Tuesday
July 26 2005
CATCH AND RELEASE: Mind boggling report from the Christian
Science Monitor today on the upsurge in non-Mexican illegals
crossing our southern border:
Because OTMs, or "Other Than Mexicans"
as the Border Patrol classifies them, must be returned to their
country of origin, they cannot be simply sent back across the
southern border, as most Mexicans are. Under US law, they must
be detained (in the US) pending a deportation hearing. The problem
is, immigration detention centers are packed, so most OTMs are
given a court summons and told to return in three months. A
full 85 percent don't.
According to the Border Patrol, some 465,000
OTMs have taken advantage of this "catch and release"
policy to settle here in the US. "It's an insane policy
which encourages OTMs to come into the country illegally, and
we shouldn't be shocked that they are coming in record numbers,"
says T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council,
which represents more than 9,000 agents.
In fact, he says, after crossing the border,
many OTMs flag down agents or walk up to them and surrender,
knowing they will be released. "The word is out,"
says Mr. Bonner. "They know that as soon as they are caught,
they will be free to roam at will."
Like most Americans, I'm a huge believer in the
value of legal immigration. It is, after all, the foundation upon
which this great nation was built. I also recognize that it's
simply not possible - nor is it necessarily desirable from an
economic standpoint - to try and identify and deport the 10-12
million people currently estimated to be in the United States
illegally.
All that
being said, we must enforce our immigration laws as a matter of
principle and protect our borders as a matter of national security.Nearly
four years after September 11, we've made some progress enhancing
border security through investments in technology and manpower.
But much more needs to be done. And neither Congress nor the Bush
administration have addressed the fundamental issue of immigration
reform.
For those who missed it, over the weekend we ran
op-eds from Senators John
Cornyn and Jon
Kyl who have introduced an immigration bill to compete with
the version offered earlier this year by Senators Ted Kennedy
and John McCain (Press
release | Detailed
analysis of bill (pdf)).
Neither of
these bills is perfect, but at least they offer a start at putting
in place an immigration policy that is 1) rational, 2) balances
national security against the needs of business and, 3) most importantly,
is actually enforced by properly staffed government agencies.
THINGS
TO LIKE - 2005: Tony Blair, Red Stripe beer, and RealClearPolitics.
Sounds like a
great list to me. - T. Bevan 8:55 am Link
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