Immigration enforcement up everywhere

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Immigration prosecutions climbed to record levels in 2009, according to Chief Justice John Roberts’s annual report on the judiciary.
For the fiscal year ending in September 2009, immigration filings jumped by about a fifth nationwide, according to data compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Statistics from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York show immigration prosecutions continued to rise in fiscal 2009, after jumping dramatically in 2008.
The number of immigration prosecutions in the Western District has increased steadily for the past several years and in 2008 surpassed the Southern District of New York, which previously had the highest immigration caseload in the Second Circuit.
Between 2005 and 2008, the number of immigration filings in the Western District went from 51 to 125, according to data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. During those same years the number of filings in the Southern District fluctuated between a high of 170 in 2006 and a low of 99 filings in 2008.
The local U.S. Attorney’s Office recorded 169 felony cases in 2009, compared to 161 cases in 2008 and 99 cases in 2007. In 2004, only 48 felony immigration cases were prosecuted.
Nationally, the charge of improper reentry by an alien accounted for 80 percent of all immigration cases and 77 percent of all immigration defendants.
Improper reentry cases also represent the vast majority of offenses prosecuted in the Western District: In 2008, 104 of the 125 prosecutions in the district were for improper reentry, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts.
Locally, the increase in immigration prosecutions is a direct result of heightened law enforcement efforts and a growing willingness to prosecute immigration matters in district court.
“The increase in cases seems to be directly related to the increased presence of the border patrol, both at the bus station and the train terminal” in Rochester, said Mark Hosken, a supervisory assistant federal public defender.
The Department of Homeland Security has seen “a huge increase” in the number of law enforcement officers, Interim U.S. Attorney Kathleen Mehltretter for the Western District of New York said Tuesday.
Since 2002, U.S. Border Patrol has quadrupled the number of officers on duty in the Western District of New York, Mehltretter said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement added 54 officers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection added 250 employees, a 100 percent increase between 2002 and 2009.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office also received funding for two additional prosecutors to focus on immigration-related offenses.
Federal Public Defender Marianne Mariano said the increase in manpower has resulted in a significant uptick in the criminal prosecutions.
“The Western District has experienced an upswing in criminal prosecutions in total — so this certainly adds to how busy the court is. For the individuals they’re prosecuting … they’re here to work, and many of them now have felony criminal records,” Mariano said.
Mariano said prosecutors also have increased the level of the crimes being charged in many instances, from misdemeanor to felony.
Critics claim the funds could be better used elsewhere. Wendy Sefsaf, a spokeswoman for the pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center, said she expects the number of prosecutions to remain high until Congress passes a law giving the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants a way to remain in the United States legally.
“Can we really afford to be spending this kind of time and money locking up people who essentially have come here to work≠” Sefsaf said.
Mehltretter said the U.S. Attorney’s Office has “very close to a zero tolerance policy.”
“We will prosecute illegal aliens as part of our effort to ensure the integrity of the border and protect the citizens and residents of the United States,” Mehltretter said.
It’s part of an anti-terrorism effort that dates back to 9/11, she said.
Nationally, the number of criminal cases reached its highest level since 1932, the year before Prohibition was repealed, Chief Justice Roberts said in his year-end report. In addition to immigration matters, district courts in 2009 saw increased filings in cases related to fraud, marijuana trafficking and sex offenses.
The number of cases included in the report excludes less serious crimes handled by federal magistrate judges. In 2008, there were nearly 80,000 immigration cases in all, including those dealt with by the magistrate judges, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a private group at Syracuse University.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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