The High-Pass Filter In The Texas Jailhouse

The US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Bureau seeks to identify Criminal Aliens for a very simple reason. They want to catch these malefactors and return them to their various and sundry spawning holes. Their portion of the DHS website describes their goals in the following flowery prose.

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) focuses on identifying criminal aliens who are incarcerated within federal, state and local facilities thereby ensuring that they are not released into the community by securing a final order of removal prior to the termination of their sentence.

This doesn’t register in most US states. There are some illegal immigrants everywhere, but in most states, the problem remains on the B-List of most of the citizenry. Things are different in close proximity to the Southern US border.

In Travis County, Texas, the ICE has egregiously worked to execute their mandate. The situation has led to utter controversy. This controversy points to an ongoing problem at DHS. People disrespect them when they shirk their duties, but DHS makes real enemies when it does its assigned tasks.

The Austin-American Statesman points out some of the grim facts of life faced by ICE agents in Texas.

5,000 - Estimated number of visas for low-skilled workers in 2005.

500,000 -Estimated number of low-skilled Mexican workers who entered the U,S. illegally in 2005.

278,000 - Approximate number of illegal immigrants removed in 2007.

95,000 - Approximate number removed with criminal histories.

These statistics point to a number of trends that should have people spitting nails. We’ll start with the pathetically ornamental visa program. This was apparently intended to be a truce on two conditions. One the authorities would know who was coming in from abroad, and two, they’d be able to use the applications as a filter. Let’s look at stat numero dos and see how that cease fire has worked out for the Great State of Texas.

Doing the math between these ROM estimates gives you the sense that the DHS has cognizance of the identity and background of 1% of the low-skilled foreign nationals crossing the border to seek employment in the United States. This makes the Sum of All Fears scenario laid out by Tom Clancy a very realistic one.

The third and forth stats also seem to give reason for the casual observer to wonder, as Former Congressman James Trafficant once did during a one-minute special order, why our border enforcement agency went through the motions with its head ensconced within the folds of its large intestine. Out of the 500,000 that get in, 55% are getting caught and sent back. In my humble opinion, this number is flat-out awful. It’s also grotesquely inflated, and doesn’t tell how badly the US does in securing our national borders.

Out those 278,000 that got returned to sender, 95,000 got nabbed by local authorities first. In other words, they got to the United States illegally; they set up shop, and then again violated the law. At that point, a local sheriff or other police agency did the DHS’ job for them and apprehended these people. DHS at least showed the wisdom to take out this garbage through the CAP.

Assuming the 95,000 would not have been apprehended and deported without the local authorities, the number of successful apprehensions and deportations by 2007 of the 2005 influx would have only equaled approximately 183,000. This would be a shade lower than 37%. The local law enforcement agencies in places like Yuma, AZ and Austin, TX now operate high-pass filters on behalf of the parts of our Federal government that have not been supported well enough to do their work.

If I were a pro-immigrant activist, I would at least show some gratitude that this was happening. A lot of the people leaving Mexico and El Salvador are trying to escape people just like those who wind up with the dregs in the Travis County lockdown and get sent back. The people who have violated US sovereignty for the somewhat benign purpose of finding gainful employment don’t have to be segregated right next to the ones who cross our border to sell more narcotics, or run organized criminal enterprises.

But no, the idea of law-enforcement agencies deporting criminals bothers the terminally self-righteous who will never have to live within ten miles of an illegal alien smuggling ring or a crack house. An immigration attorney in Austin displays just this level of ignorant contempt for the laws that allow him the status of being an officer of the court.

Dan Kowalski, an immigration attorney who is not involved in the local protests, said he would rather see ICE focus on catching the worst criminals that it and other federal agencies are already tracking. "By that I mean gangbangers, (human) smugglers, drug-runners. There are probably enough out there that it's a rich pool of target for ICE to go after instead of trying to pick up" someone whose visa expired, he said.

Another attorney in Austin obliquely compares enforcing America’s immigration rules with enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and denying Women’s Sufferage.

"We can't stop what we're doing just because he says 'I'm not going to change,' " said Nicole True, an Austin criminal defense attorney who compared opponents' efforts with fights to abolish slavery and to give women the right to vote. "People said then, 'Well, that's just the way it is. We're just enforcing the law.' But you know what? Sometimes the law isn't just."

Finally, Attorney Kowalski tells us his real heartache over this entire effort. Having to oppose lawful efforts to remove felonious individuals with no legal right to have come here to commit their nefarious deeds in the first place, makes him look callous with regards to law and order.

"It makes us look like we don't care about the law — and really, we should be focused on changing the law so that we don't need all these enforcement efforts or need fewer of them or more targeted ones," he said.

I can give Kowalski an obvious suggestion he doesn’t want to here. If we finished building the fence on our Southern Border, it would be a whole lot harder for felons to act like felons here. Then the Travis County Sheriff’s Office could focus on our home grown termagants, and let Central American wag halters, and cutthroats run afoul of Los Federales instead.

This would get The Great State of Texas out of the business of providing DHS with a lhighpass alien filter, and Attorney Kowalski wouldn’t have to feel conflicted in the slightest. That would be perfect for him, wouldn’t it? Never.