same flaws in the deportation process: A Los Angeles native serving a jail term for a misdemeanor somehow signed "voluntary" deportation papers and was bused to Mexico.
The 29-year-old man, Pedro Guzman, is a high school dropout who has had several brushes with the law. In April he was finishing up a 120-day jail sentence for trespassing when deputies at the Los Angeles County Jail questioned him about his citizenship.
L.A. Sheriff's officials said Guzman signed a document attesting that he was born in Nayarit, Mexico, and had crossed illegally into the United States on Sept. 9, 1989.
On May 10, Pilar Garcia – an ICE agent working in Santa Ana – interviewed Guzman. Garcia said that she advised Guzman that he could either see an immigration judge or accept a voluntary departure. "Mr. Guzman waived his right to appear before an immigration judge and instead chose to return to what he claimed was his native country of Mexico," Garcia asserted in court documents.
Guzman was put on a bus and deported to Tijuana. His mother and brothers would spend months searching for him before he was found by the Border Patrol attempting to cross back into the U.S. at Calexico.
Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union said Guzman is cognitively impaired, easily confused and susceptible to suggestion.
Rosenbaum argues that the U.S. is now putting speedy deportation ahead of legal rights.
"There has to be due process and fairness, regardless of whether you are a U.S. citizen," Rosenbaum said. "This case emphasizes the utter insufficiency of the procedures used in the jail."
But Kice, the ICE spokeswoman, said the agency did everything correctly and Guzman created his own nightmare by lying about being a Mexican national.
That, Kice said, is "highly unusual."
Federal prosecution: an empty threat
During the public forum at Coco's earlier this year, Sheriff Carona indicated some conflicting feelings about his agency's involvement. Carona was proud to be catching so many illegal immigrants. But he also suggested that a more effective national policy might be a better use of taxpayer funds.
On one point, Carona was clear. Asked what happens to criminals who illegally return to the U.S., Carona said they are turned over to the government for federal prosecution.
The Register found that seldom happens.
U.S. prosecutors charged just 15,551 immigrants with criminal re-entry in 2006, according to federal data compiled by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
That's up from 4,029 in 1996 but still a fraction of the 1.2 million people apprehended after crossing into the U.S. illegally in 2006.
Federal prosecutors interviewed by the Register say it would be impossible to prosecute every deportee who returns.
Paul K. Charlton, of Arizona, one of seven U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration in 2006, said his office led the country in prosecutions for criminal re-entry – a total of 20,182 over two decades. But he said that number was paltry compared to the number of people caught re-entering the country.
"It's very sexy to talk about more Border Patrol or ICE agents on the street," Charlton said. "There's a value to that in that the public can readily understand."
But Charlton said federal prosecutors lack the resources to make criminal prosecution an effective deterrent.
"You will never solve the problem of illegal immigration on the backs of the criminal justice system," he said.
In the Central District of California, which covers Los Angeles, Orange and five other counties, only 317 cases for criminal re-entry were filed in fiscal 2007. While that is an increase from 10 years ago, when only 89 cases were brought, it remains a small percentage.
Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, did not dispute the numbers by the Syracuse-based clearinghouse. He said prosecutors only go after immigrants with multiple deportations and serious felony records.
"It's a resource issue," Mrozek said. "We focus on the worst of the worst. A simple illegal immigrant is probably not going to be prosecuted.
"Deported? Yes. But prosecuted? No."
Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or nsantana@ocregister.com
"We're identifying more foreign nationals that are here illegally, that are career criminals, than anybody else in the United States."
Sheriff Mike Carona
Addressing an anti-illegal immigration group in June
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If they've committed a crime, there should be no recourse, appeal or anything. They should be gone. I think we have enough homegrown criminals. We need not import more."
Barbara Coe
Chairwoman of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We know that there are 2 billion people in the world who want to come to the United States, and one of the reasons we don't have an even greater problem is because so many are willing to obey the law or are being deterred by our enforcement efforts. Of course, deportation of those with criminal records alone will not solve the most serious problems involved in illegal immigration. We need greater border security as well."
Congressman Ed Royce, R-Fullerton
http://www.ocregister.com/article/immigrants-ice-immigration-1942524-illegal-year
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=AEBF1224-44EA-4421-9E21974CD99F27BA3682509
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
How To Report Illegal Aliens...
Report Illegal Workforce: If you suspect the competition is using an illegal workforce, contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (866-347-2423).
