Effective law enforcement agencies establish appropriate priorities and commit their limited resources accordingly. They cannot prosecute every crime within their jurisdictions. More importantly, they know that zero-tolerance enforcement of the law (at best) offers diminishing returns and (at worst) leads to civil rights violations, punishes innocent people, and undermines the enforcement of other laws. Imagine the outcry, for example, if the Obama administration announced plans to expand the Internal Revenue Service in order to punish every business and individual that violated the tax code. Many would treat such an initiative as a threat to their fundamental liberties. Cooperation with government regulators would plummet. Americans want their laws enforced, particularly against egregious and repeat offenders, but also against sufficient numbers of run-of-the-mill offenders to deter noncompliance. However, they assume that the law will be enforced with discretion and intelligence.
This is what makes the reaction to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) recent announcement on prosecutorial discretion so jarring. At issue is an August 18 letter by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to Senator Richard Durbin and 21 other Senators, which affirms the administration's commitment to prioritize the removal of repeat immigration violators and those that threaten public safety and national security. The letter announced the creation of an inter-agency working group to review court cases based on these criteria. DHS's priorities reflect the rationale for the agency's creation and represent a long overdue response to an under-resourced immigration court system that labors under a record 285,526 cases which have been pending an average of nearly 500 days. Rather than applauding the administration's announcement, however, Congressional and media critics have accused the administration of flaunting the Constitution by refusing to enforce the law.
Napolitano's letter affirms a July 2011 DHS memorandum that sets forth criteria for exercising prosecutorial discretion in individual immigration cases, but that explicitly does not require the favorable exercise of discretion, or prohibit the removal of "any alien" unlawfully in the country, or provide legal status by administrative fiat to any group. The memorandum emphasizes the need to ensure the "integrity of the immigration system." However, the DHS policy allows immigration officials to take into account factors like military service, poor health, long residence in the U.S., old age and the absence of connections to the country of birth in deciding whether to pursue removal in individual cases. In fact, DHS -- and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) before it -- have always exercised discretion based on these kinds of factors.
The Obama administration supports an earned legalization program as part of a broad approach to immigration reform. It also supports the narrower DREAM Act, and Napolitano's letter repeats the President's position that it "makes no sense to expend our enforcement resources on low-priority cases, such as those... who were brought to this country as young people and know no other home." Nor does it make sense -- to cite just two additional examples -- to expend enforcement resources on most very long-term residents or on the family members of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents who have been found to qualify for immigrant visas. However, the administration's support for legislative reform has decidedly not stopped it from enforcing the law. At its current pace, the Obama administration will remove (deport) roughly 1.5 million persons over four years, compared to 2.3 million removals over the 20 years of the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations. In FY 2010 and FY 2011, it has also audited record numbers of corporations for violations of employer verification laws. Arrests of border crossers -- the one consistent metric of border enforcement success -- have plummeted from 1.7 million in FY 2000 to a projected 325,000 in FY 2011.
It has long been a ritual for Congressional oversight committees to castigate hard-working immigration officials for their putative incompetence and insufficient commitment to enforcing the immigration laws. In this case in particular, the accusations ring hollow. Nor are they lacking in irony. Members of Congress who supported President George W. Bush's signing statements -- in which he reserved the right not to enforce parts of laws in ways that he deemed an encroachment on Executive authority -- now criticize the administration for how it enforces the law. Law-and-order stalwarts oppose a policy that would prioritize the arrest and removal of convicted criminals and potential threats to national security. In 1999, Congressman Lamar Smith, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, joined a letter urging Clinton Administration officials to exercise discretion in immigration cases that resulted from 1996 legislation that he championed. Yet 12 years later, he characterizes the administration's review process as a "perversion" of U.S. immigration law and sponsors legislation to strip the Executive's discretion in this area until January 21, 2013.
U.S. immigration policy still needs to be fixed. The American people would be better served if Congress worked towards constructive solutions to this challenge, rather than engaged in political theater. The administration is struggling to manage the immigration system absent legislative reform. Prioritizing the removal of dangerous criminals and potential terrorists is a step in the right direction.
Department of Homeland Security | Immigration
Fixing the Immigration System for America's 21st Century Economy ...
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Wikipedia, the free ...
Napolitano calls for 'reality check' in immigration enforcement ...
Controversial immigration enforcement program is target of lively ...
Illegal immigration from Mexico today is at a historic 40 year low.
The greatest surge in illegal immigration occurred 1995-2003 during the Clinton and GW Bush Administrations. It has declined every year since then.
There are however a large number of "illegals" left out of the anti immigration issue......39% (39 in every 100) of the approx 10 million "illegals" living in the USA today are NOT from Latin America.
Approx 3.9 million od those "illegals" arrived Visa in hand, and "overstayed" What about *them* ??
