News
Page 4
Street Roots • July 22-28,2016
The criminalization o f improper border crossings costs taxpayers
billions but does little to stifle the flow o f illegal immigrants
BY E M IL Y GREEN
STAFF W RITER
n April, members of the immigrant
advocacy group Enlace rallied on the
doorsteps of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s
Portland office.
They were there to encourage the
senator, whom they see as an ally, to
introduce legislation that would stop private
prisons from qualifying for Real Estate
Investment Trust status, which allows the
for-profit companies to rake in millions of
dollars in tax-free revenue. They brought
with them a request bearing roughly 750
signatures.
Private prisons have become the sole
focus of Enlace’s campaign efforts. Enlace is
an immigrant and low-wage-worker advocacy
alliance with offices in Portland, Los
Angeles, New York and Mexico City.
But why are immigrant advocates putting
all their energy into taking on the prison
industrial complex?
About six years ago, Enlace members
were growing frustrated as mass deportation
was inhibiting them from effectively
organizing; active members and leaders
were continually arrested, incarcerated and
then deported.
In an effort to get at the root of the
criminalization of immigrants, they began to
examine what they viewed as anti-immigrant
laws, said Enlace’s Portland-based campaign
organizer, Amanda Aguilar Shank.
And what they discovered, she said, was
that “the private prison industry lobby was a
driving force.”
I
Operation Streamline
Since 2005, the lengthy incarceration of
immigrants caught illegally entering the
United States has cost American taxpayers
$7 billion, estimates a 178-page report
released July 13.
“Indefensible: A Decade of Mass
Incarceration of Migrants Prosecuted for
Crossing the Border” chronicles how
America’s current immigration policies were
shaped and how the incarceration of illegal
2000, before Operation Streamline, 7,900
immigrants is contributing to our nation’s
cases of felony re-entry were filed
mass incarceration problem.
nationwide. In 2015, that number had
The full-length report is available online
ballooned to 33,800.
at the websites of both its authoring
The crackdown on illegal border crossings
organizations, national advocacy groups
has drastically increased profits for private
Grassroots Leadership and Justice
prison companies that now operate 62
Strategies.
percent of the nation’s 250 immigration
Its release follows
detention facilities.
the 10-year
The largest,
anniversary of
Corrections
Operation
Corporation-of
Streamline, a policy
America, listed profits
put in place under
of more than $1 billion
the George W. Bush
from 2012 to the end
administration in
of 2015.
2005.
Nine of Corrections
This policy
Corporation of
33,800 Felony re-entry cases filed
ushered in an era of
America’s 61
in U.S. in 2015, up from 7,900 in 2000
mass criminalization
correctional facilities
and incarceration of
are immigrant
43% Increase in deportations for
unauthorized
detention centers.
drug possession, 2007-12
immigrants. Before
There are no federal
Operation
immigrant detention
49% Federal prosecutions in 2015
Streamline, improper
centers in Oregon.
that involve illegal border crossing
migration was
Instead, Oregon’s
typically handled as a
illegal immigrants are
SOURCES: Judy Greene, Justice
civil, not criminal
held in county jails and
Strategies; Human Rights Watch and
matter, and civil
holding facilities before
Drug Policy Alliance data;
provisions were used
being
transferred to
“Indefensible” report
to remove illegal
out-of-state federal
immigrants when the
prisons - frequently
issue arose.
the Northwest
Inserting the criminal process is not a
Detention Center in Tacoma, Wash. It’s a
replacement for the civil process, said Judy
federal prison reserved for immigrants, and
Greene, one of the report’s authors and
it’s privately owned by the second-largest
director of Justice Strategies, “but simply
private-prison company, GEO Group.
postpones that process for days, months or
Northwest Detention Center is one of the
even years,” with “huge additional costs” to
largest immigration prisons in the country,
taxpayers.
and in 2015, nearly 1,000 people were
Operation Streamline made it possible to
transferred from Portland District Office
expeditiously prosecute mass numbers of
Holding Facility to it and other immigrant
immigrants by arraigning, convicting and
detention centers, according to-a data
sentencing up to 80 immigrants caught
research group at Syracuse University called
improperly entering the U.S. in the same
the Transactional Records Access
courtroom, at the same time.
Clearinghouse, or TRAC. It also reported
This has resulted in the prosecution of
that 13 correctional facilities in Oregon
nearly three-quarters of a million people for
transferred people to immigrant detention
illegal entry over the past decade.
centers last year.
According to Greene, during the year
Many of these prisons are rife with
BY THE NUMBERS
abuse, leading to protests and hunger
strikes, the report states.
“Indefensible” found that increased felony
prosecutions for re-entry, which can carry
up to a two-year prison sentence, drove
contracts for 13 new, privately operated
immigrant detention facilities from 2000 to
2013.
First-time illegal entry is a misdemeanor
and carries a sentence of up to 180 days.
While many who are prosecuted come
into contact with the criminal justice system
when they are caught crossing the border,
others are deported after they are
incarcerated for other crimes, which can
drastically increase the length of their stay
in an immigrant detention center.
But when people who are prosecuted for
re-entry have a prior criminal history,
Greene said, they can receive a sentence
many years longer than the two-year
maximum.
Human Rights Watch and Drug Policy
Alliance have connected what they call the
“war on immigrants” to the war on drugs.
From 2007 to 2012, more than 250,000
deported immigrants had a drug offense as
their most serious conviction, and of those,
34,000 were deported for simple marijuana
possession, according to data compiled by
the two groups.
During that same period, deportations for
people convicted of drug possession
increased 43 percent
Not all immigrants who get deported are
here illegally. People living in the U.S. as
legal residents can face deportation if they
commit a crime.
Today, non-citizens make up 23 percent of
the federal prison population, and illegal
border crossing prosecutions accounted for
an astounding 49 percent of all federal
prosecutions in 2015, according to
“Indefensible.”
‘Nothing has worked’
A key finding of “Indefensible” is that
there is no convincing evidence showing the
See IM M IGRANTS, page 5