"The easiest way to verify legal employees is to call the Social Security line at 1-800-772-6270 weekdays from 7 am to 7 pm EST. You need your EIN, the employee's SS#, Name, Date of Birth and gender. In less than one minute the SS# can be verified. This is the method I use for all my business related hires including the owners of businesses that contract for services with us." --submitted by a friend who loves the United States and speaks English.
After observing any suspicious person or activity, try to obtain as much information as possible. Such as: number of people, descriptions, activity, and locations, name of employer or company name, even phone number which might be on the side of a vehicle.
Once this information has been obtained, report this information to the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.). The number shown here is monitored 24/7. Call 866-347-2423.
If you have a cell phone, you might consider listing it in your address book as: A ICE Hotline 866-347-2423. Listed as such, you simply press you names list, the number will always be first. No need to try and find it. Fast & Simple.
"The easiest way to verify legal employees is to call the Social Security line at 1-800-772-6270 weekdays from 7 am to 7 pm EST. You need your EIN, the employee's SS#, Name, Date of Birth and gender. In less than one minute the SS# can be verified. This is the method I use for all my business related hires including the owners of businesses that contract for services with us." --submitted by a friend who loves the United States and speaks English.
After observing any suspicious person or activity, try to obtain as much information as possible. Such as: number of people, descriptions, activity, and locations, name of employer or company name, even phone number which might be on the side of a vehicle.
Once this information has been obtained, report this information to the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.). The number shown here is monitored 24/7. Call 866-347-2423.
If you have a cell phone, you might consider listing it in your address book as: A ICE Hotline 866-347-2423. Listed as such, you simply press you names list, the number will always be first. No need to try and find it. Fast & Simple.
INVASION USA...
INVASION USA Illegal ignored 'don't drive' warning after drinking Man in crash that killed 2 teens had previous DUI conviction
Posted: April 4, 20072:20 a.m. Eastern
copyright © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
..> ..>
Alfredo Ramos..>..>
Alfredo Ramos, a Mexican national in the U.S. illegally, was convicted of driving while intoxicated last year, but that didn't keep him from being behind the wheel after a night of drinking last weekend – and now two teenage girls are dead because of it.
According to police, Ramos, 22, slammed the 1998 Mitsubishi he was driving into the rear of a 1994 Plymouth driven by Allison Kunhardt, 17, Friday night in Virginia Beach, Va. Kunhardt and her best friend Tessa Tranchant, 16, were stopped at a traffic light when they were hit from behind. Although both wore seat belts, both died – one at the scene and one after arriving at the hospital.
Ramos, suffered only minor injuries, the Virginian-Pilot reported.
Police blamed speed and alcohol for the crash.
Ramos, charged with manslaughter for the two deaths, was convicted last year of public drunkenness in Virginia Beach and driving under the influence in Chesapeake.
Ramos brother, also in the U.S. illegally, told the Virginian-Pilot he had spoken with his brother by phone prior to the accident and warned him not to drive after learning he had been drinking.
Ramos told his brother he had no memory of the crash and only learned of Kunhardt's and Tranchant's deaths when police told him he had killed two people.
WND has reported on the growing list of illegal immigrants who have not only ignored U.S. immigration laws, but state laws against drinking and driving as well, killing innocents on the highways in the process, including:
..> ..>
Carlos Prieto..>..>
Carlos Prieto: Suspected illegal alien from Mexico was held in the Salt Lake County jail after running a red light and broadsiding a family of six, killing three, on Christmas Eve 2006. The charging documents say his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit. The Ceran family, active in local theater and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were returning home after attending a performance of Dicken's "The Christmas Carol," which featured several family members, when their car was struck by a truck driven by Carlos Prieto. The crash killed Cheryl Ceran, 47, and two of her children, 15-year-old Ian and 7-year-old Julinna. Cheryl Ceran's husband, Gary Ceran, 45, and their 19-year-old daughter, Clarissa, and 12-year-old son, Caleb, were injured.
..> ..>
Marine Cpl. Brian Mathews..>..>
Eduardo Raul Morales-Soriano: When this illegal alien, working as a landscaper in Maryland, killed Marine Cpl. Brian Mathews, 21, and his date, Jennifer Bower, 24, on Thanksgiving night, 2006, it wasn't his first accident where alcohol was apparently involved. Nine months before, he was issued four citations and sent home with a friend after a single-car accident when he refused a Breathalyzer test. A policeman's error resulted in Morales-Soriano – who took advantage of North Carolina's easy rules to obtain his driver's license in 2004 – getting his license returned. On the night he killed the young couple, police say his blood alcohol level was measured at .32 – four times the legal level in Maryland for intoxication. Mathews had served 8 months in Iraq and completed another tour of duty in the Pacific.
