enforcement

In an interview last Sunday, April 28, President Trump describes the crisis at the border in plain terms.  His colorful language is well-suited to getting the meanings across without cover of diplomacy.

From a Fox News report:

Excerpts:

President Trump told “Sunday Morning Future”’ that illegal immigrants are pouring into the country at unprecedented rates “because our economy is so good’’ and ‘‘everyone wants a piece of it’" -- and, he asserted, Democrats have now provided major incentives for illegal immigrants to bring children with them as a legal shield.

‘’You have to have Perry Mason involved” in order to fight some immigration challenges and enforce border security, Trump said, alluding to the backlog of immigration cases and a recent Ninth Circuit ruling requiring that asylum applicants be allowed to go before a federal judge.

"We’re moving people out so fast," he added. "The problem is we have to register them, we have to bring them to court.  Another country just says sorry, you can’t come into our country and they walk them out.  In our country you have to bring them to court, you have to have Perry Mason involved, I mean, you know, it’s all legal.  You have lawyers standing at the border, our people, lawyers, wise guys standing at the border, signing people up."

Trump continued: "Every time they catch a cold they try and blame Border Patrol.  It’s a disgrace what’s going on, and it could be solved in 15 minutes if the Democrats would give us the votes, it would be over."

…

"What we need is new laws that don’t allow this so when somebody comes in we say sorry, you got to go out.  . ... We have a court system with 900,000 cases behind it. They have a court that needs to hear 900,000 cases," Trump said, referring to overloaded immigration and asylum courts. "It's a system Congress can fix -- and they don't get off their ass."

Trump called the situation at the border like "Disneyland" now that purported family units cannot be separated for sustained periods. Under the administration's "no-tolerance policy," adults who crossed the border with children were charged with illegal entry into the U.S. -- and, shortly afterwards, had to be separated from minors in their group under the Flores decree.

"We -- we go out and we stop the separation," Trump said. "The problem is you have 10 times more people coming up with their families.  It’s like Disneyland now.  You know, before you’d get separated so people would say let’s not go up.  Now you don’t get separated and, you know, while that sounds nice and all, what happens is you have -- literally you have 10 times more families coming up because they’re not going to be separated from their children."

Read the complete news report here.

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And to your U.S. Senators here. Read more about Pres. Trump tells it like it is

Information obtained from the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) on February 1, 2019 reveals that 48 of the 913 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) in the state’s prison system were from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries that may not take back their own criminal citizens after they are released from DOC prisons and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for possible removal from the United States of America (USA) — 5.26 percent of the criminal alien prison population (Note: The names of recalcitrant countries that may not take back their own criminal citizens has been in a state of flux in recent years.).

Some background information, all 48 criminal aliens incarcerated in the DOC prison system from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries were identified by ICE and have immigration detainers placed on them.

Criminal aliens from 10 current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries were incarcerated in the DOC prison system on February 1, 2019:

Egypt (two criminal aliens), Ethiopia (two criminal aliens), Bhutan (one criminal alien) and Iraq (one criminal alien) were the four current designated “at risk of non-compliance” (ARNC) countries;

Cuba (14 criminal aliens), Vietnam (12 criminal aliens), Laos (eight criminal aliens), Cambodia (four criminal aliens), China (three criminal aliens) and Burma (one criminal alien) were the six current designated “recalcitrant / uncooperative” (RUC) countries.

Using DOC ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the self-declared countries of origin of the 48 criminal alien inmates from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries by number and percentage incarcerated on February 1st in the state’s prisons.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

Here are the ways Oregon residents were victimized by the 48 criminal aliens from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries.

Significant numbers, there were 27 of the 48 criminal alien inmates from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries incarcerated in DOC prisons for violent crimes — homicide, rape, assault, sex abuse, sodomy and kidnapping — 56.25 percent of the alien inmates from “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries.

