Dee Perez-Scott: To Ease California Prison Overcrowding, Secure the Border

While Californians contemplate this week’s Supreme Court 5-4 decision to eventually release 33,000 inmates from state prisons, the question most frequently asked is how did the overcrowding get so acute? As it does with California’s deteriorated K-12 public school system, jammed hospital emergency rooms and bumper-to-bumper highways, unchecked immigration plays a major role.

Although many immigrants come to California to pursue the proverbial “better life,” others arrive with the explicit intent of dealing drugs, robbing banks and joining gangs. Sooner or later, these ne’er-do-wells land in prison. If and when they’re released, some may be deported back to their country of national origin. But that doesn’t mean California has seen the last of them. Reentry is as easy as one, two, three.

A simple question: wouldn’t California’s prisons be under less population pressure if the federal government secured the border and internally enforced immigration laws?

Elected officials rarely admit the connection between more immigration and California’s prison mess. During years of debate about the looming crisis, band aid solutions like outsourcing 10,000 inmates to Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi have been tried but a concerted effort with the Department of Homeland Security to seal the border has been not fully explored.

Identifying who is and is not an immigrant prisoner is tough. Many with ethnic surnames are American citizens. Others may be illegal aliens. During a 2010 California Assembly meeting about prisons, Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, asked how many “foreign nationals” are incarcerated. The Department of Finance representative answered confusingly that 11 percent, approximately 25,000, inmates are undocumented felons but not necessarily “foreign nationals.”

In March, the General Accounting Office issued a report titled Criminal Alien Statistics: Information on Incarcerations, Arrests and Costs. Among its findings were that in fiscal 2010 the aggregate number of foreign nationals in federal prisons stood at 55,000. The GAO also estimated that at least 50 percent had drug related offenses and 40 percent had been convicted of Department of Justice terrorism related charges. The average incarcerated alien had seven arrests and committed an average of 12 offenses. For Californians, these statistics represent grim financial news. In 2009, the latest year available for analysis, California taxpayers spent about $1.1 billion to incarcerate illegal aliens. Broken down, that total includes Los Angeles County, $139 million and Orange County, $88 million.

On a more positive note, the GAO analysis found that ICE removed more criminal aliens for the last three years. The number ordered deported rose from 7,000 in 2007 to 79,000 in 2010.

Returning to my original question: Wouldn’t it be easier if the criminals never got to the United States in the first place?

With President Obama relentlessly lobbying for open borders, tighter security isn’t on the immediate horizon. Nevertheless, some domestic safety measures are within reach.

First, end the Justice Department’s subsidy of sanctuary cities. Each year, the DOJ awards millions of dollars in grants through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program to cities that have publicly announced that they give safe harbor to illegal aliens. Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, for example, received nearly $18 million from DOJ despite having municipal policies that encourage criminals to hide out in their cities.

Second, make enrollment in the Secure Communities program that links DOJ and DHS databases mandatory. By allowing an immigration check to be run at booking, Secure Communities flags foreign national criminals and notifies ICE. Amazingly, however, many cities have not signed on, apparently indicating that they prefer keeping alien criminals in their midst.

The long term solution to California prison overcrowding is not releasing or outsourcing felons or building more prisons but tighter borders, more internal enforcement and less political correctness.

DHS Report on Deportations -- A Mixed Bag

The Department of Homeland Security set a new record for illegal alien deportations in fiscal year 2010, removing nearly 400,000 illegal aliens. About half, 195,000, were convicted criminals, which amounts to a 70 percent increase from 2008, but the Administration continues to ignore the millions of illegal aliens who hold jobs in the United States.

The increase in criminal alien deportations is mostly due to the expanded Secure Communities initiative, which uses fingerprints taken from criminals by local police officers and compares it with data kept by federal immigration officials. In 2008, only 14 communities were part of the program, but it's been expanded to more than 660municipalities.The other 200,000 illegal aliens deported had either just recently crossed the border or were fugitives from immigration courts.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials also audited more than 2,200 hiring documents from various businesses and levied $50 million in fines to the companies that hired illegal aliens. But the agency has done nothing to address the estimated 8 million illegal aliens holding jobs while 22 million Americans are can't find a job. Moreover, the agency has failed to importune Congress to make E-verification mandatory across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, current and potential new hires. The implementation of E-verification would permit ICE to identify more miscreant employers through audits of their E-verify records.
The record of the Obama Administration is mixed. While Pres. Obama has not ended immigration enforcement entirely, the numbers do not look so good when looking at the non-felony illegal aliens. The Administration tends to largely ignore them, granting what amounts to a de facto amnesty to this very large segment of the illegal alien population. It is a benefit to society if more felony criminal aliens are being removed from the country. Although the increase is relatively modest, the trend is hopeful. These criminals are the ones most likely to quickly return to the U.S., relying on the Administration’s inattention to the vast majority of the illegals to provide cover for them as they continue their criminal activities with little interruption.

