May 7, 2008 10:50 AM
Immigration 101 tracks my Immigration Law class at Hofstra.
Most immigrants who wind up being deported are either caught at the border, or transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they are arrested for a crime. But what gets the headlines are the raids.
In 2007, a week-long series of raids on Long Island made national headlines. The behavior of ICE agents was so outrageous that Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi filed a protest with the Department of Homeland Security. The Long Island raids and similar actions around the country led to Congressional investigations into ICE and multiple lawsuits. The impact of the raids on children caught up in the capture of their parents has caused widespread revulsion.
Raids really are not a very good way to halt illegal immigration, if that is your goal. The raids on Long Island drew on dozens of ICE officers, involved transporting them from as far away as Texas and housing them at government expense in New York, and keeping them away from other work for more than a week. All to nab fewer than 200 immigrants.
The same group of officers could have been deployed along the border and captured many times that number.
So why is ICE's scarce resources being used in these spectacularly headline grabbing raids?
Well, precisely because the raids are headline grabbing.
The Department of Homeland Security was set up after the 9-11 terror attacks to grab headlines. The creation of the new agency did little to enhance security. Its most well-publicized intitiative before the raids was Tom Ridge's eminently stupid system of color-coded terror warnings. Similarly, the raids are not carried out to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants, but rather to appease a public demanding that "something must be done".
Think about it. Between 80,000 and 100,000 undocumented immigrants live on Long Island. The big raids captured less than 200 people, leaving between 79,800 and 99,800 "illegal immigrants" living here. But the newspapers were full of the story and Steve Levy hailed the raids as the dawning of a new era.
It wasn't.
So, when you hear of big, headline grabbing raids, rest assured that while the diversion of resources may have allowed many more undocumented to enter the United States, the publicity around the sweep allows your neighbors to sleep the sleep of those who know that the homeland is secure.
Read other parts of this series:
Immigration 101 is a comprehensive series on American immigration law for the layperson. This series tracks my course on immigration law at Hofstra Law School and answers many of your questions about immigration policy.
Here is the current list of articles in this series.
Immigration 101 Overview of the Immigration System
Immigration 101 Employment Based
Immigration 101 Family Based Immigration
Immigration 101 So what makes up a family
Immigration 101 History We need a new Ellis Island
Immigration 101 Coming to the U.S.
Immigration 101 Stopping 'em at the border
Immigration 101 Don't Give Me Your Poor
Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 1
Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 2
Immigration 101 Keeping the Chinese Out Part 1
Immigration 101 The Chinese Exclusion Act Cases Part 2
Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 1 Introduction
Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 2 How employers evade the law
Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 3 The impact of sanctions on immigrants
Immigration 101 ICE Storm-An on the ground look at raids
Immigration 101 Sept. 11 and immigration
Immigration 101 How the Sept. 11 Hijackers got into the United States
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Pat 1
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 2 Good Moral Character
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 3 English
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen-Part 4 What is an American?
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen-Part 5 What does an American believe?
Immigration 101 Becoming A Citizen Part 6 A confident view of who we are
Pat,
Doubtlessly the headline grabbing is important, but I don't believe that is mainly motivating ICE. Like the IRS, the thinking is that one arrest and prosecution is well understood to be hardly a dent in keeping people honest, but it serves as a widespread caution/warning to others that they might not want to go to jail, &/or receive heavy fines a la Wesley Snipes. To arrest 10 people on LI has the ability to crawl into the nightmares of millions of immigrants
ICE knows the raids have far reaching reverberations here in the U.S. immigrant community that is believed will go far to motivate many to repatriate themselves to their country of origin because the psychological effect of uncertainty is so burdensome and stressful on a daily basis, many already in dire circumstances, will be incapable of coping with the strain of family separation..
Stepping up the raids was announced by Homeland Security Chertoff from the White House, to give the announcement significant coverage, the day after tthe defeat of MCain-Feingold. I believe Chertoff was still in trouble over the HS sheer incompetence & budget profligacy. ICE wanted to show congress they would intensify enforcement Repubs were clamoring for, and therefore it would not be helpful to cut their budget as had been called for, because ICE was now going to ride herd.