Using DOC ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the number and percentage of criminal alien inmates from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries incarcerated on February 1st by type of crime.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

Criminal aliens from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries incarcerated in DOC prisons committed at least one crime in 8 of 36 Oregon counties — 22.22 percent of the counties in the state.

Using DOC ICE detainer numbers, the following table reveals the number and percentage of criminal alien inmates from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries incarcerated on February 1st that were sent to prison from the state’s 36 counties.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

Beyond the DOC criminal alien incarceration numbers and percentages by countries of origin, by crime types or by the state’s counties, criminal aliens from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries pose a significant economic cost to Oregon tax payers.

An individual inmate incarcerated in the DOC prison system costs the state approximately ($108.26) per day.

The DOC’s incarceration cost for its 48 criminal alien prison population from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries is approximately ($5,196.48) per day, ($36,375.36) per week, and ($1,896,715.20) per year.

None of preceding cost estimates for the DOC to incarcerate the 48 criminal aliens from current designated “at risk of non-compliance” or “recalcitrant / uncooperative” countries includes the dollar amount for legal services (indigent defense), language interpreters, court costs, or victim assistance.

Bibliography:

Oregon Department of Corrections Population Profile (unpublished MS Excel workbook) titled Incarcerated Criminal Aliens Report dated February 1, 2019.

Oregon Department of Corrections Issue Brief Quick Facts, March 2019: https://www.oregon.gov/doc/Documents/agency-quick-facts.pdf

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to federal, state, county and city elected and non elected governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the United States of America. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/. Read more about Oregon Department of Corrections: Criminal Alien Report for Recalcitrant Countries February 2019

According to a  new report, criminal aliens currently make up nearly 20 percent of the population in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) system -- a total of 34,776.

David Olen Cross, a Salem, Ore., crime and immigration researcher, looked at the number of foreign nationals in the U.S. BOP system based on the most recent federal report. As of March 30, 2019, there were 179,761 inmates incarcerated in federal prisons across the U.S. Their countries of origin, according to the report, are:

• Mexico 21,668 inmates, 12.1 percent;

• Colombia 1,633 inmates, 0.9 percent;

• Dominican Republic 1,425 inmates, 0.8 percent;

• Cuba 1,169 inmates, 0.7 percent;

• Other/unknown countries 8,881 inmates, 4.9 percent;

• United States 144,985 inmates, 80.7 percent;

Cross, who researches and reports on foreign national crime, said in a press release on Sunday, "Combining March 30th BOP criminal alien inmate numbers, there were 34,776 criminal aliens in the BOP prison system," down slightly from June 2018, when there were just over 38,000. Still, alien inmates make up 19.3 percent of the federal prison population.

Cross added that the 21,668 Mexican nationals incarcerated in the BOP prison system comprise "the vast majority of criminal aliens in federal prisons."

A June 2018 Quarterly Alien Incarceration report from the Department of Justice found:

A total of 57,820 known or suspected aliens were in in DOJ custody at the end of FY 2018 Q1, including 38,132 persons in BOP custody and 19,688 in USMS [U.S. Marshalls Service] custody. Of this total, 42,284 people had been confirmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be aliens (i.e., non-citizens and non-nationals), while 15,536 aliens were still under investigation by ICE to determine alienage and/or removability.

Among the 42,284 confirmed aliens, 39,413 people (93 percent) were unlawfully present. These numbers include a 62 percent unlawful rate among 38,132 known or suspected aliens in BOP custody and a 78 percent unlawful rate among 19,688 confirmed aliens in USMS custody.

Approximately 16,233 aliens in USMS custody required housing in state, local, and private facilities, which cost $1,458,372.72 a day.

Note that the cost number is only for criminal aliens housed in U.S. Marshals Service facilities -- it does not include the 34,776 incarcerated in BOP facilities, nor those in custody at state and local facilities.

