So was this: Despite more than $204 million earmarked since 2003 for 52 special fugitive operations teams across the country, the "backlog of fugitive alien cases has increased each fiscal year since the [fugitive apprehension] program was established in February 2002."
While pro-amnesty marchers stressed this week that they are "law-abiding" (except for those pesky immigration rules), more and more of the illegal aliens caught by immigration authorities and ordered to appear for deportation hearings are skipping out. The DHS inspector general's office explains that thousands of illegal aliens ignore orders to appear at their immigration hearings. Of the 460,000-plus immigration judge decisions and administrative closures issued by the Executive Office of Immigration and Review (EOIR) between 2001-2004, 39 percent (181,807) were issued to illegal aliens who had been released but later failed to appear at their respective immigration hearings.
And the total number of aliens failing to appear is increasing. In fact, according to DHS's Detention and Removal Office, 85 percent of the illegal aliens released that have been issued final orders of removal will abscond. That goes not just for illegal aliens from Mexico, but for illegal aliens from terror-friendly and terror-sponsoring nations. Homeland security? What homeland security?
Compounding the danger: The federal Detention and Removal Office estimates that in 2007, "there will be 605,000 foreign-born individuals admitted to state correctional facilities and local jails during the year for committing crimes in the U.S. Of this number, DRO estimates half (302,500) will be removable aliens. Currently, most of these incarcerated aliens are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences due to the lack of DRO resources." That's upwards of 300,000 convicted criminal aliens who will walk out of their cells and onto the streets. Never to be seen again.
Just doing the context-setting and number-crunching the rest of the mainstream media won't do. Now, back to your regularly scheduled, emotion-driven, one-sided coverage of America the Oppressor. Over to you, New York Times.
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