Tougher border enforcement has backfired, experts say
By Spencer S. Hsu
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Beefed-up enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border since Sept. 11, 2001, has substantially increased the number of arrests of illegal immigrants, but tens of thousands of captured non-Mexicans continue to be released into the United States because there is no place to hold them, according to experts and immigration officials.
The vast majority simply slip away inside the country after being issued "Notices to Appear" for a deportation hearing — documents known to Border Patrol agents as "Notices to Disappear."
The success of border crossers who stay in the United States through this "catch-and-release" process has encouraged others who hope to enter the country the same way.
In a dozen speeches since October, President Bush has vowed to replace catch-and-release with the "catch-and-return" of 160,000 "other than Mexican" (OTM) immigrants arrested each year. The goal is to deny court hearings to all but asylum seekers, speed deportations and make the most of limited detention space.
But as Washington debates the overhaul of the nation's immigration laws and Bush prepares to address the nation on border protection today, the persistent catch-and-release problem is a reminder of costly and unintended consequences of past enforcement efforts.
Even if authorities overcome operational and legal hurdles to curb the flow of people from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries, experts say they will be addressing only a tiny sliver of the illegal-immigration problem. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested nearly 1.2 million people last year — the vast majority of them Mexicans who were returned across the border — and estimates that 500,000 others evaded capture.
"What Congress has built is one of the most expensive revolving doors in the world," said Victor Cerda, former chief of staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Since the founding of the Homeland Security Department, arrests of non-Mexican border crossers have tripled, from 49,545 in 2003 to 155,000 in 2005. But there has not been a corresponding support for detention beds, courts, inland enforcement or diplomatic and administrative reforms.
As a result, the spike in arrests backfired, because there was no place to put the tens of thousands of new detainees. Overwhelmed immigration courts can't keep up.
Beset by start-up and coordination problems in the new Homeland Security Department, ICE faced a $500 million budget deficit in 2004, leaving a fourth of its detention jobs unfilled. As arrests climbed last year, Border Patrol agents released 70 percent of non-Mexicans into the country. Of those released and later ordered to leave the country, only 18 percent do.
Word soon spread to smugglers and illegal immigrants.
Federal statistics show the result: The number of illegal immigrants who failed to appear in court after being arrested and released more than tripled from 29,550 in 2003 to 97,868 in 2005, or 60 percent of cases, up from 32 percent.
"The system is broken as we've known it. ... It's a joke," said Robert Bonner, head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2003 to 2005. For those considering entering the country illegally, Bonner said, "it was the opposite of deterrence. It was an invitation."
The new attempt to solve the problem draws critics from the right and left. To those who want tougher enforcement, the offensive on non-Mexicans tackles only a small portion of the flow of illegal immigration and amounts to "window dressing" that obscures feckless efforts elsewhere.
"It's not quite as important as the administration would have you believe," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stronger enforcement. "Focusing on just one rivulet of this flood is missing the point."
Among pro-immigration advocates, the changes "put a Band-Aid on a broken leg," said Christina DeConcini, director of policy at the National Immigration Forum. With the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the United States at nearly 12 million and growing by perhaps 500,000 a year, the nation can't enforce its way out of the problem, DeConcini said.
Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff propose to reduce the flow of illegal immigration by creating a guest-worker program and a path for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. They would toughen enforcement at the borders and inside the country through new surveillance technology and crackdowns on employers.
They have proposed $858 million more for 1,500 new Border Patrol agents — which would bring the total to 14,000, a 62 percent increase since 2001 — and 6,700 new detention beds, for a total of 27,500.
Mexicans will not be detered.
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Updated: 10:47 p.m. MT May 27, 2006
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