Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Homeland Security Gone Astray

Today's NYT reported that the Department of Homeland Security has gone out of control.  Maybe Napolitano can reign it in.  In the meantime, Sheriff Joe, back home in Arizona has come to believe that he lives in the Antebellum South (see Arapaio Moving Immigrants to Tent Cityhttp://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/02/03/20090203abrk-tentcity0203.html. The NYT obtained the information through the freedom of information act.  See the document posted below Nina Bernstein's article.

Also see dreamact post "What is DHS defining as criminal?" January 29, 2009
----
Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted


By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times
Published: February 3, 2009

The raids on homes around the country were billed as carefully planned hunts for dangerous immigrant fugitives, and given catchy names like Operation Return to Sender.

And they garnered bigger increases in money and staff from Congress than any other program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as complaints grew that teams of armed agents were entering homes indiscriminately.

But in fact, beginning in 2006, the program was no longer what was being advertised. Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening — criminals and terrorism suspects.

Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either.

Internal directives by immigration officials in 2006 raised arrest quotas for each team in the National Fugitive Operations Program, eliminated a requirement that 75 percent of those arrested be criminals, and then allowed the teams to include nonfugitives in their count.

In the next year, fugitives with criminal records dropped to 9 percent of those arrested, and nonfugitives picked up by chance — without a deportation order — rose to 40 percent. Many were sent to detention centers far from their homes, and deported..
.more

No comments: