Two Illegal Immigration Topics President Bush Won’t Talk About Tonight
Go here for my review of the President’s speech.
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Illegals in Prison
Sometimes, dry and bureuacratic reports can be revealing. This is one of those times. A PDF report (HTML abstract here) from the Government Accountability Office with the understated title “Information on Certain Illegal Aliens Arrested in the United States” (HT Newsbeat1 via Instapundit) looked at a broad cross-section of illegals in the prison population.
This excerpt from the abstract reads like law enforcement’s worst nightmare, probably because it is (broken into paragraphs by me):
In our population study of 55,322 illegal aliens, we found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests.
Most of the arrests occurred after 1990. They were arrested for a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses, averaging about 13 offenses per illegal alien. One arrest incident may include multiple offenses, a fact that explains why there are nearly one and half times more offenses than arrests. Almost all of these illegal aliens were arrested for more than 1 offense. Slightly more than half of the 55,322 illegal aliens had between 2 and 10 offenses.
About 45 percent of all offenses were drug or immigration offenses. About 15 percent were property-related offenses such as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and property damage. About 12 percent were for violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related crimes. The balance was for such other offenses as traffic violations, including driving under the influence; fraud–including forgery and counterfeiting; weapons violations; and obstruction of justice.
Eighty percent of all arrests occurred in three states–California, Texas, and Arizona. Specifically, about 58 percent of all arrests occurred in California, 14 percent in Texas, and 8 percent in Arizona.
I’m afraid the answer to the perfectly logical question “Why can’t these people be deported?” is that their home country won’t incarcerate them, and they’ll be right back here faster than you can say “free to victimize again.”
This is just one more reason why the House’s insistence on stopping the inflow of illegals with a wall cannot be bargained away. It’s also one more reason why President Bush and the amnesty-lite crowd won’t discuss it — it makes them look like fools for allowing this situation, which admittedly predates the current administration, to further deteriorate for five more years. The September 11 attacks should have ended any doubt about whether controlling the borders is important, yet the president has dithered.
Mexican consular presence in the US
Michelle Malkin’s entry on Friday about how the Mexican consulate in Indianapolis is assisting the 76 illegals associated with Fischer Homes who were arrested in Northern Kentucky last week caused a little alarm bell to go off.
I mean, Indianapolis? How many consulates does Mexico have in the US anyway?
Would you believe at least 48?
That’s right. This link lists 45, plus four in Canada. The list includes 11 locations in Texas, 10 in California, 4 in Arizona, and two in North Carolina(!). But I found three more through directory lookups: Las Vegas, NV; Richmond, VA; and the Indianapolis office just mentioned, which occupies downtown real estate within walking distance of the RCA Dome:
There may of course be others I did not find. Based on my limited reviews of directory results, I believe that very few countries have any more than a half-dozen consulates outside of the Metro Washington, DC area, and most of those tend to be associated with the presence of a major multinational firm based in the home country.
So why does a dirt-poor country (correction: “mostly dirt-poor” — See Comments 9 and 10 below) with a limited multinational business presence need at least 48 consulates in this country, except to facilitate life for their citizens who are here illegally, and to defend the prison population discussed earlier in this post?
The question at Michelle’s post mentioned above stands: “Who’s Running America?” Maybe that question is what we’ll finally get an answer for tonight.
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UPDATE: Japan appears to have eight consulates in the US in addition to Washington. Britain, Korea, and Mainland China, the others I would expect to have a high presence mostly based on trade, have twelve and ten, and six, respectively, including Washington.
UPDATE 2: Hanky time begins — This Cincinnati Enquirer piece on Hispanics in Florence, Kentucky, portrays many as cowering in fear inside their homes. To those here illegally: What part of “illegal” don’t you understand? To those here legally: If you have any fear, your illegal “brethren” are causing it. Update 2A: It’s the lead story in the print edition (”Raids Fill Hispanics with Fear”).
UPDATE 3: Welcome to Michelle Malkin readers!
UPDATE 4: That ever-alert “S.O.B.er” Porkopolis catches the Enquirer in PC-language overdrive. The 76 arrested last week are NOT “allegedly undocumented immigrants” as the article describes them — They are, as ICE has stated, “illegal alien workers.”
For those who do enter the country illegally, earning permanent, legal residency is nearly impossible.
That should be obvious, but I fear that tonight we will learn that the statement is untrue.
UPDATE 5: Unabashedly Unhyphenated has an exhaustive pre-speech predix roundup.
UPDATE 6: I am told that the various Mexican consulates (i.e., the Mexican government) generally pay the legal fees of those arrested as illegal aliens.
“…the perfectly logical question ‘Why can’t these people be deported?’…”
Cool - Elian Gonzalez multiplied by 11 million. Good luck with that.
If you thought that idea was “perfectly logical”, I guess I can see why you’re for a ridiculously vast wall, too.
Some more tax cuts for the rich ought to pay for that, right? Too bad we’ll have deported all the cheap labor…
Comment by Theo — May 15, 2006 @ 9:41 am
Theo, Theo. I’m talking about imprisoned criminals in the post, not all 12 million or so illegals who are here. That would be about 308,000, from Page 12 of the GAO report you obviously did not bother to visit. Notice how those 308,000 are not currently engaged in any “cheap labor,” because they happen to be unavailable for work.
Get a grip.
I want to secure the borders as a precondition for solving the problem of what to do about the people who are already here. Are you telling me you have a problem with doing that?
And the proper term is “tax cuts for those who actually pay taxes.”
Comment by TBlumer — May 15, 2006 @ 10:10 am
The official ICE News Release characterizes those arrested as “illegal aliens”:
“WASHINGTON, D.C. — Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Amul R. Thapar, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, today announced the arrest of four construction supervisors of Fischer Homes Inc. and 76 illegal alien workers at Fischer Homes construction sites in Kentucky.”
Comment by Porkopolis — May 15, 2006 @ 10:59 am
A first: Bush Address Comes pre-Fisked
…rather than rant on about what this person who purportedly is our “leader” will say this evening, I’ll just serve as a guide to the thoughts of others who are, in effect, pre-Fisking this laughable attempt to con America…
Trackback by Unabashedly Unhyphenated — May 15, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
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Pingback by FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Illegal Immigration Watch: President Bush - WAY Too Little, ALOT Too LATE — May 15, 2006 @ 12:17 pm
[…] bout that. Wonder what else he’s wrong about. Around the blogosphere, fellow SOBers BizzyBlog, Porkopolis and new-to-the-club Brad’s Blog. Filed under: Immigration by — Dave @ 1:4 […]
Pingback by NixGuy.com » Immigration Number Crunching — May 15, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
#4, don’t “con” yourself. The real “conning” of America has been slowly diminishing since 1994.
Comment by SAM — May 15, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
#7, on this particular issue it hasn’t gotten better, and needs to.
Comment by TBlumer — May 15, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
48 consulates does seem like a lot. Canada has 19 (6 consulates and 13 consulates general).
I don’t think I’d go along with your description of Mexico as “dirt-poor,” though. According to this chart, the per-capita purchsing power parity in the world in 2004 was $8800, while the per-capita purchasing power parity of Mexico in 2004 was $9600. That means that the average Mexican is a little bit better off than the average person.
Comment by Jason Sonenshein — May 15, 2006 @ 6:56 pm
#9, thanks for the info, esp the links. I didn’t expect that Canada would have so many consulates.
I think “mostly dirt-poor country” would be a more apt description for Mexico, as those who don’t live in certain parts of Mexico City or in some of the tourist areas would predominantly be correctly described as dirt-poor. Also, as I understand it, the illegal immigrants predominantly come from the very impoverished areas.
Comment by TBlumer — May 15, 2006 @ 8:18 pm
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