Cross notes that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons breaks down the prison population into 13 types of offenses, with immigration crimes accounting for only 6.5 percent of the federal prison population -- a total of 10,826 inmates. In other words, only one in three criminal alien inmates housed in the BOP system is incarcerated as a result of immigration crimes.

The DOJ report tabulated BOP statistics from the first quarter of 2018, noting that nearly half (46 percent) were incarcerated as the results of drug trafficking or other drug-related offenses. But the incarcerations were not limited to drug crimes, as this chart from the DOJ shows:

These numbers do not include known or suspected criminal aliens being held by the U.S. Marshals Service or in state and local facilities.

The 2018 DOJ report cited examples of newly incarcerated or sentenced BOP inmates:

• Anibel Rondolpho Rodriguez, an illegal alien from Honduras who was residing in Freeport, NY, was sentenced to 45 years in prison after he pled guilty to racketeering charges, two murder conspiracies, two attempted murders, and threatening to commit assault.

• Eduardo Martinez, an illegal alien who was residing in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was sentenced to 324 months in prison after he pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than a kilogram of heroin, distribution of over 50 grams of methamphetamine, and possession of a firearm.

• Pedro Quintero-Enriques, an illegal alien from Mexico who was residing in Summerdale, Alabama, was sentenced to 108 months in prison after he pled guilty to illegal reentry after deportation and felon in possession of firearms.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time the report was issued, "The illegal immigrant crime rate in this country should be zero." He added, "Every crime committed by an illegal alien is, by definition, a crime that should have been prevented. It is outrageous that tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year because of the drugs and violence brought over our borders illegally and that taxpayers have been forced, year after year, to pay millions of dollars to incarcerate tens of thousands of illegal aliens." Read more about Report: Nearly 20 Percent of Inmates in Federal Prisons Are Criminal Aliens

Brandon Judd, president of National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents the agents and support staff of the U.S. Border Patrol, presents a great idea for changes that would simplify and restore control of the border.  He recommends that DHS cross-designate and train Border Patrol agents at the senior patrol agent level as asylum officers with limited authority to conduct “credible fear” interviews.

As he explains: “Asylum and deportation proceedings are civil administration actions, not criminal. Therefore, DHS has the right to establish fear thresholds. Unlike in a criminal proceeding, where the government must prove its case, the burden of proof falls on the illegal border-crosser to provide proof establishing a credible fear.

“If the ‘credible fear’ process begins upon arrest by Border Patrol agents, instead of at a later interview before an asylum officer, the process will be much more efficient. If an asylum-trained senior patrol agent determines that the alien has not established a credible fear, an order of expedited removal can be issued, and the illegal border-crosser can be removed immediately. The illegal border-crosser does have appeal rights, but by regulation an immigration judge must hear the case within 10 days of the person asking for reconsideration. Again, because this is not a criminal proceeding, the burden of proof remains on the illegal border-crosser, not the U.S. government.

“If no credible fear is established, the process would take no more than 10 days instead of the 2 to 5 years it now takes to deport an illegal border-crosser who claims asylum. This simple adjustment would end catch-and-release. …”

Read the full article here.  It was published as an analysis/opinion in The Washington Times, Sunday, March 31, 2019.  

Another good discussion goes into more detail: “Top border agent: We don’t need Congress to stop mass migration,” by Daniel Horowitz in The Conservative Review, April 3, 2019.  See it here.

According to an April 4 blog from NumbersUSA, the DHS has recently begun some use of the approach described by Brandon Judd.

You can contact The White House and urge Pres. Trump to have DHS deputize sufficient numbers of its senior Border Patrol officers to act as asylum adjudicators, and stop use of the ineffective catch-and-release procedures.  Email:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Read more about Border Patrol union chief tells how to break log-jam of asylum seekers

The United States having a significant foreign national population residing within the nations boundaries, be they legally or illegally present in the country, unfortunately includes those who commit crimes.

The extent and impact of foreign national crime on the U.S. citizens and residents of this country is clearly revealed by a simple search on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) inmates statistics website under the heading of inmate citizenship.

