CSM:
The US government’s crackdown on illegal immigration is resulting in so many more felony charges against foreigners that the federal courts serving the Southwest border are overwhelmed and reaching for the panic button.
The rising caseloads in five US district courts are a direct result of the beefed-up border patrol. Though tighter border security is deterring illegal entry, resulting in fewer arrests, border agents now have the manpower and resources to be vigilant about checking those in custody for criminal connections and outstanding warrants. They are also increasingly filing more-serious felony charges against repeat border-crossers, sending those cases straight to US district courts in the border area.
“The government front-loaded this system,” says former immigration judge Joe Vail, now director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Houston. “It has almost tripled the size of the border patrol since 1996, and last year brought in the National Guard, but has done nothing to increase the personnel they need to process and adjudicate these cases, including federal court judges, prosecutors, federal public defenders, plus the support personnel you need to do all this.”
The answer is really simple. With one week’s worth of money we’re spending on the Iraq occupation, we could build a real southern border wall. That way, illegal aliens would have a much harder time getting here, and the Federal courts wouldn’t have as heavy of a workload.
