As far as I can tell from my deep dive into the illegal immigration issue, the Feds really are concentrating their efforts on the worst cases. Yet, the typical media headline, this one from NPR, reads,
Sharpest growth in ICE detention population: people with no criminal convictions.
Obviously, this definition excludes any convictions having to do with the illegal immigration itself. By “no” they refer to convictions only in the United States.
And by using “convictions” they exclude a huge population of aliens charged with other serious crimes but deported before the local judicial system has run its course.
Illegal entry into the United States is a criminal act, as the name implies. But it is considered a misdemeanor, and usually prosecuted as a civil matter through Federal Immigration Court, a division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice.
If you return to the U.S. after being previously deported, that is a separate crime, a felony under U.S. law. For the past few weeks, I’ve been tracking such cases in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota.
I’ve been tracking 60 of the cases filed in the District since Pres. Trump began his second term. Which is admittedly a drop in the bucket considering there are easily more than 100,000 illegal aliens in Minnesota. The last rigorous study of the phenomenon (using 2019 data) counted only 81,000. Of those, the plurality are from Mexico. Add in illegals from El Salvador and Guatemala, and you have the majority.
My sample of five dozen match these demographics. The majority of the men (and they are all men) are from Mexico. All but one of the remainder are from elsewhere in Latin America.
Of these 60 cases filed since January, at least 25 defendants have already been deported.
Keep in mind that the goal of the U.S. Attorney, or ICE officer, or FBI agent at each step is to provide just enough background to achieve the immediate goal: obtain a search warrant, an indictment, a detention order, a conviction, etc. They don’t serve as biographers to each defendant passing through the system.
The indictments for illegal entry typically run no more than a couple of sentences each with the goal of establishing just two facts: 1. the defendant was previously deported and 2. now he’s back. Anything else is extraneous material.
That said, the U.S. Attorney, in some cases, has bothered to document additional deportations for individual defendants, totaling 51 prior deportations across the 60 defendants. One defendant alone recorded eight (8) of the 51 earlier deportations.
It’s only when the process gets beyond the indictment stage does the backstory (or even nationality) emerge for an individual defendant. In general, the deeper the process goes, the more horrors emerge.
It turns out that the Minnesota Dad (allegedly) sexually assaulted his 12-year-old daughter. But he was not “convicted,” as NPR would require before pursuing his re- re-deportation. Other Minnesota Men have backgrounds in drug dealing, burglary, theft, assault and other sex crimes. DWI’s and car crashes pop up with great frequency.
What I have not run across is anyone employed in either the agricultural or hospitality industries. There was one restaurant cook, but he was also a convicted felony cocaine dealer.
When defendants are indicted on felony re-entry charges, they are given a Hobson’s choice: they can agree to be handed over to ICE and deported, or they can stay in the custody of the U.S. Marshals and receive weeks or months of due process (assisted by a taxpayer-paid lawyer) and then be handed over to ICE for deportation.
In a few instances, the court has released a defendant on bond, while awaiting his Federal trial, but then he is picked up ICE and deported.
I’ve dug and dug and dug but have not yet encountered one of those seemingly ubiquitous cases of the military veteran/U.S. citizen/permanent resident/innocent bystander who got swept up in an ICE dragnet and kidnapped off the street by masked gunmen.
The backstories of these gentlemen always involve some other criminal event(s) that got them onto the radar of ICE/FBI/U.S. Attorney. Always, with no exceptions.
Your mileage may vary.
