President Barack Obama's $600 million border security plan seems to have it all: More than 1,000 agents, seven gunrunner teams, five FBI task forces and more prosecutors and immigration judges.
But it doesn't include $40 million to help the already overwhelmed federal courts along the U.S.-Mexico border that will likely be inundated with additional drug and other criminal cases, a judiciary official tells The Associated Press.
Increased patrols will mean more arrests and more cases sent to the five district courts on the border, from California to Texas. The courts handle cases including drug trafficking, smuggling and illegal immigrants charged with other serious crimes.
"The current workload in our Southwest border courts is staggering," said James Duff, director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
Duff said the judiciary asked Congress for the $40 million on June 22 after realizing it wasn't sent with Obama's plan. He said judiciary requests are usually included with the president's budget proposals, but wasn't in this case.
White House spokesman Luis Miranda said the request wasn't submitted with the president's because it's a separate branch of government.
Obama's plan does include more money for immigration judges, which operate in the executive branch. But those judges deal almost exclusively with civil deportation matters, not criminal cases, like the district courts.
The chief judge for the District of Arizona in Tucson, located in what's become the busiest corridor for illegal immigration and drug smuggling, said he fears that increased patrols will bring even more cases to his already swamped court.
"If you have more agents in the field, they're going to make more apprehensions. ... Being here on the ground in the middle of everything happening, we would have to have more resources if they're going to bring us more cases," Judge John Roll told The AP.
Last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, nearly 2,700 of the district's more than 5,200 criminal cases involved immigration, Roll wrote in a letter this month to a handful of lawmakers on appropriations committees. He said judges work long hours and take cases home on weekends and while they travel.
Judges in the five border courts handle hundreds more cases than most of their counterparts in the rest of the country.
The system became so overrun with pot busts, for example, that until recently federal prosecutors in Arizona generally declined to press charges against marijuana smugglers caught with less than 500 pounds.
The increase in immigration cases since 2005 can be attributed to increased law enforcement and a Border Patrol initiative to arrest and prosecute illegal immigrants in federal courts on charges of illegal entry, rather than send them to an immigration judge for civil deportation proceedings.
In Arizona, nearly 23,000 people were charged with immigration offenses in fiscal year 2009, almost triple the 7,700 people charged with such offenses in fiscal year 2005, according to Duff's office.
Immigration offenses more than doubled in that time in New Mexico and the southern district of California, and nearly doubled in the western district of Texas. Such cases grew by 70 percent in the southern district of Texas, which saw the most total cases at 26,700.
Combined, the border districts handled nearly 75 percent of criminal immigration cases in the nation's 94 districts in fiscal year 2009 and almost 40 percent of all the nation's federal criminal case filings, Duff said.
Duff said his office was not trying to get the $40 million to "feather our own nests. We're doing this basically out of desperation for our courts."
"It's going to overwhelm the system," Duff said. "It undermines the effectiveness of law enforcement if the system can't handle all the cases. The system can't work without additional resources being given to the judicial branch, as well."
He said the $40 million would go toward a new judge in each border district, attorneys for indigent defendants, court security officers and other staff.
David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration lawyer and the incoming president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said he's worried that justice will be compromised in federal courts unable to keep up with the caseload.
"If you get a lot more defendants than you have lawyers to represent them, you get into situations where people feel pressured to plead out their cases without adequate investigation," he said. "You're overloading the system and it has to break somewhere."
SunWorshiper posted at 3:37 pm on Tue, Jun 29, 2010.
I'm sure "Forked" will be here soon to tell me what my opinion really was, but in the meantime, let me say:
Seems to me Obama, Judicial Dept., Homeland Security, et al. are colluding to fail AZ SB1070 before it is even given a chance in AZ, let alone across the country, all things considered.
Take last week's front page story in the Republic talking about a back-log "Immigration Irony." Yes, the story about an illegal husband and wife, both arrested for felony ID theft under an Employer Sanctions "bust" at a car-washer. In the country illegally 16 years for both. They are allowed to plead to a "lesser" felony. Both illegals request a deportation hearing. One gets the hearing in 2012 the other in 2013. In the meantime, they are considered "legal" and the husband for sure will be going back to the carwasher that hires criminal illegals. Oh, yes...they have a 12 year old US citizen daughter. She is the one that can cry-on-demand whether it's Phx TV or Senate hearings in DC. And the kicker to the story was that the husband says he will continue building his house in Mexico (from his job he obtained illegally) BUT it will now be his "vacation" home. Give Me A Break!!
My point is that Obama quietly requested before Memorial Day that the Supreme Court AGAIN review the Employer Sanctions, the deportation hearings are already back-logged, the Judicial is still trying to decide if they will sue AZ, and DHS/ICE appear to be "dumbing down" procedures for pick ups resulting in deportation. All, IMHO, because they can't justify which part of "illegal" allows them to rationalize "mildly illegal" and status quo.
RollerCam posted at 3:54 pm on Tue, Jun 29, 2010.
Illegally entering the United States of America and giving birth to a child for the purpose of exploiting the financial recourses of a nation is nothing more than a fraudulent scheme.
The 14th Amendment was not designed to enable the mining of one country's financial recourses by the citizens of another country, but that's exactly what has happened.
People who demonstrate a propensity to break all laws by illegally entering into the United States blatantly and profoundly live a life of lawlessness while taxing our recourses to depletion.
Should the precious gift of citizenship sought after by the entire world's population of freedom-seeking individuals really be the reward for the end result of a federal crime?
samkat posted at 5:22 pm on Tue, Jun 29, 2010.
I did not note an emphasis on more interior enforcement so it is apparent that the democrats still consider illegals who are successfully eluding the border patrol to have a free pass. ditto, for the ones who came here on visas and disappeared into the woodwork. We have the capability to use our computer data bases more efficiently to track the visas and flag the law enforcement/IRS/SSA/DHS agency screens for detention and investigation if there was a will to do so.
forkedlift1 posted at 4:22 am on Wed, Jun 30, 2010.
SunWorshiper,
I just posted a response (sorry for its length) to you on that "activists" article, and I'd previously written my thoughts as to why the Solicitor General requested a Supreme Court review and decision on the Employer Sanctions Law which was already on appeal by the plaintiffs from the Ninth Circuit. (posted on the employers sanction article)
I don't think the request is sinister, but since it's old law that's been incorporated into SB 1070 and it involves legal issues concerning preemption, they just want the Supreme Court to weigh in on it and render a ruling. Goddard says he thinks they'll affirm the Ninth Circuit's unanimous ruling to uphold the law, and all parties are in agreement that a ruling from the Supremes will offer guidance in future cases concerning federal preemption.
I too read about the "illegal" couple and their daughter and was scratching my head about it as you were. An older rental property owner in Surprise, who's losing Hispanic tenants in great numbers (apparently many "illegals") who are moving to other states kind of pinpointed the cause of the problem.....that for decades or longer people coming here to work from south of the border in violation of our immigration laws were treated by officials with a "wink and a nod," effectively encouraging the practice. Thus the conundrum.
Masterrogue666 posted at 8:27 am on Wed, Jun 30, 2010.
SunWorshiper: I agree with many things you've written here. Are you aware that those person that are NOT of Mexican ancestry cannot purchase land if it borders water? I recall reading that somewhere.
Hopefully America will be able to survive the damage being done by the current President....