Tag: Immigration

CBP Plan: Let’s Put Illegals On Cruise Ships

Buck Banks

Tough-love boat: You gotta give the Customs and Border Protection agency points for creativity. Or not.

Faced with a potential flood of illegal aliens apprehended in the impending immigration crack-down as the agency moves from its “catch-and-release” methodology (arrest them, give them a court date and hope they show — un-huh) to a “catch-and-don’t-release” one, CBP leaders asked managers to come up with ideas on how to deal with arrested illegals until they are tried or deported. Their creative answer? Charter cruise ships.

The bureau is considering either buying out-of-service cruise ships or leasing them to create “detention barges” at sea, the source said. The barges would act as jails, housing alleged violators of U.S. immigration law.

Because the cruise industry is not as profitable as it once was, CBP may get a bargain on ship space that has passed its prime, the source said. And, as the need for additional beds for detainees could only exist on a short-term basis, having a contract that creates more jail space for illegal immigrants will prove less costly than having to build new jails, the source said.

The bureau is considering either buying out-of-service cruise ships or leasing them to create ‘detention barges’ at sea.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency was pressed for housing space to accommodate Hurricane Katrina evacuees last year, it chartered three Carnival Cruise ships for months to provide shelter for up to 7,000 people.

That worked out really well for Carnival, which was paid $236 million for the six-month charters. They caught tons of flak and bad press for supposedly bilking the gubmint on the deal. (Disclosure: I do consulting work for Carnival.) In the end, a congressional panel decided the deal wasn’t so great for Carnival after all, and having the ships available as quarters for first-responders did aid in recovery efforts.

In May, President Bush predicted that 4,000 additional beds will be needed by the end of fiscal 2006, and thousands more will be needed in the coming years. That seems like an understatement, considering there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. In any event, nobody wants to build immigrant jails, apparently, and the ones we already have are, well, overcrowded.

Look, we’re going to need them, so we might just as well allot some vast areas of federal land to creating impregnable detention camps for hundreds of thousands of farm workers, day laborers, housekeepers, construction workers, cab drivers, cooks, waiters, custodians and hotel workers. Heck, that’d have to be easier than building a 400-mile-long fence, wouldn’t it?

Poll: Most People Liked Bush’s Immigration Ideas

Buck Banks

Migrating opinion: According to National Journal’s PollTrack, President Bush’s immigration proposals were relatively well-recieved Monday night, based on an overnight poll from CNN. Pollsters interviewed 461 adults who watched the primetime TV address that had been identified and pre-screened as part of a larger poll over the weekend. The sample was 41 percent Republican, 23 percent Democrat and 36 percent independent.

Nearly 80 percent said they had a positive reaction to the speech; 67 percent said they had a “generally positive” view of the policies Bush set forth, and 27 percent said they had a “generally negative” view.

About 75 percent said they favored Bush’s proposal to allow illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, and about 70 percent said they supported Bush’s proposal to allow foreign citizens to work in the U.S. temporarily.

A new Gallup survey detected a slight bounce for Bush: His approval split came in at 33/61, compared with a 31/65 split from a few days ago. However, just a quarter of respondents said they were satisfied with the direction of the country, down 2 points since Gallup’s April survey.

Texas Repugs Celebrate Patriotism by Pretending to Shoot Immigrants

Trish

Some Texas Republicans are confused about the meaning of patriotism, supporting our troops, and who our actual enemies are. Their recent “support our troops” rally morphed into a “shoot up immigrants” fest. The meeting was held — as you might expect — in a church. Dallas Morning News:

Critics of church-based, GOP pretend immigrant slaughter need to “lighten up.”

Some Greater Irving Republican Club members who attended the meeting at First Church of the Nazarene were dressed in military garb or carried toy guns. Silhouettes – one riddled with pellet-like holes – were on display…

Club leaders said that the meeting about homeland security and other matters was benign. Attendees dressed up because the club has a different theme each month, club president Sue Richardson said. April’s theme was designed to support the troops, she said.

And yet the speaker for the yellow-ribbon-magnet-on-the-back-of-
your-SUV meeting was an immigration official. Huh?

Ms. Richardson said the meeting included a presentation by a representative from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on the topic of sealing off ways for terrorists to enter the U.S. undetected…

“[We’re] being patriotic and standing with our troops and trying to fight the war on terrorism,” she said. “We’re at war, and it’s not business as usual.”

Amazing how that “war excuses everything” line crops up among Repugs, even at the local level. It’s not really working for me. Reactions to the odd pairing of human targets and a talk on immigration were…well, see for yourself.

Lico Reyes…said the meeting – particularly the use of the silhouettes – was insensitive and not well thought out. Mr. Reyes said he looked into the meeting after concerned residents contacted him. He and other critics linked the silhouettes to immigration concerns…

Church pastor Rick Thomason said he looked into the matter and was satisfied with an explanation of what happened. The group will continue to be allowed to meet at the church, he said.

Irving City Council member Lewis Patrick said he visited the gathering but left early to attend other meetings…

“I’m not going to get in the middle of it,” he said. “It could get political.” [Editor’s note: Gee Lewis, ya think?]

Ms. Richardson attributed criticism of the meeting to people who are “spreaders of misery.”

“They don’t like a lot of people in the club, and they’re always complaining,” she said. “They need to lighten up.”

Yes, just lighten up for pete’s sake. I mean, it’s not like they’re not real guns. Those are still out in our glove boxes and trunks.

DHS Wants Access to Social Security Databases to Ferret Out Illegal Aliens

Buck Banks

Cost of security is privacy: The Department of Homeland Security is pushing Congress to pass legislation giving its Immigration and Customs Enforcement division access to Social Security databases so it can identify mismatched and fake SS numbers used by illegal aliens. Remembering the heckuva job DHS did during Hurricane Katrina and the fact that DHS employees have been arrested for trying to pick up 14-year-olds over the Internet, it sounds like a great idea to let them “mine” data from Social Security’s databases. The plan, which some say just cobbles together existing initiatives into a “new” program, was proposed last Thursday.

ICE Administrator Julie Myers said 80,000 incarcerated immigrants were deported last year, and the plan is to increase that number by 10 percent each year for the next two years.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department wants Congress to pass legislation that would let investigators with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency access Social Security Administration databases. According to ICE, millions of workers have given Social Security numbers to their employers that do not match their names, but ICE does not have access to data to investigate this activity.

“One of the key challenges that supports illegal migration is abuse of our Social Security system and the Social Security document,” Chertoff said during a news conference. “We’ve been urging Congress to pass legislation, now before the Senate, that would grant the Department of Homeland Security some carefully crafted access to Social Security no-match data so we can detect those employers who are systematically employing workers, despite the fact that there’s an obvious mismatch between the names and the Social Security numbers in question.”

The overall strategy announced Thursday has three elements: identify and remove criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and other immigration violators in the country; build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment; and uproot criminal infrastructure domestically and abroad that supports illegal immigration, criminal trafficking and document or benefits fraud.

ICE Administrator Julie Myers said her agency also is training prison officers on how to deport illegal immigrants already in custody. She said 80,000 incarcerated immigrants were deported last year, and the plan is to increase that number by 10 percent each year for the next two years.

What a great plan — get rid of all the maids, day laborers and empty the prisons at the same time.