Since entering the country without permission is ILLEGAL, all illegal immigrants are, by definition, criminals.
So apparently the Bush administration - and most of Congress - has no interest in capturing and stopping criminals who are invading the country. That's not good a good attitude for any country to take.
Hasn't the President (and Rumsfeld, and others) expressed concern about a nuclear weapon being smuggled into the US? That's why there's a security beef-up on the northern border, right? Well, why bother if Bush & Congress are going to leave a huge swinging door open in the south?
Now they're working on a new shamnesty package. I guess there's still time before November to get the old "Mission Accomplished" banner out of storage for a photo-op on the Mexican border ...
:-(
The Border Patrol is so corrupt in the Nogales region that the organization is a standing joke. Barbers, gas station operators, grocery clerks, and the drunk on the street can tell you who to pay off to cross the border into the USA. This is the untold story of the whole rotten mess.
But, unfortunately, not felons.