By Allan Wall
07/30/2011
In the fiscal year ending September 2010, the Obama Administration deported nearly 393,000 illegal aliens, as Suzanne Gamboa reported breathlessly in her article Traffic Crime, Drunken Driving Deportations Way Up [Associated Press, July 22/23, 2011].
The whistleblower Federale was less impressed than Gamboa, pointing out that it was only 3,000 more than the previous year. And even Gamboa admitted in the very same article that there are an estimated 11 million illegal aliens currently in the country. So some 400,000 deportees is less than 4% of the total stock of illegal aliens. (And that’s a conservative estimate. Some experts, like Federale, think it could be as high as 20 million).
Bottom line: if you are an illegal alien in the U.S.A., your odds of being deported are distinctly slim.
Notice too, that Gamboa says that, of all the "nearly 393,000" deported, only the half of them "were considered criminals."
“Considered criminals”? Now what does that mean? All of them were illegal aliens. That means all of them had either (1) entered our country illegally, or (2) allowed their legal visas to lapse. But all of them were in violation of our immigration law.
But in Obama’s America, just being here illegally is not usually enough to get you deported. You have to commit another crime or infraction, and then maybe — maybe — you will be deported.
Suzanne Gamboa’s article gives some more specific information:
" Of those [nearly 393,000 deported], 27,635 had been arrested for drunken driving, more than double the 10,851 deported after drunken driving arrests in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data provided to The Associated Press."
So what’s wrong with deporting illegal alien drunk drivers? As Brenda Walker has pointed out at various times, illegal aliens have a high rate of drunk driving, but deportation is quite rare. (See her archive here).
Wisconsin Woman Killed by Drunk Illegal Alien in Head-on Crash
"The drunk driver, Leopoldo Salas Gaytan, was recently convicted of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He had been twice ticketed for driving without a license but was not further investigated and deported back to Mexico."
DUI Illegal Alien Killer Sentenced in Kenosha County, Wisconsin
"The alien’s priors included battery, cocaine possession and obstructing an officer, so he was clearly a violent man who should have been deported to protect the public. But he wasn’t."
Tancredo Campaign Ad Focuses on Crime Victim
"Three-year-old Marten Kudlis was killed as he sat in an ice cream shop by a crash caused by a vehicle driven at 80 mph by Francis Hernandez, a drunk alien from Guatemala who had been arrested 16 times but never deported."
Deporting illegal alien drunk drivers would save Americans’ lives. But for our government, it’s more important not to make illegals feel uncomfortable.
It wasn’t just drunk drivers, Gamboa adds:
"An additional 13,028 were deported last year after being arrested on less serious traffic law violations, nearly three times the 4,527 traffic offenders deported two years earlier, according to the data."
Once again, let’s bear in mind that all the people we’re talking about are illegal aliens who should be deported even if they haven’t broken any traffic laws. So what’s the problem?
According to Gamboa, it’s that "the spike in the numbers of people deported for traffic offenses as well as a 78 percent increase in people deported for immigration-related offenses renewed skepticism about the administration’s claims that it is focusing on the most dangerous criminals."
You see, the Treason Lobby doesn’t think even those people should be deported. And Obama professes to agree with them, Gamboa notes:
"President Barack Obama regularly says his administration is enforcing immigration laws more wisely than his predecessor by focusing on arresting the 'worst of the worst.' He promised in his 2008 presidential campaign to focus immigration enforcement on dangerous criminals. As recently as May 10, Obama said in a speech in El Paso, Texas, that his administration was focused on violent offenders and not families or ‘folks who are looking to scrape together an income.’ "
Of course, many Americans are also "folks who are looking to scrape together an income", including 15 million or so of our fellow citizens who are unemployed. I guess they don’t count.
Then there are the drugs. Gamboa reports:
"Most of the criminal immigrants deported last year had committed drug-related crimes. They totaled 45,003, compared with 36,053 in 2008. Drug-related crime — described as the manufacture, distribution, possession or sale of drugs — has been the No. 1 crime among immigration for years. Drunken driving had the third highest total number of immigrants deported with that crime."
Is drug dealing another job “Americans won’t do”?
The Gamboa article mentions Bolivian illegal alien Carlos Montano, arrested twice for driving drunk and not deported, before again driving drunk and this time killing Denise Mosier, a Benedictine nun. Thanks to Brenda Walker, VDARE.com readers already knew about that — click here. (See how reading VDARE keeps you ahead of the Mainstream Media? Please donate here).
Open Border boosters, however, don’t like illegal aliens being detained and deported as a result of traffic violations or drug dealing. In fact, when you get right down to it, they don’t want any illegals deported at all. That’s the real goal.