Here are the countries of origin, moreover, the number and percentage of those countries citizens recently incarcerated in the U.S. BOP prison system (Note: The most recent BOP crime numbers available were from March 30, 2019.).

Inmate Citizenship:

- México 21,668 inmates, 12.1 percent;
- Colombia 1,633 inmates, 0.9 percent;
- Dominican Republic 1,425 inmates, 0.8 percent;
- Cuba 1,169 inmates, 0.7 percent;
- Other / unknown countries 8,881 inmates, 4.9 percent;
- United States 144,985 inmates, 80.7 percent;

Total Inmates: 179,761 inmates.

To explain the meaning of these preceding criminal alien inmate numbers and percentages, I will translate them into words:

Combining March 30th BOP criminal alien inmate numbers, there were 34,776 criminal aliens in the BOP prison system. Alien inmates were 19.3 percent of the federal prison population.

With 21,668 Mexican nationals being incarcerated in the BOP prison system, at 62.3 percent, they were the vast majority of criminal aliens in federal prisons.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons breaks down the federal prison population into 13 types of offenses. One of the top five offenses, the reason inmates are serving time in federal prisons is for immigration crimes. There were 10,826 inmates in the BOP prison system incarcerated for immigration crimes; they were 6.5 percent of the federal prison population.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to federal, state, county and city elected and non elected governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the United States of America. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/. Read more about U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons: Criminal Alien Report March 2019

On February 1, 2019 Oregon’s Marion County had 226 of the 913 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) prison system; the county was first in foreign national crime in the state with 24.75 percent of the criminal aliens in DOC prisons.

The following table reveals how Marion County residents were harmed or victimized by the 226 criminal aliens incarcerated on February 1st in the DOC prison system with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ICE detainers.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

This table reveals, using the DOC ICE detainer numbers from February 1st, the total number of criminal alien inmates incarcerated in the DOC prison system by type of crime from all Oregon counties, the total number of criminal alien inmates from Marion County in DOC prisons by type of crime and the percentage of those alien inmates who were from the county by type of crime.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

Criminal aliens from 19 identified countries have harmed or victimized Marion County residents.

Foreign nationals who declared their country or origin as being Mexico were 195 of 226 criminal aliens from Marion County incarcerated in the DOC prison system � 86.28 percent of the ccounty’s alien inmates in the state’s prisons.

The following table reveals the self-declared countries of origin of the majority of the 226 criminal aliens with ICE detainers who have harmed or victimized the residents of Marion County in the DOC prison system.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to Oregon state, county and city governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the state. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/. Read more about Oregon’s Marion County First in Foreign National Crime in February 2019

WASHINGTON  Two families of illegal aliens from Central America are suing Trump administration officials in a Massachusetts federal district court over their treatment after they crossed the border illegally. The families claim that the month-long separation of the parents from their children when the parents were in jail for a criminal offense violated their constitutional rights. They seek monetary damages from the defendants, who are being sued as individuals, not in their official capacities. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) this week filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Trump officials.

The government’s brief on its motion to dismiss does an excellent job of showing that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the defendants (none of whom has substantial personal contacts with Massachusetts), and that a damages action of this kind is unwarranted here. IRLI adds to these persuasive arguments a further point: plaintiffs had never even entered the country in a legal sense when their separations occurred, and thus they had no rights under our Constitution to be deprived of.

In immigration law, “entry” is a term of art, generally defined as presence in this country and freedom from official restraint. For example, a traveler at an American airport waiting to go through customs has not “entered” the United States. And a basic principle of constitutional law is that it is the American people" not aliens who have never entered the country in a legal sense, and have no substantial connection to it "who have rights under our Constituution.