The Obama Administration is treating illegal aliens who are keeping unemployed Americans from having jobs as though that is not a serious issue. Mr. Obama's constant efforts to bar states and localities from moving illegal foreign workers out of their jobs to make room for unemployed Americans belie a truly serious effort to combat illegal immigration.

Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Lamar Smith (R-Texas) also offered a comment on the DHS report.

“The deportation of criminal aliens is only one piece of the immigration enforcement pie. While criminal arrests may be on the rise, worksite enforcement has been all but forgotten by the Obama administration. Millions of Americans are struggling to find work, while an estimated seven million illegal immigrants are working in the U.S. Worksite enforcement could help make those much-needed jobs available for U.S. citizen and legal immigrant workers.
"But under President Obama, worksite enforcement administrative arrests are down 77%, criminal arrests are down 60%, indictments are down 64% and convictions are down 68%."
“The Obama administration needs to do more than just enforce a few immigration laws. In addition to deporting criminal aliens, they need to secure the border to ensure those deported cannot come right back into the U.S. And they need to conduct worksite enforcement to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants and make millions of jobs available to U.S. citizen and legal immigrant workers.”

What is still missing in the Administration’s approach is the mandatory implementation of E-verification across the board immediately, no more excuses or foot dragging. Border security in depth requires vigorous and continuous internal enforcement. E-verification and workplace audits are the essential tools of enforcement.

A 20 Point Plan to Curb Illegal Aliens

1. Make it easier to immigrate legally to the U.S. but reduce the total number allowed to no more than 250,000 per year in all categories.
2. Repeal NAFTA, CAFTA and all other trade agreements to enable the poor in other countries to make a living.
3. Make E-verification of work status mandatory.
4. Require foreign workers to be paid at the same rate as American workers.
5. Deduct $100,000 from U.S. foreign aid to Mexico for every illegal alien apprehended internally or caught trying to violate the border.
6. Require every illegal alien apprehended at the border or internally to serve a six month sentence.
7. Impose harsh penalties on landlords who rent living quarters to anyone not in this country legally.
8. Withhold all federal funds from any cities or other local governments who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
9. Require every foreigner seeking work in the United States under a temporary worker program to have a temporary work authorization card issued by the United States.
10. If a U.S. company can prove that it cannot fill its jobs with citizen workers, it may apply to one of the federally-licensed employment agencies for the admission of the number of foreign workers needed.
11. Fine employers of illegal aliens on an escalating scale whether or not they hired them knowingly.
12. Stop employers from exploiting cheap immigrant labor by enforcing existing labor laws.
13. Vigorously and continuously pursue internal enforcement of immigration laws and provide for expeditious repatriation of illegals after they have served any prescribed sentence.
14. Issue a counterfeit-proof, machine-readable, biometric ID to all those who can prove their citizenship or permanent residency status with multiple non-fraudulent documents presented for careful review and confirmation.
15. Reinterpret the 14th Amendment to require at least one parent to be a citizen before any child can be awarded birthright citizenship.
16. Limit chain immigrations to the minor children and spouses of citizens.
17. Focus immigration quotas on those most likely to enable the U.S. to regain its fiscal solvency and remain competitive in the global economy.
18. Make everyone who enters this country illegally permanently ineligible for naturalized citizenship.
19. Make true fluency in English a mandatory requirement for citizenship.
20. Make English the official language of the United States and repeal EO 13166.

What Porous Borders Really Mean!

Just last year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before a Senate panel that Mexican drug cartels were operating in as many as 230 American cities. During her testimony, she claimed that cartels are the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.

The federal government’s refusal to secure the border has enabled Mexican cartels to operate across America. In April, a North Carolina DEA special agent reported that Mexican drug organizations have taken over most of the Charlotte heroin market.