..> ..>
Deputy Loren Lilly..>..>
Joel Perea and Maurilio Herrera: Police took this death hard – it was one of their own. Deputy Loren Lilly, who had been with the Cobb County Sheriff's Office for 18 years, was pronounced dead at the scene after his Honda Accord flipped several times after being struck by a Ford Taurus driven by Perea. "Obviously, being in law enforcement, none of us wants to roll up and see one of our fellow officers or deputies on the scene as well," said one cop. 27-year-old Perea and his passenger, Herrera, 23 fled the scene before being captured.
..> ..>
Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto..>..>
Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto: Police say was driving more than 100 mph on the wrong side of Interstate 485 when he collided head-on with the car of 18-year-old Min Soon Chang, a freshman from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, killing him. According to authorities, the illegal alien had already been sent back to Mexico 17 times and convicted of impaired driving at least a couple of times before the November 2005 crash.
..> ..>
Jose Trejo Encino..>..>
Jose Trejo Encino: The 27-year-old illegal alien from Mexico admitted to deputies, at the scene of the November 2006 single car accident that killed one of his passengers and injured another, "to drinking a 12-pack of beer earlier in the night," but not before first trying to throw the cans of beer he still had in his car into the woods before police arrived.
Luis Oscar Garcia: Police said Garcia had a strong odor of alcohol on his person and that his pants were soaked with a liquid that indicated the presence of alcohol when he ran a red light and killed 18-year-old James F. Rogers Jr. of North Jackson, Tenn., in August 2006. The 24-year-old Mexican had been living in the U.S. without a green card for three years.
..> ..>
Marcos Ramos Medina. Courtesy Yakima Herald Republic..>..>
Marcos Ramos Medina: The 35-year-old Mexican had twice been deported when, on Aug. 4, 2005, his car swerved several times across the center line, causing a tractor-trailer rig to jackknife in Yakima, Wash. His car then plowed head-on into the 2000 Lexus driven by Peggy Keller, 53, dean of distance education at Yakima Valley Community College, killing her at the scene. Medina, who was found to have at least eight aliases and falsely identified himself at his first court appearance, escaped serious injury. The case against the Mexican national was declared a mistrial in August 2006 because his constitutional right to remain silent had been violated. It took a second jury only 30 minutes to find Medina guilty three months later.
Miguel Garduno Gonzalez: The 43-year-old was accused of causing an accident near Lakeland, Fla., on Aug. 2, 2006, that left Haines City police officer Phoenix Braithwaite, 24, dead. Gonzalez was driving a van that while passing two trucks on U.S. 17-92 in Osceola County near the Polk County line hit the officer, who was on his way to work. Braithwaite, who was riding his motorcycle, was hit head-on and died at the scene. Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant, was not hurt and fled the scene. Two passengers in the van also were not hurt also are illegal immigrants. Gonzalez was being held without bail and the two others were held as material witnesses.
..> ..>
Pastor Rios Sanchez..>..>
Pastor Rios Sanchez: Despite having pleaded guilty to driving without a license in 2005, and similar counts in March and April of 2006, Sanchez was still on the road on Oct. 27, 2006, when he crossed the yellow line near Sanford, N.C., and collided head-on with a stationwagon carrying Helen Meghan Hughes, 22, of Summerville, S.C., Jennifer Carter, 18, of Jacksonville, N.C., and Hughes' stepbrother, 16-year-old Ben Leonard. All three were killed. The 55-year-old illegal alien was allegedly drunk and carrying a forged residency card.
..> ..>
Ramiro Gallegos..>..>
Ramiro Gallegos: In July 2005, Gallegos had already been charged on three separate occasions with drunk driving. His fourth offence caused the death of Scott Gardiner of Mount Holly, N.C., a father of two young children, when the Mexican citizen's truck struck Gardner's station wagon as he drove his family to the coast for vacation.
..> ..>
Vitalina Bautista Vargas bids farewell to husband in court (courtesy Chattanoogan)..>..>
Vitalina Bautista Vargas: Neighbors of Louella Winton said the van driven by Vargas, an illegal alien from Mexico, never slowed down before plowing through Winton's home, knocking the 91-year-old woman, who had been asleep in bed, against the wall of the house next door and leaving her under the vehicle outside the house. Winton died of complications from her injuries.
As WND has reported, the mayhem on America's highways isn't limited to illegals who drive only while intoxicated.
Little caution, critics say, is being exercised when it comes to preventing mayhem on America's highways as the country witnesses record high numbers of unlicensed, unregistered, uninsured drivers – millions of whom are illegal aliens.
