Attorney In Immigration
Posts tagged Illegal
Illegal Entry Not Punished
BY James Rufus Koren
Jul 15th
Prosecutors say they lack resources, facilities
It’s illegal to enter the United States without permission. At least technically.Improper entry by an immigrant is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in prison. A second offense is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison.
But in practice, it’s treated much less seriously.
“We basically do not prosecute that offense,†said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. “Essentially, if you’re an illegal alien and you come across the border and we find you, we almost never do anything.â€
Indeed, in 2008, the most recent year for which information is available, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California – which includes San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties – didn’t prosecute a single person for simple illegal entry.
The lack of prosecutions is just a sign that, as lawmakers have said, U.S. immigration policy is broken and doesn’t satisfy those on either side of the debate.
Illegal immigrants who are found and detained by federal officials are often deported but rarely charged with the crime of entering the country illegally. That usually only happens, Mrozek said, when an illegal immigrant has been convicted of a felony and has returned to the U.S. after being deported.
“It always comes after that person has been convicted of some other offense – drug trafficking, burglary,†Mrozek said. “What we’ve decided to do is focus on the worst of the worst.â€
In 2008, the Central District filed charges in 699 felony illegal immigration cases.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office, part of the Department of Justice, isn’t the only federal agency that deals with illegal immigration. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, can detain and deport immigrants, but it does not charge illegal immigrants with a crime.
In many cases, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Canada are allowed to go home without being formally deported.
In a speech Thursday, President Barack Obama acknowledged that illegal entry, even if it isn’t treated as a crime per se, is a violation of U.S. law.
“Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship,†Obama said. “And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million (illegal immigrants in the U.S.) who broke these laws should be held accountable.â€
The nation’s patchwork of immigration enforcement techniques doesn’t seem to please the president or anyone else.
Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, who has been a vocal advocate of allowing illegal immigrants in the U.S. an opportunity to become citizens, says illegal immigrants should not be seen as criminals.
“The hard-working men and women who are here to make a better way of life for their families are not criminals,†Baca said. “They are an embodiment of the American dream.â€
Emilio Amaya, executive director of the San Bernardino Community Service Center, which provides legal aid to immigrants, said he has concerns about how ICE enforces immigration laws, specifically that the agency will deport people without taking into account the families they are leaving behind.
“I think enforcement should recognize that people come from mixed families,†he said, meaning families in which some members are illegal immigrants while some are citizens or legal residents. “Before expelling people from the country, I think family unification, morally, should play a role.â€
But Raymond Herrera – president of anti-illegal-immigration group We the People, California’s Crusader – said it’s not acceptable for illegal immigrants to carry on without being punished.
Federal officials, Herrera said, “took the law and said we’re only going to go after criminals – but they’re all criminals.â€
He said those who want to allow illegal immigrants to become citizens and ignore the crime of illegal entry might think illegal immigration is a victimless crime.
“The federal government says there’s no victim, but that illegal alien displaced an American worker,†Herrera said. “I’m a victim, but nobody is looking to prosecute the criminal.â€
He said federal officials should find illegal immigrants, charge them and deport them.
But Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, said the federal government isn’t even doing enough to remove illegal immigrants who have committed other crimes.
“We can’t even prosecute some of the most egregious,†Miller said. “Let’s prosecute the people who are coming here and committing crimes.â€
Mrozek said prosecuting every illegal immigrant in the country – estimates range from 11 million to 30 million – or even the Central District of California would require a lot more resources than his office has.
“If we wanted to, every single prosecutor in our office could do nothing but immigration crimes,†he said. “There’s enough business, so to speak, to keep those people more than occupied.â€
But he said the U.S. Attorney’s Office has other priorities: international smuggling, organized crime, tax evasion.
“If we had thousands of prosecutors and the (federal) Bureau of Prisons had infinite beds and we had who knows how many courtrooms, yeah, all these cases could theoretically be dealt with,†Mrozek said. “We have what we have, and we do the best we can to deal with the criminal problems that exist in our district.â€
Herrera, though, said a lack of manpower or resources isn’t a good argument for letting thousands of criminals off the hook.
“When they tell you they can’t afford to enforce the law, they’re saying we have a state of anarchy,†he said.
