Posted on 06/09/2006 7:00:39 AM PDT by devane617
TAMPA - Fernando Merino-Ronquillo saw the Border Patrol car drive slowly past him, stop, then turn around. He never made it to his construction job that morning in December.
He admitted to the Border Patrol agent that he was in the United States illegally and figured he soon would be sent back to Mexico. But less than six hours after being caught, he was let go.
Across the country, immigrants such as 24-year-old Merino-Ronquillo routinely are released from government custody because there isn't enough space to hold them, according to an April report from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Thousands are never found again.
Detention space will only get tighter in Florida, officials say, because the 300-bed immigrant jail and court in Bradenton is closing. Today is the last day of hearings at the facility, the only immigrant detention center and court on Florida's west coast. The two judges will move to the immigration court in Orlando. Detainees are being transferred to the Krome Detention Center in South Florida.
The federal government has leased jail and court space from Manatee County since 1996 for about $10 million a year. But the aging facility "doesn't fit the need anymore," said Michael Rozos, the director of detention and removal for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Florida.
He said the government wants to open a large detention center in North Florida, although no plans have been approved.
Border Patrol agents say the space problem has been building for years. "I couldn't believe it when I heard they were closing," said Richard Pierce, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents' union. Before retiring last year, he was based in Tampa.
Agents take the people they catch into custody, Pierce said. But when they notify ICE officials, who are responsible for detention, "they'll say, 'We have no space.'"
"So you'll set up a court date [for the immigrant] and say, 'You gotta be here on this date.' He'll just nod and say, 'Sure, OK.' Then he walks out the door.
"Now," said Pierce, "they're taking away 300 beds."
Many agents wonder why they come to work every day, he said. Officials talk tough, but "what they're really doing is throwing their hands in the air and saying, 'We give up.'"
As of May, the number of immigrants who had been ordered deported and could not be found was up to 590,000.
Bush Says Catch And Remove Three weeks ago, President Bush went on national television to say the government would end the practice of catching and releasing undocumented immigrants. What he didn't say was that the plan focuses on newly arrived immigrants caught within 100 miles of the border or coastline they crossed.
"The president says from now on the policy is catch and remove," said Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner. "The reality is, there simply isn't enough money."
Six years ago this month, Merino-Ronquillo walked across the border near Douglas, Ariz., with about 10 others. A friend brought him to Tampa, where one of his brothers lived.
Within weeks he was working, first roofing new houses, then repairing sewer pipes for a city contractor. He earned $8 an hour on that job, more money than he had ever imagined making in Mexico, he said.
After that he found work with a concrete company building one of the condos in the Channel District.
He had just checked in that morning on Dec. 7 when the Border Patrol agent stopped him and asked to see his green card. He didn't have one. He sat in the patrol car while the agent picked up several more people at the Tampa bus station downtown.
He was questioned at the Border Patrol office. When noon came, he was told he could leave but that he would have to appear later before an immigration judge.
He found a lawyer, hoping for a way to stay in the United States, at least for a couple of years. But that lawyer, John Miotke, of St. Petersburg, had few options to offer.
He had two choices: stay illegally or leave. On May 11 he appeared before immigration Judge R. Kevin McHugh in Bradenton to ask that he not be deported but be allowed to go back to Mexico on his own. This meant that he wouldn't be barred from trying to return to the United States legally in the next several years.
"As soon as I got picked up, I knew it meant it was time for me to go back," he said. He also didn't want to live with a warrant out for his arrest.
Thousands seem to see it differently, according to the Homeland Security Department report.
Federal agents caught nearly 775,000 undocumented immigrants from 2002 through 2004. During that same time, the number of detention beds dropped from more than 19,000 to 18,000.
Because of a shortage of detention beds and staff, more than one-third of the immigrants who had been picked up were let go.
ICE Weighs Priorities The government now has about 21,000 detention beds and has asked Congress for more, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman in Miami. In the meantime, "we are prioritizing our actions," she said. "We prioritize our focus on national security and public safety threats."
According to the HSD report, however, nearly 28,000 of the immigrants caught and released from 2001 through 2004 had criminal records.
The critical April report is the third in a series going back 10 years. In 1996, the Inspector General for the U.S. Justice Department found that the federal government had deported only 11 percent of the undocumented immigrants who had been caught, released and ordered to leave the country. It blamed a shortage of detention beds.