While no one – in or out of government – tracks traffic accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.
A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.
Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.
Related offers:
Get Rep. Tom Tancredo's "In Mortal Danger" direct from the people who published it – WND Books.
Get' Minutemen: The Battle Secure America?s Borders,? Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist
Illegal aliens invading U.S.: Expose puts you on southern border as citizens battle human flood
Previous stories:
Unlicensed DUI 'illegal' kills mom, 2 children
DUI illegal kills Marine home on leave from Iraq
'12-pack' illegal in fatal car crash
Another drunk illegal kills 3 more Americans
Illegal alien charged in vehicular homicide
How open borders turn Americans into roadkill
Tancredo's tome strikes chord
Tancredo blasts Senate 'amnesty'
Where illegals go for driver's license
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55032..
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=5443F099-0709-4037-BA673957359E836C5502781
Posted: April 4, 20072:20 a.m. Eastern
copyright © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
..> ..>
Alfredo Ramos..>..>
Alfredo Ramos, a Mexican national in the U.S. illegally, was convicted of driving while intoxicated last year, but that didn't keep him from being behind the wheel after a night of drinking last weekend – and now two teenage girls are dead because of it.
According to police, Ramos, 22, slammed the 1998 Mitsubishi he was driving into the rear of a 1994 Plymouth driven by Allison Kunhardt, 17, Friday night in Virginia Beach, Va. Kunhardt and her best friend Tessa Tranchant, 16, were stopped at a traffic light when they were hit from behind. Although both wore seat belts, both died – one at the scene and one after arriving at the hospital.
Ramos, suffered only minor injuries, the Virginian-Pilot reported.
Police blamed speed and alcohol for the crash.
Ramos, charged with manslaughter for the two deaths, was convicted last year of public drunkenness in Virginia Beach and driving under the influence in Chesapeake.
Ramos brother, also in the U.S. illegally, told the Virginian-Pilot he had spoken with his brother by phone prior to the accident and warned him not to drive after learning he had been drinking.
Ramos told his brother he had no memory of the crash and only learned of Kunhardt's and Tranchant's deaths when police told him he had killed two people.
WND has reported on the growing list of illegal immigrants who have not only ignored U.S. immigration laws, but state laws against drinking and driving as well, killing innocents on the highways in the process, including:
..> ..>
Carlos Prieto..>..>
Carlos Prieto: Suspected illegal alien from Mexico was held in the Salt Lake County jail after running a red light and broadsiding a family of six, killing three, on Christmas Eve 2006. The charging documents say his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit. The Ceran family, active in local theater and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were returning home after attending a performance of Dicken's "The Christmas Carol," which featured several family members, when their car was struck by a truck driven by Carlos Prieto. The crash killed Cheryl Ceran, 47, and two of her children, 15-year-old Ian and 7-year-old Julinna. Cheryl Ceran's husband, Gary Ceran, 45, and their 19-year-old daughter, Clarissa, and 12-year-old son, Caleb, were injured.
..> ..>
Marine Cpl. Brian Mathews..>..>
Eduardo Raul Morales-Soriano: When this illegal alien, working as a landscaper in Maryland, killed Marine Cpl. Brian Mathews, 21, and his date, Jennifer Bower, 24, on Thanksgiving night, 2006, it wasn't his first accident where alcohol was apparently involved. Nine months before, he was issued four citations and sent home with a friend after a single-car accident when he refused a Breathalyzer test. A policeman's error resulted in Morales-Soriano – who took advantage of North Carolina's easy rules to obtain his driver's license in 2004 – getting his license returned. On the night he killed the young couple, police say his blood alcohol level was measured at .32 – four times the legal level in Maryland for intoxication. Mathews had served 8 months in Iraq and completed another tour of duty in the Pacific.
..> ..>
Deputy Loren Lilly..>..>
Joel Perea and Maurilio Herrera: Police took this death hard – it was one of their own. Deputy Loren Lilly, who had been with the Cobb County Sheriff's Office for 18 years, was pronounced dead at the scene after his Honda Accord flipped several times after being struck by a Ford Taurus driven by Perea. "Obviously, being in law enforcement, none of us wants to roll up and see one of our fellow officers or deputies on the scene as well," said one cop. 27-year-old Perea and his passenger, Herrera, 23 fled the scene before being captured.
..> ..>
Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto..>..>
Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto: Police say was driving more than 100 mph on the wrong side of Interstate 485 when he collided head-on with the car of 18-year-old Min Soon Chang, a freshman from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, killing him. According to authorities, the illegal alien had already been sent back to Mexico 17 times and convicted of impaired driving at least a couple of times before the November 2005 crash.