At the same time in Oregon, about a dozen armed marijuana growers were caught working for a Mexican drug family. Last December, Salvador Guzman, a member of a Mexico-based cartel, imported and concealed kilograms of cocaine in the drive shaft of vehicles. He transported the drugs to the Midwest, dismantled the drive shafts, extracted the cocaine and delivered it to customers in Ohio and Tennessee.

Mexican drug trafficking organizations are now operating in every region of the United States. Last year, there were more than 200 incursions of ultra-light aircraft crossing the southwest border. These aircraft have become the transport of choice for many cartel operatives and traffickers to ferry drugs and cash and help give cartels links in virtually every state in America.

The Department of Justice now reports that Mexican cartels have expanded operations in Florida, the Mid-Atlantic, New York, New Jersey, and New England. Cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, and New York City, as well as parts of North Carolina, serve as consolidation points for tens of billions of dollars in bulk cash drug proceeds that are smuggled into Mexico.

Mexican cartels are also expanding outdoor marijuana cultivation in the U.S. from their traditional strongholds in California, Washington, and Oregon to states such as Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Cartels aren’t the only organizations that see our ill-defended border as their strategic opportunity. There is little doubt that terrorists are constantly attempting to illegally cross into our country to try and harm innocent Americans.

Since January, Mexican immigration officials have detained more than 600 individuals from more than two dozen nations trying to enter the United States illegally, including those from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

Our porous border endangers every American, yet Washington refuses to make border security a priority. President Obama’s recent proposal, which would provide up to 1,200 members of the National Guard across a 2,000 mile border, would only add one guardsman for every 1.6 miles of border.

Obama’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2011 cuts the Secure Border Initiative by more than 25 percent and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program by more than 12 percent. At first, the White House even proposed cutting the Border Patrol by 181 agents, before many of us in Congress pushed back. The Obama’s proposals are an unacceptably small short-term solution to a large long-term border problem.

Calderon, the Hypocrite

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door “to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement.” But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens.

While open-borders activists decry new enforcement measures signed into law in “Nazi-zona” last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.

The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally.

If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?

-- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset “the equilibrium of the national demographics.” How’s that for racial and ethnic profiling?

-- If outsiders do not enhance the country’s “economic or national interests” or are “not found to be physically or mentally healthy,” they are not welcome. Neither are those who show “contempt against national sovereignty or security.” They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.

-- Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years’ imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment. Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama’s illegal alien aunt—a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim).

-- Law enforcement officials at all levels—by national mandate—must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens’ arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities.

-- Ready to show your papers? Mexico’s National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens’ identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.

All of these provisions are enshrined in Mexico’s Ley General de Población (General Law of the Population) and were spotlighted in a 2006 research paper published by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy. There’s been no public clamor for “comprehensive immigration reform” in Mexico, however, because pro-illegal alien speech by outsiders is prohibited.

Consider: Open-borders protesters marched freely at the Capitol building in Arizona, comparing GOP Gov. Jan Brewer to Hitler, waving Mexican flags, advocating that demonstrators “Smash the State,” and holding signs that proclaimed “No human is illegal” and “We have rights.”

But under the Mexican constitution, such political speech by foreigners is banned. Noncitizens cannot “in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.” In fact, a plethora of Mexican statutes enacted by its congress limit the participation of foreign nationals and companies in everything from investment, education, mining and civil aviation to electric energy and firearms. Foreigners have severely limited private property and employment rights (if any).

As for abuse, the Mexican government is notorious for its abuse of Central American illegal aliens who attempt to violate Mexico’s southern border. The Red Cross has protested rampant Mexican police corruption, intimidation and bribery schemes targeting illegal aliens there for years. Mexico didn’t respond by granting mass amnesty to illegal aliens, as it is demanding that we do. It clamped down on its borders even further. In late 2008, the Mexican government launched an aggressive deportation plan to curtain illegal Cuban immigration and human trafficking through Cancun.

Meanwhile, Mexican consular offices in the United States have coordinated with left-wing social justice groups and the Catholic Church leadership to demand a moratorium on all deportations and a freeze on all employment raids across America.

Mexico is doing the job Arizona is now doing—a job the U.S. government has failed miserably to do: putting its people first. Here’s the proper rejoinder to all the hysterical demagogues in Mexico (and their sympathizers here on American soil) now calling for boycotts and invoking Jim Crow laws, apartheid and the Holocaust because Arizona has taken its sovereignty into its own hands:

Hipócritas.