Immigration - The Hidden Waste of Money
As an attorney I've represented several defendants charged with violating immigration laws. This has taught me quite a bit about immigration, and perhaps more important about deportation.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, our friendly federal government wastes a tremendous amount of money in this process. The most obvious is the situation where the alien wants to go back to his or her home country. You'd think this would be straightforward. They want to go home. We want them to go home. So, poof - we take them to the border. Right?
Nope. The process is nowhere near that simple. To some extent this makes sense. There is a formal process to ensure that the person genuinely wants to leave, understands their rights, and really should be deported, etc. In cases like mine, you would think this could easily be accomplished when the criminal case is resolved. All of my cases so far have been resolved with a plea bargain. Upon conviction, it would be very easy to have the same federal judge order the deportation, and poof, you're done. I don't know why, but it doesn't work that way. I'm guessing Congress and the President are responsible for this.
In many cases the actual process takes 2 months. During that time the deportee is held in custody by the immigration officials (ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement). In this area they are kept in local jails at a cost to the US Treasury of $100 per day. This does not include the cost of having ICE agents run around arranging jail stays. Due to problems I don't fully understand, they have difficulty finding jails that meet federal requirements and in many cases have to move them to a different facility every 72 hours. Thus, the additional 2 months in custody costs taxpayers in the ballpark of $10,000 per deportee. As a rough guess, there are 1 million deportations a year -- that's $10 billion. And that's just some of the waste - there's probably more.
There is a separate immigration "court" system, under the Executive Office of Immigration Review. I put the word court in quotes because this court system is not what many lawyers would consider a real court. This court is a part of the executive branch, rather than being a part of the judicial branch. I'm learning more about this process as time goes on - I'm not really an immigration lawyer though at this point I probably know more than most lawyers.
There is the entirely separate question of whether our immigration policy is sensible. I have long supported more open immigration. My grandfather came here as a child and I'm sure some locals then didn't want him, and those like him, to come. We used to have open immigration. The Statue of Liberty has a quote:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Does anyone think this describes our immigration policy today? Shouldn't we send the statue back to France? Maybe we can send it to Canada, since they seem to embrace that policy approach.
I was raised and educated to believe that quote on the Statue of Liberty meant something, and that it was a good policy. The melting pot it implies created a diverse society and strong economy.
The current anti-immigration policy doesn't really stop the melting pot. Like illegal drugs, illegal aliens still find their way into the country. The war on immigrants also funnels huge sums to criminal networks who smuggle the aliens in. Open immigration avoids these problems.
The other problem is the amount we spend trying to stop immigration. I can't figure out the federal budget enough to give a hard number, but I'm guessing it's at least $10 billion a year. It doesn't work. There are reported to be as many as 30 million illegal immigrants in the US at any given moment. No matter how many walls you build or how much you spend, they will keep finding their way in.
There are so many loud voices opposed to immigration - reflecting little more than prejudice. They show little interest in economic analyses and history indicating that immigration is overwhelmingly good for our country.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, our friendly federal government wastes a tremendous amount of money in this process. The most obvious is the situation where the alien wants to go back to his or her home country. You'd think this would be straightforward. They want to go home. We want them to go home. So, poof - we take them to the border. Right?
Nope. The process is nowhere near that simple. To some extent this makes sense. There is a formal process to ensure that the person genuinely wants to leave, understands their rights, and really should be deported, etc. In cases like mine, you would think this could easily be accomplished when the criminal case is resolved. All of my cases so far have been resolved with a plea bargain. Upon conviction, it would be very easy to have the same federal judge order the deportation, and poof, you're done. I don't know why, but it doesn't work that way. I'm guessing Congress and the President are responsible for this.
In many cases the actual process takes 2 months. During that time the deportee is held in custody by the immigration officials (ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement). In this area they are kept in local jails at a cost to the US Treasury of $100 per day. This does not include the cost of having ICE agents run around arranging jail stays. Due to problems I don't fully understand, they have difficulty finding jails that meet federal requirements and in many cases have to move them to a different facility every 72 hours. Thus, the additional 2 months in custody costs taxpayers in the ballpark of $10,000 per deportee. As a rough guess, there are 1 million deportations a year -- that's $10 billion. And that's just some of the waste - there's probably more.
There is a separate immigration "court" system, under the Executive Office of Immigration Review. I put the word court in quotes because this court system is not what many lawyers would consider a real court. This court is a part of the executive branch, rather than being a part of the judicial branch. I'm learning more about this process as time goes on - I'm not really an immigration lawyer though at this point I probably know more than most lawyers.
There is the entirely separate question of whether our immigration policy is sensible. I have long supported more open immigration. My grandfather came here as a child and I'm sure some locals then didn't want him, and those like him, to come. We used to have open immigration. The Statue of Liberty has a quote:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Does anyone think this describes our immigration policy today? Shouldn't we send the statue back to France? Maybe we can send it to Canada, since they seem to embrace that policy approach.
I was raised and educated to believe that quote on the Statue of Liberty meant something, and that it was a good policy. The melting pot it implies created a diverse society and strong economy.
The current anti-immigration policy doesn't really stop the melting pot. Like illegal drugs, illegal aliens still find their way into the country. The war on immigrants also funnels huge sums to criminal networks who smuggle the aliens in. Open immigration avoids these problems.
The other problem is the amount we spend trying to stop immigration. I can't figure out the federal budget enough to give a hard number, but I'm guessing it's at least $10 billion a year. It doesn't work. There are reported to be as many as 30 million illegal immigrants in the US at any given moment. No matter how many walls you build or how much you spend, they will keep finding their way in.
There are so many loud voices opposed to immigration - reflecting little more than prejudice. They show little interest in economic analyses and history indicating that immigration is overwhelmingly good for our country.
posted by Albany Lawyer at 9:22 AM
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