I, however, agree with Congressman Lou Barletta, who said "Frankly, I don’t understand why we don’t deport every single illegal alien caught by any law enforcement officer in the country." Right on!
I also don’t see the need for an elaborate system of immigration courts, in which illegal aliens fight deportation. The Center for Immigration Studies has a new article about this system here. It contains the unsurprising news that "A large percentage of aliens flee from removal proceedings — perhaps as many as 59 percent of all those released to await hearings."
Readers who’ve been with us a while might recall that our own Juan Mann wrote about this sort of thing all the time. (See archive here).
Why do we have a court system for illegal aliens? Why don’t we just deport them and be done with it? Remember, they have no right to be here.
Detentions, deportations, coupled with prosecution of the employers of illegal aliens would go a long way toward solving the illegal alien problem.
At the same time, we should never rule out the possibility of some sort of mass deportation in the future, if we deem it necessary. As Edwin Rubenstein has pointed out (in 2006) it would pay for itself.
And there is historical precedent for mass deportation. It’s been done several times.
The latest mass deportation took place back in 1954. It was called Operation Wetback and was ordered by President Eisenhower, the last president who cared much about the border. Even before his election, Eisenhower was concerned about the illegal alien situation, and the corruption related to it.
Just like today, there was political opposition to enforcing the law. One major opponent: Senator Lyndon Johnson (D-TX), who later, as President, signed the disastrous Immigration Act of 1965.
Back in 1954 though, President Eisenhower put his old West Point classmate Lt. General Joseph "Jumpin’ Joe" Swing in the position of INS commissioner. One of the first things Swing did was to transfer INS officials who were connected to open borders boosters like Johnson out of the border region. Good move.
According to the informative article How Eisenhower Solved Illegal Border Crossings from Mexico, (by John Dillin, The Christian Science Monitor, July 6, 2006):
"…on June 17, 1954, what was called 'Operation Wetback' began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country. By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas. By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily." (My emphasis).
For more information on Operation Wetback, see: Operation Wetback, by Fred L. Koestler, Handbook of Texas Online.
Back in 1954, the Border Patrol only had 1,075 agents, a tenth of what they have today. Reportedly, about 700 agents carried out the operation. The INS estimated that 1,300,000 illegal aliens were either deported or self-deported, before and during Operation Wetback.
It’s impressive to read about Operation Wetback, because it shows us what is possible when you have a president who cares about the border and the will to enforce the law.
Now, our government practically promises not to deport most illegal aliens. No wonder they aren’t afraid!
Another useful aspect of Operation Wetback: the deportation of Mexicans into the interior of Mexico. As the Christian Science Monitor’s Dillin put it:
"To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free. Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south. The sea voyage was ‘a rough trip, and they did not like it,’ says Don Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973."
Nowadays, there is a small, temporary program that is flying illegal aliens to Mexico City. Daniel Gonzalez of the Arizona Republic reported on it recently Plan that Flies Immigrants to Mexico City Resumes [July 14, 2011].It’s voluntary (meaning it’s technically not considered deportation). Before the illegals are flown out, they are interviewed by Mexican diplomats (?) to verify that they are going voluntarily.
However, it could be considered a pilot program for a full-scale deportation scheme in which Mexican illegal aliens are flown directly to Mexico City.
And here’s another deportation idea. We could have the U.S. Navy take the illegal aliens by sea even farther from the border. They could drop them off at a beach resort such as faraway Cancun. (See Mexico map here). Wouldn’t the Mexican government love that!
And, if we need to hold them awhile, why not house illegal aliens in special camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? We did it fast enough with prisoners from our Middle Eastern wars.
Indeed, there’s already a "Migrant Operations Center" in Guantanamo, usually housing about a score of detainees from around the Caribbean. It could be expanded if necessary. Space could be found — that base has some 45 square miles. If need be, we could actually house illegal aliens on ships in the bay.
The Guantanamo option would also be convenient for the Navy. It could stop at Guantanamo as part of regularly-scheduled shuttle runs to drop off Mexican illegals at Cancun.
These are a few proposals. I imagine readers have others. But the point is, illegal aliens need to be deported. All of them. We need to enforce the law, detain illegal aliens, and summarily deport them.
If our government were serious about enforcing the law, and made it obvious by deporting illegal aliens, experience shows that many more illegals would self-deport. And when the word gets back to Mexico and other countries, many potential illegal aliens would choose not to come here illegally. Even better!
The result would be a steady decrease in the illegal alien population.
It could be done — if our leaders had the political will to do it.
Memo to GOP Presidential candidates: how about Operation Wetback II for a campaign issue!
Deport, deport, deport!
American citizen Allan Wall recently moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.