Source: SBSun.com
Illegal Alien Voters Ignored by Justice Department says Whistleblower
By Jim Kouri, Right Side News
Jul 14th
Whistleblower J. Christian Adams, who is testifying before a Commission of Civil Rights committee regarding voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers, dropped a bomb on his former employers at the Department of Justice.
According to Adams, a Deputy Attorney General refused to investigate allegations of illegal voting during the last presidential election.
While the DoJ denies this allegation — and the news media portray him as a disgruntled employee or Bush apologist – a recent study released by the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation provides proof that illegal aliens and immigrants with green cards are committing rampant voter fraud in the United States.
Reports of ineligible persons registering to vote have raised concerns about state processes for verifying voter registration lists. States usually base voter eligibility on the voter’s age, US citizenship, mental competence, and felon status.
Although individual states run elections, Congress has authority to affect the administration of the elections. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) had set a deadline for states to have a statewide voter registration list and list verification procedures.
For example, the methods used in seven selected states to verify voter eligibility and ensure accuracy of voter registration lists were varied and include relying on registrant self attestation, return mailings, and checking against lists of felony convictions or deceased individuals. Some states, for instance, failed to do any more than ask on their application forms if the registrant was a US citizen. The applicant will merely check off the “Yes†box, but there is no action to verify the authenticity of that answer.
“The voter registration officials simply take the word of the registrant with no follow-up,†said conservative political strategist Michael Baker.
“Some states that require some backup documentation merely ask for a utility bill or a driver’s license – neither of which prove citizenship. In other words, legal or illegal aliens can easily register to vote in local and national elections,†warns Baker.
According to a Congressional study of voter fraud, other challenges such as identifying duplicate registrations in other states or having insufficient information to match other data sources with voter registration lists may continue to be issues.
While federal data sources have the potential to help state election officials identify registrants who may be convicted felons or non-citizens, few states communicate with federal agencies such as the Homeland Security Department’s immigration section.
Many government officials – mostly liberals – claim that illegal aliens voting is not a major problem, conservative activists respond that while the potential number identified may be small, an election can be decided by a few votes. In 2004, the presidential race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush was decided by a few hundred votes in Florida.
“While the news media perpetuated the assertion that Bush and the GOP ’stole’ the election, it could very well have been illegal aliens voting in Florida that made the outcome so close,†said former NYPD cop, now security firm owner, Sid Francis.
“Bush may have beaten Gore by more votes if illegals were excluded, since immigrants tend to vote for Democrats. Or Gore could have won decisively had there been prior screening before people were allowed into the voting booths,†said Det. Francis.
“There was absolutely no mention in the mainstream media regarding suspected voter fraud by illegal or legal aliens. It was much easier for the agenda-driven newspeople to accuse Republicans of stealing the election,†added Baker.
“Florida is not unique. Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant: Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens illegally registered to vote,†said Hans A. von Spakovsky, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation.
“There is no reliable method to determine the number of non-citizens registered or actually voting because most laws to ensure that only citizens vote are ignored, are inadequate, or are systematically undermined by government officials. Those who ignore the implications of non-citizen registration and voting either are willfully blind to the problem or may actually favor this form of illegal voting,†said Spakovsky, an expert on the subject of illegal aliens and immigration law, during an interview on Fox News Channel.
As far as felons, US Attorneys are required to notify state election officials of federal felony convictions, but the information is not always easy for election officials to interpret or complete, according to New Jersey GOP strategist Janice Martin.
“Americans would be shocked to discover that hundreds of thousands of general election voters are illegal aliens, green-card immigrants, and criminals who’ve murdered, raped and robbed US citizens. And guess which political party benefits the most from their votes? The one that’s pushing for amnesty and a bag full of free goodies,†said Martin.
Dr. von Spakovsky believes many government officials and politicians are complicit in the voter fraud problem.
“To keep non-citizens from diluting citizens’ votes, immigration and election officials must cooperate far more effectively than they have to date, and state and federal officials must increase their efforts to enforce the laws against non-citizen voting that are already on the books,†he wrote in his Heritage Foundation study on illegal alien voter fraud.
“While the liberal media and the liberal establishment ignore what is a huge scandal, American voters are having their rights violated. When an illegal aliens or felon or other person prohibited by law to vote, their votes cancel out those of American citizens,†warns Baker.
“Liberals want illegal aliens and felons to vote. They benefit from such rampant fraud.â€
