Thousands of illegals stay on run across U.S.
Immigrants thumb noses at deportation orders as federal enforcement falls behind
By Brad Heath / The Detroit News
March 30, 2004
Immigrant absconders
Who are they? The government estimates 400,000 people are still in the United States despite final orders to leave the country. About 20 percent of them have been convicted of crimes. Shoddy government record-keeping makes it impossible to come up with a precise number.
Why weren't they deported? Mostly because the government never tried. In 2003, Justice Department auditors said only 13 percent of people who weren't locked up after being ordered deported actually left the country. Officials contend they don't have the money or space to lock up everyone.
Two years after the government promised to finally catch and expel thousands of foreigners who ignored deportation orders, gaps in immigration enforcement mean the number of fugitives is still growing.
Today, the government’s best guess is that 400,000 immigrants have stayed in the United States despite judges’ orders to get out — more than enough to fill a city the size of Miami. Homeland Security officials concede that total is growing — likely by 40,000 a year — because far more people skip out on deportation orders each year than are caught by teams of federal agents hunting them.
Among the so-called absconders are roughly 80,000 criminals convicted of everything from stealing cars to rape and attempted murder who were supposed to have been deported when their sentences ended. The other 320,000 were ordered to leave after overstaying visas or for other civil immigration violations.
Of 128 immigrant absconders caught in Detroit since October, 37 had criminal records.
“These are people who are on our streets who should have been locked up and deported,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for Washington-based NumbersUSA, a group lobbying for more enforcement. “The bottom line is we have millions of our own homegrown criminals. Why should we let people who have no right to be here victimize us as well?”
Government officials were unable to estimate how many absconders are in Metro Detroit. But the issue is especially sensitive in Michigan, whose large Arab population has complained about being increasingly targeted as immigration law becomes a key weapon in the war on terrorism. About 2,500 people are ordered deported in Michigan each year.
This year, the Bush administration asked Congress to create 30 new fugitive teams to target people ordered deported. Lawmakers also are weighing controversial plans to enlist local police in the hunt. And in some cities, including Detroit, the government is using electronic tethers to keep track of some foreigners during immigration proceedings.
Critics say the number of absconders undermines the government’s efforts to police immigration laws, because even if the government can catch people who are here illegally, it’s often unable to make them leave.
“The thing that has people shaking their heads is that if we can’t even make sure somebody who’s been ordered deported actually leaves, how can we do anything right?” said David Ray, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has urged the government to crack down on illegal immigration.
Homeland Security officials agree it’s a critical hole to plug, one made bigger by years of inattention. They’ve set ambitious plans to expel all of the wanted foreign nationals within a decade. Last year, Homeland Security deployed 18 teams of about seven agents each around the country that so far have captured about 7,500 people.
“Part of our job is to say this is a problem,” said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington. “But we’re making a dent, where before nobody was doing anything about it.”
With more than 130,000 people ordered deported each year, officials say the government doesn’t have the money or space to lock all of them up for the several months it can take to get them on a plane and ensure they have the necessary passports or visas. Once someone is ordered deported, the person typically remains in the country until the government makes those arrangements and sends a final notice to leave.
Those who ignore that notice are considered absconders.
The government’s plans to enlist local police in the effort are drawing sharp protests from immigration lawyers, civil libertarians and even dozens of police departments that say having to enforce immigration law threatens their ability to keep their communities safe. Officials in Detroit and Dearborn, which is home to many Arab immigrants, did not respond to Detroit News requests for comments on what effects the program would have.
Records lacking
Some complain that many of those now appearing on government wanted lists have never actually been told to leave.
“They make it sound like everybody who is an absconder has been hiding out. That’s not true,” said Noel Saleh, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union in Detroit. “Many of them have been living at the same residence forever. They get an order of removal and sometimes they don’t even know. Or sometimes the government never makes arrangements for them to leave.”
Part of the problem is that immigration record-keeping is so poor officials can’t say precisely how many people have ignored their deportation orders.
The push to find and expel them began in 2002, when the Justice Department launched a crackdown targeting 5,900 absconders from countries known to harbor al-Qaida. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security — which took over the job of policing immigration law — began a sweep called Endgame, with the goal of deporting all 400,000 absconders.
But the numbers still add up badly.
