Feds must stop coddling immigration smugglers

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 24, 2006

LOST IN the blizzard of immigration reform proposals and counterproposals is the simple fact that federal officials have been doing almost nothing to end one of the seamier aspects of illegal immigration -- smuggling.

It's something that President Bush and members of Congress must address as they ponder pouring money into deploying the National Guard and high-tech gadgetry along the U.S.-Mexico divide.

The Associated Press took the issue public last week, when a Border Patrol report penned in August was provided to it by the office of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista.

It notes that the federal government prosecuted only 6 percent -- a mere 16 to 18 -- of 289 suspected immigrant smugglers caught along a 13-mile stretch of border east of San Diego in the fiscal year ending in September 2004. And federal officials indicate that's normal, not an exception, along the 2,000-mile border.

That low prosecution rate has an understandably negative impact on members of the Border Patrol striving to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

"It is very difficult to keep agents' morale up when the laws they were told to uphold are being watered-down, or not prosecuted," said the report.

Federal attorneys in border areas argue that they're so swamped with work and have so few human and economic resources that only the most egregious smuggling cases can be prosecuted. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales essentially defended the practice in a congressional hearing by saying illegal immigration creates "a tremendous strain and burden" along the border.

That means the few "coyotes" (smugglers) who are prosecuted have been caught repeatedly, committed violent acts or been stopped bringing a dozen or more illegals into the country at one time. In at least one case, a Mexican smuggler who had been stopped and released three prior times wasn't prosecuted until two illegal immigrants he was transporting died in an accident.

By releasing such smugglers repeatedly instead of prosecuting them, we're encouraging and aiding the continuance of such illegal immigration.

We're also forfeiting an opportunity to impede it by not beefing up this neglected law-enforcement aspect of the equation while we consider spending the $1.9 billion President Bush has requested for National Guard troops.

Part of that money, or another allocation, should be used to increase the ability of federal officials along the border to arrest and prosecute human smugglers. These coyotes extract the life savings from poor or impoverished people to transport them to or across the border in ways that endanger and take human lives.

Releasing coyotes to continue this unlawful activity over and over again makes their crimes relatively risk-free. This is an obvious weakness in our immigration policy that must be corrected if we're serious about halting or limiting illegal immigration. To ignore it is negligent.