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


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"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


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"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
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