Patterico's Pontifications

12/6/2010

Obama Caught Cooking the Books on Deportations

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 5:23 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Let’s all remember this next time someone says that Obama is enforcing immigration law.  Oh, and let’s remember that he is doing little to ensure that they don’t turn around and come right back:

Unusual methods helped ICE break deportation record, e-mails and interviews show

For much of this year, the Obama administration touted its tougher-than-ever approach to immigration enforcement, culminating in a record number of deportations.

But in reaching 392,862 deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement included more than 19,000 immigrants who had exited the previous fiscal year, according to agency statistics. ICE also ran a Mexican repatriation program five weeks longer than ever before, allowing the agency to count at least 6,500 exits that, without the program, would normally have been tallied by the U.S. Border Patrol.

When ICE officials realized in the final weeks of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, that the agency still was in jeopardy of falling short of last year’s mark, it scrambled to reach the goal. Officials quietly directed immigration officers to bypass backlogged immigration courts and time-consuming deportation hearings whenever possible, internal e-mails and interviews show.

Instead, officials told immigration officers to encourage eligible foreign nationals to accept a quick pass to their countries without a negative mark on their immigration record, ICE employees said.

The option, known as voluntary return, may have allowed hundreds of immigrants – who typically would have gone before an immigration judge to contest deportation for offenses such as drunken driving, domestic violence and misdemeanor assault – to leave the country. A voluntary return doesn’t bar a foreigner from applying for legal residence or traveling to the United States in the future.

Once the agency closed the books for fiscal 2010 and the record was broken, agents say they were told to stop widely offering the voluntary return option and revert to business as usual.

Read the whole thing. And good for the WaPo for calling them out.

But the other thing that this results in is a lower quality of deportations.  If they are trying to meet a quota, they are not going to go after the drug lord, whose business hires him excellent attorneys able to put up a first class fight.  No, they will go after the poor guy who can only hope to get a good Federal Public Defender.  And they are pretty good lawyers, but their resources are not unlimited.  But I don’t know about you, but I would rather they deport one drug lord than one hundred day laborers.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

30 Responses to “Obama Caught Cooking the Books on Deportations”

  1. Could we outsource the management/supervision of ICE to the first 200 names on the current Eagle Scout rolls?
    At least then, there would be a greater institutional push-back against lying, cheating, and other immoral behavior (all the SOP’s of the Govt in general, and the Obambi Administration in particular.

    AD-RtR/OS! (d1729f)

  2. I remember when the trolls had that as their talking point.

    JD (eb5afc)

  3. Cue leftward leaning, (yet outraged at such blatant gamesmanship) mainstream media coverage in three…two…one…. (Ahem) “THREE.” “TWO.” “ONE.”

    .
    .
    .
    .
    ………

    ah phukit, I’m going to bed.

    p.s. “Bambi played, druglords stayed.”

    rtrski (6016f2)

  4. ah shoot, forgot the angly brackets get taken as code, my [crickets chirping] insert disappeared.

    rtrski (6016f2)

  5. off topic but did we know this already?

    James D. Catlin, a lawyer who recently represented Assange, said the sex assault investigation into the WikiLeaks founder is based on claims he didn’t use condoms during sex with two Swedish women.

    Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called “sex by surprise” or “unexpected sex.”*

    nobody tells me anything

    happyfeet (c0d821)

  6. Sex by surprise ?!?!

    JD (eb5afc)

  7. Its a term for someone semi concious

    EricPWJohnson (e83e82)

  8. So Assange likes them the same way Polanski does?

    JD (eb5afc)

  9. Yeah, and its tough to get my liberal brethren in Gotenburg to take a stand, hard to believe these people almost conquered europe and russia

    EricPWJohnson (e83e82)

  10. The key word is “almost”!

    AD-RtR/OS! (d1729f)

  11. The failure to use a condom during a nonconsenual sex act, raises the legal consequences – so the lawyer trivializing it is doing that to gin up pressure on the spinless gothys

    EricPWJohnson (e83e82)

  12. AD

    Actually they did, Everyone in Central and Northern Europe and Russa is Nordic all the way to the Crimea

    The Romanians, Turks, and Franks were pushed to their spots they reside in today

    They didnt bother with Scotland and Ireland for the obvious reasons that with tightfitting helmets Vikings dont like alot of blather

    EricPWJohnson (e83e82)

  13. Yes, and they had such a lasting impact, as Swedish is spoken from the Volga to the Pyrenees, from Murmansk to Sevastapol.

    AD-RtR/OS! (d1729f)

  14. Upphör med sarkasmen, eller jag skövlar din stad!

    Eric Blood-axe (fb9e90)

  15. Actually English and Russian are dialects

    they also founded America

    and other stuff, including annoyng liberalism and boring novels

    EricPWJohnson (e83e82)

  16. Great link, Eric.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  17. But I don’t know about you, but I would rather they deport one drug lord than one hundred day laborers.