Here, the alien families sought out border patrol agents as soon as they crossed the border, intending to claim asylum. When the parents were taken into custody for the crime of unlawful entry, pursuant to the administration’s zero tolerance policy, their children, who could not accompany them into jail, were placed with caregivers for about a month, after which the families were reunited. Thus, according to the leading legal definition of “entry,” the families had never effected entry into the U.S. - and thus had not come under the protection of ouur Constitution.

“This audacious lawsuit richly deserves to be dismissed,” commented Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “These parents could have avoided detention and separation from their children altogether by voluntarily leaving the country. But that didn’t suit their purposes. Then, after the separation they caused was over, they turned around and sued government officials over it, hoping for a windfall for themselves and their attorneys.”

The case is K.O. v. Sessions, No. 4:18-cv-40149 (D. Mass.).

Share this release here.  

For additional information, contact: Brian Lonergan � 202-232-5590 � blonergan@irli.org Read more about Illegal Aliens Go for a Windfall

In response to the endless stream of Central American migrants currently attempting to access the U.S. by any means, lawful or otherwise, President Trump has threatened to shut down the border.

Predictably, the armchair jurists in the media have opined that the president doesn’t have the authority to close the border and will be sued if he tries. The Washington Post proclaimed, “The only way Trump could potentially shut down the border would be through trade.” (Although, the legal sages at the Post didn’t go into any detail about how that would actually work, since the object of any border shutdown would be keeping out the people currently trying to get in.)

So what’s the real deal? Can the president shut down the border? He can. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly said so:

• 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), unequivocally grants the president the authority to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” whenever he finds that their entry would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”  
• In Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., decided in 1993, the Supreme Court held that, 1182(f) was intended to give the president the authority to prevent unauthorized mass migrations. Therefore, it delegates “ample power” to impose entry restrictions on foreign nationals, in response to emergent situations that threaten America’s interests. In fact, the Court found that 1182(f) was a more than sufficient basis for the naval blockade which ended the mass migration from Haiti during the Clinton administration.
• More recently, in Trump v. Hawaii, the high Court reaffirmed Sale holding that, “Fairly read, [1182(f)] vests authority in the President to impose additional limitations on entry beyond the grounds for exclusion set forth in the [Immigration and Nationality Act] — including in response to circumstances that might affect the vetting system or other ‘interests of the United States.’” The court also noted that, “By its terms, §1182(f) exudes deference to the President in every clause.”

Based on the Supreme Court’s holdings in Sale and Trump v. Hawaii, 1182(f), it would appear to grant the president more than ample authority to close ports of entry because they are being overrun by people seeking to enter the U.S. by any means, lawful or illegal.

That the mainstream media has repeatedly presented its inaccurate opinions on this issue as a factual statement of the applicable law is completely unconscionable. Read more about Can the President shut down the border?

On February 1, 2019 Oregon’s Multnomah County had 171 of the 913 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) prison system; the county was third in foreign national crime in the state with 18.73 percent of the criminal aliens in DOC prisons.

The following table reveals how Multnomah County residents were harmed or victimized by the 171 criminal aliens incarcerated on February 1st in the DOC prison system with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ICE detainers.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

This table reveals, using the DOC ICE detainer numbers from February 1st, the total number of criminal alien inmates incarcerated in the DOC prison system by type of crime from all Oregon counties, the total number of criminal alien inmates from Multnomah County in DOC prisons by type of crime and the percentage of those alien inmates who were from the county by type of crime.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

Criminal aliens from 28 identified countries have harmed or victimized Multnomah County residents.

Foreign nationals who declared their country or origin as being Mexico were 114 of 171 criminal aliens from Multnomah County incarcerated in the DOC prison system — 66.67 percent of the county’s alien inmates in the state’s prisons.

The following table reveals the self-declared countries of origin of the majority of the 171 criminal aliens with ICE detainers who have harmed or victimized the residents Multnomah County in the DOC prison system.
 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 February 19.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to Oregon state, county and city governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the state. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/. Read more about Oregon’s Multnomah County Third in Foreign National Crime in February 2019