The Law and Operation Streamline

TRIP TO THE BORDER                                                             By:  Susan

Day 1 , March 11                                                                           Sent: 3/22/2013

We arrived in the BorderLinks office in Tucson just before noon on March 12 after a very early flight.  (We left the house at 5:30 – too early for people our age!!)  We were in time for lunch.  BorderLinks staff members take turns cooking for the delegations.  Food was vegetarian, interesting, plentiful, and delicious!   

Old Immigration cartoon shared at beginning of Borderlinks experience

A Brief Introduction to Immigration Law.

 

We caught the last half of an immigration lawyer’s presentation outlining immigration law.  Immigration law is complex and sorely in need of reform.  We learned the following:

--The US Immigration Department is years behind in processing visa applications for persons wishing to come to the US from Mexico or Central America.  They are currently processing applications submitted in 1993.  Thus, an application made now might not be processed for twenty years.

--There are complex systems for getting priority points for obtaining a visa.  It depends on whether you are married or single, have immediate family members who are US citizens, etc.

--If you have entered the US not legally and wish to obtain legal status, then you must return to Mexico and apply for a legal visa.  However, there is a ten year bar before you can even re-apply (and then face a potential waiting period of twenty more years).

--Federal executive orders have been issued that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) should focus on criminal, and not non-documented migrants who have been lawful.  However, the non-documented are always at risk of being picked up via a traffic violation or something similar.

--Committing a crime can be grounds for deportation, but these are prosecuted at the discretion of the prosecuting attorneys.  In the case of a minor offense, the prosecuting attorney may or may not deport.

--An immigration industrial complex has developed.  This includes construction/maintenance of the wall, highly increased border patrols, migrant lawyers, US Marshalls, detention centers and prisons. 

--The system is intimidating.  It is difficult for the average person to grasp and even more difficult to vision what immigration reform should look like.

--A visual picture of these complexities is shown at the following link from Time Magazine, June 2012.

http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/14/so-you-want-to-be-an-american/  

Operation Streamline.

After lunch we walked to the Courthouse to observe Operation Streamline.  Operation Streamline is an initiative of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice begun in 2005 in Texas and 2008 in Tucson with the intention of establishing “zero-tolerance” immigration enforcement zones

along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Under Operation Streamline, unauthorized migrants face criminal

prosecution and potential prison sentences in addition to formal deportation and removal from the

United States.  Previously, illegal entry was
a civil, not a criminal matter, and persons were simply sent home.  This extreme punishment is meant to be a deterrent to those who might cross the border illegally. 

Every day in Tucson, seventy persons who have been picked up without papers are processed through the court. (The other 1-200 picked up each day are either experience an “expedited removal”  or go through an even more extensive court process.)   On the day we went, as is typical, the vast majority were men.  They were mostly young, probably under 25, tired looking and scared.  Their names were called six at a time, and they shuffled in shackles and handcuffs to the front of the courtroom to face the judge.  A defending attorney, appointed by the court, stood behind each defendant.  The lawyers and clients had conferred for half an hour in the morning.    Headphones were provided for those who did not speak or understand English.  The judge spoke quickly, intoning several rapid questions.  Each answered “si.”  The judge sentenced them to between 30 and 180 days in prison, depending on their history.  They shuffled to the side of the courtroom.  Another set of names was called; the process repeated until all seventy had been processed.   They essentially pled guilty to misdemeanors in order to have  felony counts dismissed.  It was assembly-line justice.  I was reminded of cattle being herded through a maze of fences to slaughter.  I wondered what their stories were.  What could they have told us if given a chance?

John, our friend from Louisville who went with us on the delegation articulated that Streamlining is a feeble attempt to pretend that we afford the defendants due process with dignity.  Perhaps we do not “disappear” them as totalitarian governments might do; however, by the time we march them through court in shackles, dress them in pink underwear and striped prison suits (as happens in Phoenix), and then deport them to the border with no money and resources, we have surely stripped them of human dignity.  Surely we can do better.

Public Defenders.

We met with two public defenders after the courtroom experience.  Heather Williams shared that this system of criminalizing illegal entry costs American taxpayers millions of dollars annually.  In Tucson alone, the cost for the attorneys involved is $10,500 per day.  It costs $2,400 a month to incarcerate each prisoner, or even more when they are sent to one of the private prisons which have sprung up to handle the increased demand.  She argued that prosecuting these persons whose only crime has been crossing the border has taxed the legal system such that more serious criminals are not apprehended and tried appropriately. We asked what could be done; what are the answers to the immigration dilemmas we face.

She said most people come here for economic reasons.  They simply cannot support themselves and their families in Mexico or Guatemala or Honduras.  A long term solution, then, is to help them make their own countries better, more stable and safe so that they do not want to leave.  Short term, she suggested making immigration easier for persons, perhaps allowing people to obtain permits to come here to work.  She encouraged deporting illegal persons without criminalizing them.

She was the very face of competent compassion, a long-distance runner for the people she cared about.  People like Heather Williams give me hope.

© Susan Ortman Goering

March 23, 2013