Barack Obama might tell Hispanic voters that Republican
opponents of “comprehensive immigration reform” are “enemies” who
deserve to be punished. His Justice Department might have sued
Arizona. His appointees in the Department of Homeland Security and
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services may circulate memos
talking about how to implement amnesty administratively if Congress
won’t act. Unionized customs officers and border patrol agents may
protest that immigration laws are going unenforced.
Don’t let any of that fool you, however: Barack Obama is tough
on illegal immigration. The proof? He has presided over a record
number of deportations. The New York Times, the
Washington Post, and irritated liberal bloggers reported
that more illegal immigrants have been removed from the country
under Obama than ever before. “When the secretary tells you that
the numbers are at an all-time high, that’s straight, on the
merits, no cooking of the books,” John Morton, Obama’s head of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), boasted at an October
press conference.
In Monday’s Washington Post, Andrew Becker of the
Center for Investigative Reporting
demonstrated that some books were indeed cooked in the process
of attaining this record. (The Post’s headline writers
preferred the phrase “unusual methods.”) It was reminiscent of the
White House’s number of jobs “created or saved” by the stimulus,
with some PBS fundraising marathon tactics thrown in for good
measure.
Brecker reports that in order to reach the 392,862-deportation
finish line, ICE included more than 19,000 illegals who had
departed in the previous fiscal year. They also extended a Mexican
repatriation program by an additional five weeks in order to be
able to count 6,500 exits that “would normally have been tallied by
the U.S. Border Patrol.”
Worst of all, when it looked like immigration authorities were
going to fall short of the goal, they began to encourage immigrants
to leave through “voluntary return.” This speedy process leaves no
mark on the individual’s immigration track record, leaving them
eligible to apply for legal residence or travel to the United
States later.
Some of the people so processed would have normally gone before
an immigration judge to contest charges they had committed offenses
like drunk driving, domestic violence, and misdemeanor assault —
and now there will be no record. Once the deportation record was
broken, this unusual use of voluntary return was reportedly
halted.
An ICE employee in Louisiana told Brecker that over a two-week
period, he saw 100 to 150 Mexican nationals, some of whom had
multiple drunk driving convictions, reassigned to voluntary return.
Others reported similar numbers. Amnesty through enforcement!
“Without these efforts and the more than 25,000 deportations
that came with them,” Brecker reported, “the agency would not have
topped last year’s record level of 389,834, current and former ICE
employees and officials said.” Feel better now?
An acting ICE assistant director sent emails more appropriate
for a telethon than serious enforcement of the country’s
immigration laws: “We are just 1061 shy of 390,000. However, we
still get to count closed cases through Monday, October 4th so…
keep having your folks concentrate on closing those cases.”
This kind of chicanery isn’t unique to the Obama administration
— one former field office director is quoted as saying similar
things happened under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But some of
the specific revelations make the White House’s overall immigration
posture even harder to swallow.
The Obama immigration team keeps rebutting evidence of its
pro-amnesty leanings — buttressed by leaked e-mails and memos —
by saying the statistics show enforcement proceeding normally.
There will be no amnesties, backdoor or otherwise. Just a tough but
fair approach to enforcing the law.
Andrew Brecker’s report is just the latest reason to suspect
politics is foremost on their minds.
