Failure to enforce deportations an affront to immigration legacy

By Mark H. Metcalf

In its annual report for 2008, the Department of Homeland Security revealed 558,000 fugitive aliens — those who fled court or disobeyed orders to leave — had avoided removal. Under the Obama administration, this number has grown. Some 715,000 people now reside in the U.S. that DHS refuses to deport. In one year, unenforced deportation orders have climbed 28 percent. And the numbers keep climbing.

“[M]illions of illegal immigrants,” one report states, “may avoid deportation” because DHS declines to enforce valid removal orders, discourages routine police reports and dismisses cases it was prosecuting. This failure of enforcement was underscored in an August no-confidence vote by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents against Obama officials. Appointees, the agents declared, had “abandoned [ICE’s] core mission of enforcing immigration laws.”

None of this is accidental. As historian Barbara Tuchman observed, this is folly. Folly, Tuchman added, comes from wooden-headed leaders — leaders who continue making the same mistakes despite the facts. Governments, she concluded, were often the biggest offenders. These are the facts.

From 1820 to 2006, 72 million people legally immigrated to the U.S. Each year America admits more immigrants to citizenship and permanent residence than all nations of the world combined — 1.5 million people on average. Annually, nearly 30 million will visit. American exceptionalism is evident in these journeys to our shores. This too is no accident. A constitution that encourages pluralism is a magnet for all. Affirmation is found in an exceptional war and its hard-won freedoms.

The Civil War took the lives of 600,000 men — 2 percent of the population. Never before in history — and never since — have men of one race fought over the freedom of men from another race, except in this nation. The nation that does this can also open its heartland to every creed and color — and it has, many times over. Refugees from Castro’s Cuba, El Salvador’s hurricanes and Somalia’s warlords prove this legacy.

The failure of America’s immigration system — its courts and law enforcement agencies — betrays this legacy. Judges and ICE agents are not at fault — nor are illegal aliens. Blame falls squarely upon officials who disregard federal law and inaccurately report their work. Court officials at the Justice Department come to mind.

In the last 14 years these officials have not been candid with Congress. Justice Department records reveal misrepresentation that hid the disorder befalling America’s immigration courts at a time when the premium on accurate reporting could not have been greater. In 2009, these officials claimed only 11 percent of aliens dodged court. In fact, 32 percent of aliens disappeared before trial. Since 1996, the lowest number of those who skipped court was 30 percent.

Over the last 10 years, 75 percent of all cases have gone unreported. More than 1.5 million trial decisions — out of 2.1 million — were dropped from yearly statements to Congress. Courts that are not clearly explained cannot be clearly understood — nor their problems fixed. America is disserved by this shoddy bookkeeping. So are those who stand before these courts.

American commitment to immigration is unwavering. This commitment is validated by the millions who have brought their skills and visions to American industry. Between 1995 and 2005, 25 percent of all high-tech companies in the U.S. had at least one immigrant founder. These businesses generated $52 billion in sales, 450,000 jobs and $300 billion in income taxes.

The Obama administration has failed the American public it is sworn to serve, the legal immigrant it should strive to elevate and the illegal alien it should fairly sanction. Courts that cannot tell the truth about themselves cannot sustain the necessary confidence of the public. Nor will legal immigrants to this land trust our institutions. Seeing that those who violate our laws are treated as well, if not better, than those who obey them, they will do what common sense demands and break our laws too — or avoid us and take their promising futures elsewhere.

At issue is America’s security. At risk is America’s historic openness. At a disadvantage are America’s immigration courts and enforcement agencies. Reform that restores rule of law and affirms our singular history will succeed where the folly of the present administration will continue to fail.

Mark H. Metcalf held appointments in the Bush administration, the last as an immigration judge in Miami.