Another month of 14 million "voting" U.S. Citizens out of work in the USA ~ trying to feed, clothe, shelter & educated THEIR Childern with NO JOBS
“On December 3, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Nelson Peacock, responding to request from several U.S. Senators, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), wrote: “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population.”
http://www.examiner.com/immigration-reform-in-national/dhs-confirms-cheaper-to-deport-every-illegal-alien-than-allowing-them-to-stay#ixzz1XkZwIm1v
Creating 5 million to 7 million existing jobs vacated by deporting 11.2 million illegals for $135 billion USD ~ sounds like a better investment for the U.S. Taxpayer
Than the $447 billion American Jobs Plan of 2011 ~ which "mirrors" the failed $787 billion ObamaStimu¬lus Plan of 2009, which cost the U.S. Taxpayer $393,500 for each of the 2 million jobs it lost
Construction and extraction occupations = 13.4% Unemployment
Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations = 11.2% Unemployment
Transportation, material moving occupations = 10.9% Unemployment
Production occupations = 10.4% Unemployment
Service occupations = 10.0% Unemployment
Total Adjusted US Unemployed Citizens and Legal Residents = 13,992,000
This figure and the above rates exclude 6,241,000 Persons who want a job but are left out of the above statistics for various reasons.
Total Number of Americans Looking for Work = 20,233,000
Plus that means the real unemployment rates for the occupations above are actually 45% larger when you include the excluded people.
Pew Center estimates indicate 7.5 million Illegal Immigrants work in the USA. A Pew study "estimated that illegal immigrants fill a quarter of all agricultural jobs, 17 percent of office and house cleaning positions, 14 percent of construction jobs and 12 percent in food preparation." That means 75 percent of all agricultural jobs, 83 percent of cleaning positions, 86 percent of construction jobs and 88 percent of the food preparation jobs are done by American Workers. These professions are where unemployment is worst for Americans.
Meanwhile Management, professional, and related occupations where few Illegal Immigrants work has a 4.4% Unemployment rate.
This disparity existed before 2007 so it cannot be blamed the Recession. All Illegal Immigration hurts.
The illegal aliens are NOT in plain site. What they do under the table is not clear at all. Until they are removed, we won't find out either. So while some of those folks that seem so innocent are removed, some of those same folks have simply evaded detection. So using a tea cup to put out a fire is not the way to deal with this problem and particularly since the cost of the illegal aliens is so very high.
(This is the lowest estimate out there at this point...)
Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. $113 Billion a Year, Study Finds
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/02/immigration-costs-fair-amnesty-educations-costs-reform/#ixzz1YVQ19FPD
So... enforce the law and save money.. not lose money. But amnesty.. totally unacceptable to the People of this Country.
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/polls.html
It would take a fraction of the law enforcement resources to put 50 Fortune 500 CEOs in jail for hiring illegals - and the practice would soon stop.
The numbers speak for themselves. Wages are flat or falling for working class folks.
That is because the real reason to want the removal of immigrants is their skin color. All else is just smoke screen.
However ~ recent reports of illegals crossing into the USA ~ illegally is down to just 325,000 illegal entries annually, that's an illegal entry every 97 seconds
Appears ~ that BHO Adm has a "revolving door" illegal immigration policy ~
1 illegal deported every 79 seconds
1 illegal imported every 97 seconds
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Just go ahead and vote for your colleague's law and make him look good to his constituents so he will do the same for you. Well, that's certainly going to improve our respect for both law and government now, isn't it?
How about this instead. We appoint a commission to go through our statutes with a fine tooth comb with the purpose of purging every single law ion the books which has been overtaken by history, technology or huge majorities of public opinion. Then before any new law is passed, the same commission must minutely inspect the proposed legislation for ease of enforcement and unintended consequences.
Maybe then we would quit prosecuting cute little girls for selling lemonade in their front yards and other equally silly infringements. In the process, we might actually have the time, personnel and cash to adequately enforce immigration laws which effectively bar entrance to the US to anyone who will use more taxpayer funded services than the taxes they will pay.
I can imagine Tim Geithner's outrage.
Or Charlie Rangel's.
Or Elizabeth Warren's
Or Cathleen Sibelius'
In fact the largest truth is immigration will always and always happened and each group was shunned and beat down because of fear either because of religion or race it has nothing to do with the individual.
Now to absolutely scare the two absolute political parties to death is this fact, with the Latino vote and with the up set Average American vote and as there is no real Republican candidate nor will there be one it is possible that a new group with new ideas with a Latino as a candidate with the American-the Average American group can put a new team in the White House and upset the balance of power in Congress and in at least ten state legislatures.
For all the money and for all the twists once in the voting booth no one can tell you what is right or wrong and in 2012 it is time to Vote for this nation not a failed party.
VIVA THE REVOLUTION
It's time to stop giving the money. Those who act responsibly could be given work permits, but not citizenship. Laws need to be enforced and the free money has to stop.
The greatest surge in illegal immigration occurred between 1996-2003 (Clinton and GW Bush) It's been on the decline every year since.
Where's the source for your "70% are on the dole" or "the last 10 year wave of illegal immigrants to those of the prior thirty years or more" Facts don't back you up. Got sources? Links? Or just making stuff up as you post ?
Replying to your not yet posted comment to me
Hmmm Who to believe ? A Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper published in the USA's 8th largest City, which also sits on the US/Mexico border
Or your sources CIS, FAIR, Numbers USA ..all3 organizations founded in 1986 by one optometrist( who's name escapes me at the moment) who's stated purpose is to prevent the loss of a *white xtian minority* from occurring in the USA ? 3 organizations listed as "hate groups" by the SPLC
I'll go with the respected, and credible San Diego Union Tribune which has no agenda other than to objectively report facts