Posted on 10/13/2001 10:51:53 AM PDT by sarcasm
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has a backlog of 300,000 cases of foreigners who have been ordered out of the country but who slipped out of sight before they could be deported.
"If the INS can find the person, we deport them," said Karen Kraushaar, a spokeswoman for the agency, on Thursday. The trouble is that many change their names or move to an unknown address, and the INS has only 2,000 investigative agents nationwide to track them down.
"The numbers are against us," she said.
In response, the agency has classified hundreds of thousands of cases as "unexecutable" deportation orders and focused its attention on arresting aliens who are known criminals. The rest of the deportables merely have to keep a low profile and avoid trouble with local law enforcement, she said.
"In fact, that's part of the difficulty with (finding) the individuals affiliated with bin Laden," Kraushaar said of the government's new focus on ferreting out the terrorist organization led by Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden.
If terrorists come into the country as "sleepers," live quietly, and wait for orders to strike, she said, "It's very difficult to find them."
Even if such people have been ordered deported by a federal immigration court because they overstayed their visas, they might not have come to the attention of the INS investigators, Kraushaar said.
Foreigners can be deported for a number of reasons, including criminal activities. The most common charges involve some kind of visa violation, usually staying longer than authorized.
Moreover, aliens frequently avoid deportation by failing to appear for legal proceedings. In 1999, for example, the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review heard more than 215,000 deportation cases. In roughly 25 percent, the defendant was a no-show.
The number of aliens who evade deportation has been relatively little noticed until now. However, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said the numbers so angered one federal administrative immigration judge that he recently called to complain that aliens he has ordered deported continue to live freely in the country.
Tancredo, who heads a congressional immigration reform caucus, has raised the subject with fellow Republicans and the House leadership. Still, it's unclear whether any action will be taken.
"It's nothing that can be handled tomorrow because there are only 2,000 people" in the INS investigative branch, he said in an interview. "So it will come more as a result of reforms of the INS."
"Maybe we could force them to share their information with local police and have the local police see if they can pick these people up," Tancredo suggested.
A change in immigration law in 1996 was intended to encourage the INS to recruit the assistance from local police in finding those on the deportation list. But generally that has been seen as having little effect, and the responsibility has fallen almost entirely on the INS.
There is simply no way to make it work...
Other solutions will have to be found...
And eliminating the freedom of citizens is not it...
And never forget, Clinton installed Doris Meissner as head of the INS, who allowed the rape of INS to proceed.
And for some really obscure info, who was Doris married to?
"Charles Meissner, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Policy.
Died: UNK - Following Ron Brown's death, John Huang was placed on a Commerce Department contract that allowed him to retain his security clearance by Charles Meissner. Shortly thereafter, Charles Meissner died in the crash of a small plane."
And your solution?
Pat was accused of demagoging the issue. Now we know who really was.
We need a complete and massive overhaul of our immigration, visa and naturalization policies. An immigration moratorium of ten years and a complete analysis of who, what and where we have let in is an absolute must!
Vigilantism works for me. Citizen soldiers, so to speak.
How does this effect the "freedom of citizens"? Are we not talking about foreigners who over-stay or are in violation of their visas?
Not sure...
But that still doesn't change the fact that massive deportations are impossible to achieve...
All the people that think something like that could even remotely be executed successfully are simply not facing reality...
They might as well demand we send all terrorists to the moon...
I didn't say that it did... But the desire of the government to "do something" can very easily result in the death of your freedom... Massive deportations are not possible... So the next step that could easily be attemped, with sheeple support, would be massive government control of people here...
Are we not talking about foreigners who over-stay or are in violation of their visas?
If they can't get out 300,000 people, then they can't get out the millions of possible terrorist suspects...
Au contraire. Most people in a given community know *exactly* where the immigrants live. House-to-house searches would be a good place to start. We're not talking about restricting the freedoms of citizens here. We're talking about *criminals* who are not even US citizens to start with. We CAN deport illegal aliens if we have the national will to do it.
You are advancing a classic straw man argument which implies that only a massive military/police effort could be used to deport the umpteen thousands of illegal aliens then knock the idea down by saying it is impossible anyway. The solution is to beef up the INS and border patrols and grant local police more power to detain suspects until the INS can clear them. It would probably take a few years to deport most of the illegals in this country but the mission would ultimately be successful. Plus, as word gets out that America is no longer a playpen for the welfare seekers and criminals of this world you can bet that foreign nationals with ill-intent will think twice before trying to take advantage of our good will.
Any that refuse to go would make themselves criminals. Deporting illegals would be much easier than in the past, with so many watchful eyes applying sensible "profiling."
Socialists in Congress? Click on the zeppelin, Grasshopper.
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