In 2003, an audit by the Justice Department’s Inspector General found that the immigration service was able to expel only about 13 percent of the foreigners who weren’t locked up after they were ordered deported. That amounts to another 40,000 people each year who remain in the United States, despite having been ordered to leave.
The report was completed shortly before immigration enforcement was shifted from the Justice Department to the Department of Homeland Security. But Homeland Security officials concede that despite the success of some trial programs that rely on jails and electronic tethers, many of the problems remain and they’ve so far been unable to keep more aliens from absconding.
“Obviously, we have to stop that first, or we’re just going to be putting more and more on the pile,” Courtney said.
Eluding authorities
The pile has been getting bigger for years, mostly because the government did almost nothing to stop it. In 1996, the Justice Department’s Inspector General warned immigration officials that thousands of aliens who had been given final orders to leave remained in the country. The General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm, reached similar conclusions in 1998.
It wasn’t until after the terrorist attacks of September 11 that the now-defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said catching the absconders was a priority. At the time, officials estimated there were about 320,000 people who had ignored those orders.
Why so many were able to elude the authorities is unclear. Sometimes, immigration officials simply neglected to pick up deportable criminals when they were released from prison. But much more often, immigration lawyers say, cases get lost in a complex, often chaotic immigration bureaucracy.
Federal officials say they don’t suspect the backlog poses a terrorism risk. But they acknowledge being concerned by the number of convicted criminals — a group that includes murderers and rapists — who were able to flee from their deportation orders.
“It’s unbelievable that these people have been detained, photographed, fingerprinted, brought before a federal judge, told they were going to be deported and then just sent home,” said U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., who is leading a push to give local police the authority to detain absconders.
“If we’re going to pass federal laws and not enforce them, what’s the point?”
Making progress
Homeland Security officials insist they’re making progress, especially when it comes to tracking down the most dangerous fugitives. A sweep last year in Las Vegas netted 34 fugitives, including a South American man convicted of attempted murder. In December, agents in Texas separately arrested two absconders convicted of sexually abusing children.
But despite those successes, immigration agents remain badly outnumbered. With 48 teams searching fulltime, each one would have to track down three fugitives a day for a decade before all the names on the wanted list are crossed off.
Immigration advocates question whether more enforcement is the answer. Often a letter sent to the right address is all it would take to get people to leave, Detroit immigration lawyer Robert Birach said.
“People move around,” he said. “It’s not so much that the government’s lost them. It’s that it’s never really looked for them. But does that mean somebody’s absconded or should be a fugitive?”
Meanwhile, officials say they’re also taking steps to keep foreign nationals from fleeing in the first place. A trial program in Hartford, Conn., put aliens in custody as soon as they were ordered deported; many are quickly released with electronic tethers, an approach officials say has succeeded in keeping all but a handful from absconding.
Ultimately, Homeland Security will use the tethers nationwide, Courtney said. “We have to get them on the front end so we make sure we’re not just adding more every year,” he said.
Equipping police
More controversial are attempts to enlist local police in the search.
The Department of Homeland Security already has begun putting the names of some of the fugitives into police databases so officers will know when they’ve encountered someone on the list.
Some lawmakers want to do more. Congress is considering a measure that would give local police clearer authority to enforce immigration laws. The measure would provide more training and money for agencies that agree to participate, but would withhold money for catching criminal aliens from those that don’t. That aid totaled almost $550 million, including $2.9 million in Michigan.
“We can’t get this done with just 2,000 federal agents,” said Norwood, who sponsored the plan. “The only hope we have is to ask the nation’s other 600,000 law enforcement officers to help us.”
But many cities are reluctant to go along. City lawmakers in Detroit and Ann Arbor — as well as dozens of other cities nationwide — have passed resolutions opposed to using local police to enforce civil immigration laws. Police departments in Los Angeles, Baltimore and Boston have specifically criticized the measure now before the House of Representatives.
Critics say most police don’t have the training needed to deal with the complexities of immigration law. And asking them to could undermine the trust they need to solve and prevent crimes, especially in cities with large immigrant communities.
“When you talk about turning a traffic cop into an immigration inspector, you’re going to invite racial profiling,” said Saleh, the ACLU lawyer.
“And it flies in the face of the trust that’s needed to do community policing. What’s the incentive to report a crime if the police are going to come check on you?” he said. “It’s not like it’s going to make our communities any safer.”
You can reach Brad Heath at (313) 222-2563 or bheath@detnews.com.
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