- About 80,000 illegal criminal aliens, including convicted
murderers, rapists, drug dealers and child molesters who served prison
time and were released, are loose on the streets of America, hiding from
federal immigration authorities.
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- Despite the creation of a new agency to hunt down criminal
aliens and the infusion of millions of dollars to get the job done, many
state and local police agencies who make contact with the aliens either
never learn of their immigration status or never advise the federal government
of their release.
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- According to figures for 2002 from the former Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) and from U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), more than 375,000 known illegal aliens have been ordered
deported, but have disappeared pending immigration hearings. Washington-area
sniper Lee Boyd Malvo was one such alien.
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- About 80,000 of those people, called "absconders,"
already had been convicted and served prison time for felonies, ICE and
INS say.
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- "Keeping our law-enforcement officers in the dark
doesn't make America's streets safer for anyone," said Rep. Charlie
Norwood, Georgia Republican. "At a time when our officers are faced
with arresting and re-arresting the same 80,000 criminal aliens over and
over again, we should be giving them greater access to data and more resources."
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- Making matters more difficult for federal authorities
are several municipalities that have passed ordinances prohibiting their
employees, including police officers, from enforcing federal immigration
laws.
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- Known as "sanctuary laws," the ordinances are
in place in varying degree in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco
and Houston.
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- Immigration opponents argue that the laws encourage illegal
immigration. Some, including the District-based Federation of American
Immigration Reform, have charged that sanctuary laws offer shelter for
would-be terrorists by allowing illegal immigrants to establish themselves
as residents.
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- The Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement (FILE), also
based in the District, has begun to bring lawsuits against those municipalities
with sanctuary ordinances and has promised additional legal challenges.
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- FILE has argued that state and county governments are
prohibited from adopting policies that prevent its employees from contacting
federal immigration authorities about the legal status of any noncitizen
or to report violations of U.S. immigration law by any noncitizen.
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- "These policies, called 'sanctuary policies,' promise
foreign nationals who have broken our laws that the municipality in which
they live will help them in their lawbreaking by resisting efforts to report
them to the proper authorities," FILE said in a statement.
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- "Such policies are illegal, naturally, and have
been rejected by the courts. Nevertheless, some cities, remarkably, persist
in maintaining their illegal sanctuary policies," FILE said. "Unfortunately,
the executive branch of the federal government has been for many years
utterly derelict in forcing, as is its duty, municipalities to abide by
the law."
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- The National Council of La Raza has defended sanctuary
laws, saying that collaboration between federal authorities and state and
local municipalities is contrary to U.S. case law and that it results in
racial profiling, police misconduct and civil rights violations [oh boo
hoo hoo for the ALIENS!].
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- La Raza also charges that it undermines community policing
efforts and that it undercuts effective law-enforcement and antiterrorism
efforts by diverting resources and leading to additional litigation.
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- Mr. Norwood has introduced the Clear Law Enforcement
for Alien Removal Act that would, among other things, give state and local
police agencies authority to enforce immigration laws.
-
- The pending bill, with 112 co-sponsors of both parties,
also would grant state and local police agencies access to the National
Criminal Information Center (NCIC) database for immigration status information.
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- Last month, several pro-immigration and civil rights
groups filed a class-action lawsuit to stop the government from entering
immigration information into NCIC, saying the data was being misused in
the wake of the September 11 attacks.
-
- Filed in U.S. District Court in New York, the suit said
the Justice Department unlawfully entered immigration information into
NCIC subjecting immigrants to the risk of unlawful arrest by state and
local police.
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- The suit also questioned the authority of Attorney General
John Ashcroft to enlist state and local police in the enforcement of federal
immigration laws.
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- The suit was filed by La Raza, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, Latin American Workers Project, New York Immigration Coalition,
and Union of Needletrades and Industrial and Textile Employees.
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- The NCIC database - which includes more than 40 million
felons, fugitives and others being sought by federal law enforcement -
was expanded after the September 11 attacks to include immigrant criminals
who failed to show up for their deportation hearings.
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- It also includes thousands of immigrants who registered
with the government under the "special registration" program,
which requires that foreign visitors from designated countries register
when they enter the United States. NCIC is used by 80,000 law-enforcement
agencies across the country.
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- Assistant Secretary Michael J. Garcia, who heads ICE,
the investigative arm of Homeland Security, has promised a vigorous enforcement
effort for criminal aliens now in the country, including a $10 million
effort to fund eight new teams of agents to apprehend and deport aliens
convicted of crimes in the United States.
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- The new teams, which join eight already in operation,
will be based in Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts,
Texas and Washington state.
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- http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040126-120103-7792r.htm
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