Posted on 06/19/2007 9:00:00 AM PDT by PhiKapMom
Illegal Immigrant Cases Clogging Federal Courts
By Jeff Golimowski
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
June 19, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - If you drive by the federal courthouse in Las Cruces, N.M., on a Sunday night, you'll probably see something odd: the lights are burning. Workers in the Court Clerk's Office for the District of New Mexico are working late on Sundays, getting ready for Monday mornings.
"[My staff] is stretched pretty thin," admitted Clerk of the Court Matt Dykman. "You'll have 50 or 60 new complaints coming in, and that starts at 8:30 [on a Monday], so there's no way to get ready unless you come in at 5 A.M." Instead, "they come in at seven on Sunday."
New Mexico is one of five U.S. District Courts -- the others are Arizona, Southern California, Western Texas, and Southern Texas -- on the front line of the illegal immigration debate.
An investigation into those courts reveals a system stretched to the breaking point. Cybercast News Service looked at each of the more than 90 U.S. District and Territorial Courts' criminal case filings since 2002. The five border districts saw an average of 3,730 criminal cases a year, compared to just 425 criminal cases in the other federal courts (see spreadsheet).
The difference, say law enforcement and prosecutors on the border, is illegal immigration.
More than half the criminal cases in each of the five border districts deal with federal immigration charges (an average of 2,264 cases a year). In New Mexico, 71 percent of all criminal cases in 2006 were immigration-related, while 70 percent of all cases in Southern Texas that year were linked to immigration.
In non-border districts, by contrast, the average is 54 immigration cases a year, or slightly over ten percent.
The problem has exploded in recent years, causing massive backlogs and slowing other court business to a crawl.
"From 1994 to 2004 our district quadrupled in filings," said Dykman. "The volume of people just makes it a nightmare."
Border district officials trace the spike in cases to stepped-up enforcement efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border. While Congress and the Bush administration have added funding for thousands of new Border Patrol agents since 2001, there hasn't been a similar funding increase for those who process the suspects.
"There is a huge misconception among the public that a criminal immigration case doesn't require a lot of effort or a lot of work," said New Mexico U.S. Marshal George Eden. "Each and every one of those defendants in these cases is entitled to the same process as anyone in the federal court system."
That means a public defender, if the defendant can't afford a lawyer; an arraignment; and a speedy trial. Plus, federal probation officers run criminal background checks on every undocumented immigrant in the system in an effort to find those with warrants or other legal problems in other states.
"We find out who people really are, how dangerous they really are," said New Mexico Chief Probation Officer Anita Chavez. "That's some really in-depth searching all over the country."
Yet, as one U.S. Marshal in Arizona put it, funding for public defenders and court services officers isn't "sexy," or easy to sell to other lawmakers. Without those critical pieces of the legal system, law enforcement officials say the efficiency of the entire process is devastated.
Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is trying to fix it.
"I've been working very hard to get more judges and more federal marshals and more of the clerks and the other specialty items that are used in trying to take care of these huge [case]loads," said Domenici. "We haven't looked at judgeships on a regular basis as these problems of border criminality have grown."
Domenici has proposed several bills aimed at rectifying the situation, including one aiming to increase the number of federal judgeships in districts with heavy criminal immigration caseloads, and another seeking to increase the number of deputy U.S. Marshals investigating immigration crimes.
He also included similar proposals in the controversial Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.
He said those measures to solve the backlog were, in essence, emergency repairs which shouldn't be lumped in with the bigger issue of immigration reform. However, he added that reform was also necessary to prevent future problems.
"We've got to have some real commitment when we get [immigration reform] done -- the public knows what happened, we do them and then we don't enforce them and they don't work," said Domenici. "That's why they're laughing at us. We've got to say, 'Okay, laugh now, but we're going to get it done.'"
In the meantime, Court Clerk Dykman says his staff will just keep soldiering on, despite conditions which sometimes make him shake his head.
"In our district we have to have group guilty pleas," he said. "It's more like a traffic court environment than a federal court environment."
In fact, those five border districts now make up more than 30 percent of all federal criminal cases every year.
(CNSNews.com Correspondent Katherine Poythress contributed to this report.)
Just so NO to the Immigration Bill and call every Senator that is waffling!
Wellll, afterall, they are “UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS” and have MORE RIGHTS than you and I, therefore, they are ALLOWED to use our justice system against us, yes indeedy, clog the courts, sue the gringos, thanks JORGE.