At the same time it would serve White House political strategy, assuming (so they thought) that a crackdown by ICE would raise such a howl from the business community, the heart of the Repub Party & its financial well-spring, it would cause business to jump down the throats of the screaming Repub congress members to silence their cry for vengeance no matter how adversly it would affect business.
Their howl would permit the Bush administration to resubmit the bill and eek out a much needed victory, after a string of set-backs & losses. From the powerful right wing's much-invested scapegoat of the undocumented, at a time when the economy was going south, there was fear voters would not much appreciate the downturn of the economy they had wrought. The""illegals" were red meat for the circus maximus.
Repubs' brute wedge politics they have used so unsparingly was just too attractive to them, with little options available. The raids were meant to mollify the most vocal wing of the nativist faction of the Repub party, who has been so well served by ICE.
None of their suppositions came to pass. The business community seems content to let stand the immigration reform debacle and not press congress to give the White House the legislative victory they wanted, as they could operate just as before, thank you very much. Besides, the raids served the ideological purpose of making undocumented equal to criminal to widen & deepen the returns generated by wedge politics. --mo
By mo May 7, 2008 01:24 PM
Pat,
Doubtlessly the headline grabbing is important, but I don't believe that is mainly motivating ICE. Like the IRS, the thinking is that one arrest and prosecution is well understood to be hardly a dent in keeping people honest, but it serves as a widespread caution/warning to others that they might not want to go to jail, &/or receive heavy fines a la Wesley Snipes. To arrest 10 people on LI has the ability to crawl into the nightmares of millions of immigrants
ICE knows the raids have far reaching reverberations here in the U.S. immigrant community that is believed will go far to motivate many to repatriate themselves to their country of origin because the psychological effect of uncertainty is so burdensome and stressful on a daily basis, many already in dire circumstances, will be incapable of coping with the strain of family separation..
Stepping up the raids was announced by Homeland Security Chertoff from the White House, to give the announcement significant coverage, the day after tthe defeat of MCain-Feingold. I believe Chertoff was still in trouble over the HS sheer incompetence & budget profligacy. ICE wanted to show congress they would intensify enforcement Repubs were clamoring for, and therefore it would not be helpful to cut their budget as had been called for, because ICE was now going to ride herd.
At the same time it would serve White House political strategy, assuming (so they thought) that a crackdown by ICE would raise such a howl from the business community, the heart of the Repub Party & its financial well-spring, it would cause business to jump down the throats of the screaming Repub congress members to silence their cry for vengeance no matter how adversly it would affect business.
Their howl would permit the Bush administration to resubmit the bill and eek out a much needed victory, after a string of set-backs & losses. From the powerful right wing's much-invested scapegoat of the undocumented, at a time when the economy was going south, there was fear voters would not much appreciate the downturn of the economy they had wrought. The""illegals" were red meat for the circus maximus.
Repubs' brute wedge politics they have used so unsparingly was just too attractive to them, with little options available. The raids were meant to mollify the most vocal wing of the nativist faction of the Repub party, who has been so well served by ICE.
None of their suppositions came to pass. The business community seems content to let stand the immigration reform debacle and not press congress to give the White House the legislative victory they wanted, as they could operate just as before, thank you very much. Besides, the raids served the ideological purpose of making undocumented equal to criminal to widen & deepen the returns generated by wedge politics. --mo
By mo May 7, 2008 01:25 PM
Pat, you have just taught me something that will be the subject of much fodder for me and my friends. ICE developed the color-coded terror warnings!
I think the only news that still uses that is Fox isn't it?
By Lisa Votino-Tarrant May 7, 2008 02:21 PM
Lisa, it was Homeland Security which developed the color codes. ICE is a bureau in Homeland Security.
By Pat May 7, 2008 02:57 PM