    Not me. Those 100 day laborers are going to have 5 babies each, all eligible for schooling, free medical care, food stamps, etc, etc, etc. We need indiscriminate enforcement. If ICE can drive down to Home Depot and round up 20 day laborers per day, they will be a lot more productive than if they were to spend 6 months just to get rid of one drug dealer.

    Anon Y. Mous (2f1db6)

  18. Plus, the drug dealers provide bountiful employment in the hospitality and service industries – think high-end car sales, glitzy restaurants, and 5-star resorts; not to mention yachts (that they don’t steal for business purposes).

    AD-RtR/OS! (d1729f)

  19. Actually, voluntary exit triggers a three-year bar to reentry for anyone in the US illegally (including visa overstay) for 180 days but less than one year. Involuntary (deportation) does not.

    (One year or more, whether the exit is voluntary or involuntary, triggers a ten-year bar to reentry.)

    nk (db4a41)

  20. Yes, how dare they attempt to break their 2009 record! the fact that they deported more people in 2009 than the Bush people did and then only met their increased goal the next year really means that the Obama people are soft on immigration!

    From reading the obsession California Republicans have with deporting folks, you’d think you’d be glad one way or another….

    timb (449046)

  21. timb-

    As a question of logic, how do we know that the 2009 record was not accomplished by the same methods? Past behavior is often the best predictor of current and future behavior.

    I really would prefer that you think before you write and try to make challenging good points, not simply stand on your head to find an angle that makes a “heal-nipping” comment.

    MD in Philly (cac12c)

  22. Fake but Accurate lives on.

    daleyrocks (a82d72)

  23. What #18 Anon Y. Mous said, with this addendum – many low-rent illegals are also habitual criminals, and one doesn’t need to be a big-ass dealer/gangster to inflict horrible crimes.

    Vide the murderer of Chandra Levy, and many others.

    Low-renters also cause a lot of damage by stupid and careless behavior, such as driving drunk, or in unsafe cars, or overcrowding residences, trashing or abusing parks or other public facilities, _buying_ drugs, and so on.

    Any enforcement agency has to prioritize its efforts.

    Besides which a big drug dealer should be pursued by FBI/DEA/police for imprisonment. ICE is not equipped for that.

    Rich Rostrom (f7aeae)

  24. the fact that they deported more people in 2009 than the Bush people did and then only met their increased goal the next year really means that the Obama people are soft on immigration!

    This is hilarious, timb.

    We’ve just established the relevance of this ‘fact’ of yours. They cooked the books, and deported so many people in such a way that they could easily return.

    Yes, this really means the ‘Obama people are soft on immigration’. Which, let’s face it, you’re happy with. So why are you lauding the opposite of what Obama really stands for?

    Reminds me of Obama’s gay marriage stance. People are proudly supporting someone on the justification that Obama’s deceptive.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  25. Let’s see, ICE union members are on record with a letter saying management is deliberately shirking the department’s mission. The DOJ is suing Arizona to prevent it from implementing a law which parallels U.S. immigration law. Obama and Janet Nap refuse to secure the border.

    Sure, I believe Barky is tough on illegal immigration. Wasn’t that one of his campaign planks, I mean right after he wanted to give illegal immigrants drivers licenses?

    daleyrocks (a82d72)

  26. Dustin – on same sex marriage, Barcky has a moderate position, informed by his faith, and if you share his position, you are a bigot and a hohophobe.

    JD (d48c3b)

  27. “if you share his position, you are a bigot and a hohophobe.

    Comment by JD —”

    I know, right?

    I’ve seen a lot of Obama supporters freak out at people for stating a position identical to Obama’s. Press them and they say Obama’s lying about his position, so I guess they are saying that it’s better to play politics with civil rights than it is to have an actual honest moral position on them.

    Same thing here with timb and Obama’s ‘tough on immigration’ horsecrap.

    Obama tries to run in a way that pleases all people, but I thought he did a poor job conning people and am amazed it worked so well. He’s just an opportunist.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  28. Dustin, add in Obama’s roll over on the extension of the tax rates, where all he got was some more thinly disguised pork, and that Obama is pure con man is clear.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  29. “that Obama is pure con man is clear.”

    This tax cut extension is even more enjoyable than the democrat implosion in the election, partly because I didn’t have to suffer through as much campaigning over it.

    The hard left lost the House and arguably the Senate, and in their heads, the White House too, now.

    You’re right… there is no illusion that Obama’s just a con man. The only card they have left is to demonize Republicans.

    Dustin (b54cdc)


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