From an Oklahoma email:
This is a FREE number to the Capitol Switchboard to call any Senator or Congressman....... 1-866-220-0044 (I used it today!)
Just say NO to Illegal Aliens Amnesty!!
Keep calling!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your US Senators local offices & email addresses: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c
List of Waffling Republicans - CALL THEM NOW
Lamar Alexander (TN) 202-224-4944
Robert Bennett (UT) 202-224-5444
Thad Cochran (MS) 202-224-5444
Norm Coleman (MN) 202-224-5442
Susan Collins (ME) 202-224-2523
John Cornyn (TX) 202-224-2934
Larry Craig (ID) 202-224-2752
Pete Domenici (NM) 202-224-6621
Judd Gregg (NH) 202-224-3324
Orin Hatch (UT) 202-224-5251
Kay Bailey Hutchison 202-224-5922
John Kyl (AZ) 202-224-4521
Trent Lott (MS) 202-224-6253
Mitch McCaonnell (KY) 202-224-2541
These 19 Republican Senators are said to be “waffling”. They have not yet declared their position on the amnesty bill now that new “concessions” are being offered by Ted Kennedy and the White House in an effort to win their support for immigration amnesty.
Call these Republican Senators TODAY!
Be calm. Be polite.
But be firm when you tell them....
“Vote NO on cloture for the immigration bill”
Tell them, “Secure our borders first...enforce existing laws;
then we’ll talk about reform.”
Isn’t this disgusting? Everytime I open an email in the last few days I get madder!
What did the courts expect? After all, the illegal immigrant problem is receiving lots more coverage and is a major platform issue.
FYI! Now our Federal Courts on the border are getting backlogged thanks to the illegals. What is this President and the people that support this Immigration thinking? Or are they so stubborn in getting this bill passed they don’t care about American citizens and what we think?
Yes it is disgusting - WE are not being heard, the ILLEGALS are running this country,,,,,I WANT THE SAME RIGHTS AS ILLEGALS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Think about it,,,,they get free healthcare, don’t have to register or insure a vehicle, don’t need a driver’s license and in some cases like here in MA they may get free tuition to colleges, yes indeedy, what a great country America is, my grandparents (LEGAL immigrants) are rolling over in their graves.........
If this bill is passed, the courts will be more clogged up. All the aliens will be eligible for FREE lawyers.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
And Domenici that is so concerned is waffling on voting against the Immigration bill which makes no sense.
ARGHH! How simple can this be to fix! You get arrested, if you are illegal, we SHIP YOUR BUTT BACK TO YOUR SORRY COUNTRY!!!
Courts cleared. Done!
ping
I used to be disgusted but now I am getting madder and madder at the travesty that this Administration wants to get passed. We already know in Oklahoma that Sen Inhofe will be on his own in his Senate race after his stand against the White and we will gladly get him reelected.
“We find out who people really are, how dangerous they really are,” said New Mexico Chief Probation Officer Anita Chavez.”
Anita, call Linda!
Bingo! Solutions are simple but this Administration and some in the Senate want us to believe it is a complicated problem. Secure the borders and then start shipping them home.
It is so disgusting! I have started calling other Senators and writing them because my two Senators Inhofe and Coburn are firmly against this Immigration bill.
Used to live in TX so have called them and told them I won’t shop in TX again which I do a lot BTW, if they support this bill and will encourage other Oklahomans to do the same.
At one of the Galleria shops in Dallas, the clerk said they get a lot of Oklahomans shopping there.
Hear hear. I haven’t contributed to the RNC for a long long time now — so I will happily support individual patriots.
Immigration was the one issue about which I really had a problem with Bush. Who knew it would be the ONE issue for which he would really fight? Geeez, he’s caved on everything except the one thing about which he is absolutely wrong.
This isn't a difference of opinion about how to handle something. This is an absolute bull-headed blind-eye refusal to see a problem combined with an obstinate determination to destroy our sovereignty.
What good is liberating Iraq if we lose our own country?
Well, my two senators are kennedy and kerry and you can bet your bippy when they come up for re-election......the idiots here in MA WILL re-elect them.......guaranteed,,,,,,these two idiots can do no wrong - hell, one of them is a murderer and he STILL gets re-elected.....must be nice to be a kennedy........but, I digress.......
This issue is one of the main reasons that some are seeking to fix the problem. If you think it's a problem now, wait until you try to deport 20 million.
Amnesty is coming either way. If not now with Bush, then later with a much more liberal version.
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