Free Republic

TUCSON — “My record is 30 minutes,” Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velasco of Federal District Court here said one afternoon, describing the speed with which he had sealed the fates of a batch of 70 migrants caught sneaking into the country. Each of the accused had 25 seconds, give or take, to hear the charges against him, enter a plea and receive a sentence. This is a part of the battle against illegal immigration that many Americans have never heard of. Known as Operation Streamline, it is the core of a federal program that operates in three border states, using...

A controversial program that has been used against illegal immigrants in Del Rio and Laredo is now being applied in the Rio Grande Valley. The Border Patrol's "Operation Streamline" ended the agency's "catch and release" policy for some illegal immigrants in those sectors and is now doing the same here. The program uses partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies to prosecute illegal immigrants in federal court and house them in local jails. Texas Commission on Jail Standards reports show that most Valley jails are at or near capacity but Border Patrol officials seem confident the program will work...

Borderline Advocacy by: Bethany Stotts, June 11, 2008 Little seems to have changed about the illegal immigration debate within academic and media circles since the demise of “comprehensive immigration reform” in the last Congress. Opponents of strict border enforcement strategies continue to emphasize how enforcement strains government resources. Others continue to emphasize how illegal immigrants come to America merely to gain better jobs. Many of these issues came up in a recent Washington Post article by Spencer S. Hsu titled, “Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High.” The subtitle reads, “Critics Say Increased Use of Criminal Charges Strains System.” The article, which...

It’s called Operation Streamline and, more than any inanimate object such as a fence or a virtual wall can do, Operation Streamline works. How do we know? Because unlike most of the United States, the residents of Eagle Pass, Texas, have seen a dramatic reduction in the influx of illegal immigrants since its inception in December 2005. In the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector, not only has illegal immigration dramatically decreased, there has been a reduction in the amount of illegal drugs making their way across the border too.