..> ..>
Jose Trejo Encino..>..>
Jose Trejo Encino: The 27-year-old illegal alien from Mexico admitted to deputies, at the scene of the November 2006 single car accident that killed one of his passengers and injured another, "to drinking a 12-pack of beer earlier in the night," but not before first trying to throw the cans of beer he still had in his car into the woods before police arrived.
Luis Oscar Garcia: Police said Garcia had a strong odor of alcohol on his person and that his pants were soaked with a liquid that indicated the presence of alcohol when he ran a red light and killed 18-year-old James F. Rogers Jr. of North Jackson, Tenn., in August 2006. The 24-year-old Mexican had been living in the U.S. without a green card for three years.
..> ..>
Marcos Ramos Medina. Courtesy Yakima Herald Republic..>..>
Marcos Ramos Medina: The 35-year-old Mexican had twice been deported when, on Aug. 4, 2005, his car swerved several times across the center line, causing a tractor-trailer rig to jackknife in Yakima, Wash. His car then plowed head-on into the 2000 Lexus driven by Peggy Keller, 53, dean of distance education at Yakima Valley Community College, killing her at the scene. Medina, who was found to have at least eight aliases and falsely identified himself at his first court appearance, escaped serious injury. The case against the Mexican national was declared a mistrial in August 2006 because his constitutional right to remain silent had been violated. It took a second jury only 30 minutes to find Medina guilty three months later.
Miguel Garduno Gonzalez: The 43-year-old was accused of causing an accident near Lakeland, Fla., on Aug. 2, 2006, that left Haines City police officer Phoenix Braithwaite, 24, dead. Gonzalez was driving a van that while passing two trucks on U.S. 17-92 in Osceola County near the Polk County line hit the officer, who was on his way to work. Braithwaite, who was riding his motorcycle, was hit head-on and died at the scene. Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant, was not hurt and fled the scene. Two passengers in the van also were not hurt also are illegal immigrants. Gonzalez was being held without bail and the two others were held as material witnesses.
..> ..>
Pastor Rios Sanchez..>..>
Pastor Rios Sanchez: Despite having pleaded guilty to driving without a license in 2005, and similar counts in March and April of 2006, Sanchez was still on the road on Oct. 27, 2006, when he crossed the yellow line near Sanford, N.C., and collided head-on with a stationwagon carrying Helen Meghan Hughes, 22, of Summerville, S.C., Jennifer Carter, 18, of Jacksonville, N.C., and Hughes' stepbrother, 16-year-old Ben Leonard. All three were killed. The 55-year-old illegal alien was allegedly drunk and carrying a forged residency card.
..> ..>
Ramiro Gallegos..>..>
Ramiro Gallegos: In July 2005, Gallegos had already been charged on three separate occasions with drunk driving. His fourth offence caused the death of Scott Gardiner of Mount Holly, N.C., a father of two young children, when the Mexican citizen's truck struck Gardner's station wagon as he drove his family to the coast for vacation.
..> ..>
Vitalina Bautista Vargas bids farewell to husband in court (courtesy Chattanoogan)..>..>
Vitalina Bautista Vargas: Neighbors of Louella Winton said the van driven by Vargas, an illegal alien from Mexico, never slowed down before plowing through Winton's home, knocking the 91-year-old woman, who had been asleep in bed, against the wall of the house next door and leaving her under the vehicle outside the house. Winton died of complications from her injuries.
As WND has reported, the mayhem on America's highways isn't limited to illegals who drive only while intoxicated.
Little caution, critics say, is being exercised when it comes to preventing mayhem on America's highways as the country witnesses record high numbers of unlicensed, unregistered, uninsured drivers – millions of whom are illegal aliens.
While no one – in or out of government – tracks traffic accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.
A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.
Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.
Related offers:
Get Rep. Tom Tancredo's "In Mortal Danger" direct from the people who published it – WND Books.
Get' Minutemen: The Battle Secure America?s Borders,? Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist
Illegal aliens invading U.S.: Expose puts you on southern border as citizens battle human flood
Previous stories:
Unlicensed DUI 'illegal' kills mom, 2 children
DUI illegal kills Marine home on leave from Iraq
'12-pack' illegal in fatal car crash
Another drunk illegal kills 3 more Americans
Illegal alien charged in vehicular homicide
How open borders turn Americans into roadkill
Tancredo's tome strikes chord
Tancredo blasts Senate 'amnesty'
Where illegals go for driver's license
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55032..
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=5443F099-0709-4037-BA673957359E836C5502781
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