Border agents continued their patrols through 2004, catching 275,680 people, 8,300 more than the year before. Detention space and staff remained tight, the HSD report states. It created what the report calls a "mini amnesty."
But not for Merino-Ronquillo. About Sept. 7, he will fly to Mexico City, then take a bus to his village in the state of Veracruz. There he will have to file a form with the U.S. Consulate to prove he arrived.
He can't imagine what he will find in the place he left behind six years ago, a collection of about 100 people who earn their living working cattle. Over the years, at least one-fourth of them have left for the United States, Merino-Ronquillo said.
He'll follow the debate in Congress, he said, hoping for a change that will let him come back, hoping to come back legally.
Why any beds..it should be a cage....why do we have to hear it in front of a judge....we are so stupid...call his embassy and say you have 100 or so here to pick up...and they are getting very thirsty and hungry...and then escort them out of the country...it seems HUMANE ENOUGH for me...enough is the key word
It is total insanity -- derived straight from Washington, which is totally out of control, are really cares less about the impact of its malfeasance and its dysfunctional mode of operation, which only serves its own politics, and not America.
It just gets more ugly by the day now.
I don't know why you folks keep posting to these threads. Nothing is going to be done and it's time to simply adjust to the situation and keep on going. The only alternative is a rebellion -- you'll be killed. Other than that, the big boys want them here for cheap labor and that's it.
It's almost like Washington is expecting everyone to forget and move on. I think they feel people will get sick of the story and eventually let it go. I can not remember a time in history when Washington was as out of touch with the voters as they are now.
Look at my post #5. You are exactly correct in your statement. Washington expects the voters to get sick of the story and move on. AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!
The "big boys" keep power by keeping the people distracted and passive. They tell us that nothing can be done with the status quo, so just lie back and enjoy it.
It might be too late for a lot of anti-illegal activists to run this year because the primaries were half over before the fecal missile hit the fan, but if the problem isn't being relieved by 2008, I can see a lot of people running and winning on an anti-immigration (both legal and illegal) platform.
Not gonna happen. Get used to that. And adjust.
"Washington expects the voters to get sick of the story and move on. AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!"
Correct.
Just keep on calling and writing to the congress critters about that Senate Immigration Bill.
There should be no let up.
Good to remind them we are the ones who's votes they are going to need in November, not the votes of Mexicans.
Sorry, I don't cave.
Ugly to the bone!
Those who want to do something about the illegal immigration problem are so outnumbered, outinfluenced and outfinanced (they've already robbed us blind) that almost nothing will be done other than "window dressing" legislation. You're going to see 25-30 million illegal immigrants granted "amnesty" and on the path to citizenship. No other alternative is viable.
I'm not saying that you do or should, per se. It's just that getting upset and staying upset over something you can not and will not fix is pointless. These guys and gals who want them here are filthy rich and influential and they see us as slave labor. We will simply have no choice but to work for the low wages they are willing to pay us.
Nor do I ~ Bump!
It's just that I've been fighting this fight for far too long to simply accept what a few among many want.
In the days leading up to the last presidential election I said I would vote for Bush but I was going to go after him and anybody else on the illegal immigration issue after the election. I can't back down now.
Her voice was soft and her manners gentle and beautiful. I detected an edge of worry in her.
I ask her if she were originally from here. She replied, "No, I lived in El Paso, before I came here. That's where my son was born."
I inferred that she is an illegal alien and that her son, now a teenager, is a U.S. citizen.
She seemed overly eager to do a good job, and I felt that this was the reason.
As I sat there, I couldn't help feeling the desire to protect someone like her. I think most people would.
I did not pursue the subject with her, but I did ponder the subject of illegal immigration.
With some reluctance, I think President Bush is right. I don't see how we can deport people like that.
She needs her job. Where would she find a job back in Mexico (if that's where she came from)? Her son is a U.S. citizen. Would we send her back and not him? Disrupt them? Take her job? Pull him out of school?
I'll buy her a bus ticket to the nearest border anytime she wants. I never feel sorry for law breakers -- especially those that willfully break our laws.
But you can fix it, like they did in Herndon VA and the California 50th. Nothing gets a politician's attention faster than losing an election.
Really, no choice?!? How about this....
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."In your previous post you said, "The only alternative is a rebellion -- you'll be killed." Yes - maybe so. However, see tag line below. I believe those words.Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
In addition, as long as we have the 2nd Amendment ... well... Tyrants of all stripes better beware.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.