Report: Immigration detentions dropped, greater share had criminal convictions in late 2009
By Suzanne Gamboa, APFriday, February 12, 2010
ICE non-criminal detentions fell for 3 months
WASHINGTON — A decline in detentions of immigrants without criminal records led to an overall drop in the detention population late last year, a data research group reported Friday.
Roughly one in four immigration detainees — or 27 percent — had criminal records between October 2008 and September 2009, the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported.
But the number of immigrants with criminal convictions increased to about four of 10 — or 43 percent — between October and December 2009 and is trending upward, according to TRAC.
There was no increase in the overall number of detainees with criminal arrests. The numbers are tracked by fiscal year, which is a 12-month period beginning on Oct. 1.
ICE told TRAC it agreed with the findings, but says more complete data shows a modest increase in the detention of immigrants with criminal records.
That data has not yet been provided to TRAC, which is a nonpartisan data research group supported by numerous foundations and based at Syracuse University in New York.
ICE spokesman Brian Hale said the agency is focused on immigration enforcement that “focuses first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities.”
TRAC researchers said they analyzed hundreds of thousands of ICE records about every detainee held from the 2005 fiscal year through the first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year.
The study bolsters criticism leveled at the Bush administration in recent years that it failed to follow Congress’ mandate to give priority to detaining and deporting non-citizens who posed a threat to U.S. safety and security.
Between fiscal years 2005 and 2009, Congress funneled $24 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with most of that money going to detention and removal operations, TRAC researchers said. Detention beds increased with the money. The detention population rose from 223,417 in the twelve-month period that ended in September 2005 to 383,524 in the yearlong period ending in September 2009.
Sue Long, TRAC co-director, said if the trend of fewer non-criminal detainees continues, the Obama administration’s detention policies would be in line with Congress’ mandate. But she cautioned the three-month trend could be a blip.
Also, the report notes that only a small number of people defined as “criminal aliens” include those convicted of serious crimes such as armed robbery, human trafficking and drug smuggling. The rest includes people convicted of minor violations such as traffic offenses, disorderly conduct and illegal entry.
On the Net: trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/224/
February 14, 2010: 5:42 pm
Its imperative that–YOU–don’t let your state fall into the same financial quagmire, as the illegal alien SANCTUARY STATE OF CALIFORNIA. E-Verify, the foreign labor removal system has been ignored by the Sacramento assembly, because they have been overwhelmed by corporate lobbyists. The payoff is large campaign contributions and likely undisclosed cash gifts. This is why California has been in political turmoil for years, unable to pass any worthwhile legislations. California is America’s largest population of illegal immigrants, and likely illegal voters as there is no true ID oversight to who votes? California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast growing, low-income segment of its population. NumbersUSA website indicates 43 percent of all illegal aliens live in California as of 2006. According to U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS), an estimated 2,209,000 illegal immigrants resided in California in 2000, up from 1,476,000 in 1990. More than 66% of all births in California are to illegal aliens from South of the border on Medi-Cal and CalWorks. 40% of all workers in L.A. County ( L.A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, visa over-stayers border jumpers are working without papers or with fraudulent documents, drivers licenses or Social Security Numbers. E-Verify should be mandated by Homeland Security and ICE in California, no longer as a preference to parasite business.Every business within thew state should be forced to use E-Verify, with appropriate severe punishments. E-Verify must be a countrywide law, not at the whim of company owners. GOT A PROBLEM WITH YOUR STATUS, GO TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE FOR JOB CLEARANCE. Instead of underfunding National Security as Obama has done, this should be of the highest priority. Eventually terrorists will slip across the perforated border, if they are not already planning deadly attacks inside cities now. We cannot as a country be dictated to by corrupt politicians, because of the exaggerated need for cheap labor. Before ICE raids were compromised by Janet Napolitano and the open border fanatics, hundreds of real Americans lined-up for jobs, we have been indoctrinated in the old, tired statement, “Jobs that Americans wont do..? ” Its been a conspiracy from the start by open border extremists, through three presidents that we have secured our borders, when laws have been derailed. Including the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that to this day has never been enforced. Well after watching American Indians recruited by the US Border Agency, to patrol their own land. That the border is still wide open, to drug traffickers, gun runners, heinous criminals and large groups of illegal aliens crossing each day. American Patrol, a resilient pro-sovereignty group has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that–THE BORDER IS FAR FROM SECURE. Amazed that Napolitano would lie to Congress, because what I have seen along the international border is neglected stretches of simple rusty barbed wire. I am amazed with such a few BP officers, covering massive areas of open land manage to capture the amount of elicit drugs and illegal aliens that they do. Nothing could be far from the truth, that even the millions of dollars spent on border, does not represent the original conception of Rep. Duncan Hunter’s two layered fencing. You will–NEVER–find the truth in the Liberal Press, such as Los Angeles Times or the New York Times. We have been lied to? Unless we are willing to drive to the border and observe the fencing, the American Public will remain completely ignorant. Key findings in a report by Judicial Watch, that the state’s already strangled K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. Another $1.4 billion of the taxpayers’ money goes toward providing health care to illegal aliens and their families, the same amount that is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals. Stated Dan Stein, President of FAIR. “California’s addiction to ‘cheap’ illegal alien laborers and their extended families has near bankrupted the state and posing enormous burdens on the state’s shrinking middle class tax base,” Californians, who have seen their taxes increase while public services deteriorate, already know the impact that mass illegal immigration is having on their neighborhoods, but even they may be alarmed when they learn just how much of a drain illegal immigration has become. California was subsidizing illegal immigrants to the tune of about $1.1 billion (1994) annually. Intentional US population numbers have been sterile for years, because our government doesn’t want–THE PEOPLE–to know the truth? A large percentage of foreign women have deliberately illegally entered our nation, to deliver their babies. Our overwhelmed welfare system has attributed to highest number of pregnant women, receiving free natal treatment for “Anchor Baby Children. The enormous rise in the costs of illegal immigrants over the intervening eighteen years, is due to the rapid growth in illegal settlement. It is reasonable to expect those costs to continue to rise if action is not taken to turn the immigration tide.” In 1994 was the year that California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration. As I have mentioned before, that the 187 law was intentionally engineered to terminate its course, to the highest court in the land where its constitutionality could have been proved. Since then, state and local liberal majority assembly have blatantly ignored the wishes of the angry voters and continued to shell out publicly financed benefits on illegal families. The costs of illegal immigration have grown demographically across this nation, while border states has spiraled into a fiscal catastrophe that has brought many to the edge of bankruptcy. Nothing could more starkly illustrate the very high costs of ‘cheap labor’ than the SANCTUARY STATE of California’s current unresolved situation. Numerous numbers of powerful special interests in the state reap profits, while the average indigenous-born family in California gets handed a nearly $2.000 a year bill with more to come? Learn more from NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH about the corruption in California’s Capitol, the open border lobbyists, the illegal immigration occupation, welfare expenditures, pandering politicians such as Sen.Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi. Secret talks on a trillion dollar AMNESTY. Read how HSC Nopolitano has suppressed 287 (G) local and state police training programs to detain illegal immigrants and complicity in stalling ICE raids and starving the Immigration & customs Enforcement needed extra funding, while awarding ACORN , $3.5 million dollars, a staunch ally of the illegal alien invasion. Turn the tables and demand more enforcement from your state and Federal representatives at 202-224-3121 |
Brittanicus