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Originally posted by TexasConspiracyNut
This was in todays paper.
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Immigrant 'catch-release' policy criticized
Lack of detention space has led to 400,000 fugitives who are 'other than Mexican'
www.chron.com...
Here are a few paragraphs:
In particular, they're worried about what they derisively call the Department of Homeland Security's "capture and release" program.
Brought on by a shortage of detention space, the program allows immigration officials to routinely release tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico after extracting a promise from each to show up at a future detention hearing.
Homeland Security officials acknowledge that more than 70 percent of those released disappear from law enforcement's radar, resulting in a fugitive population of 400,000 nationwide.
"I don't think people realize that 15,000 of these people (non-Mexican migrants) have been dumped in communities in Texas in the last eight months," said Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, whose district includes nearly 800 miles of the Texas-Mexico border.
Nearly half of non-Mexicans arrested since October 2003 were released on the U.S. side of the border, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics released last week to the Chronicle.
So far this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2003, Homeland Security officials released from Border Patrol custody 21,979 of the 49,705 illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico, known to the Border Patrol as OTMs, said spokesman Mario Villarreal.
Releasing people claiming to be from South America that cant speak Spanish! What's up with that?