The ultimate in wasted government

It was with equal parts great interest and trepidation that I read 'A system's fatal flaws,' a very well-written article by the Houston Chronicle's Susan Carroll, the first part of a three-part series on the massive and outrageous failure of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do much of anything, apparently, in regards to their job. I would normally have waited until I had read all three segments to comment, but just the first third of the picture Carroll paints is disturbing enough. With all the slap on the wrist moves and blown second, third, fourth (or more) chances, I would have though I was reading about professional athletes in the justice system rather than the utter failure of government at any and all levels to do something so simple as enforce the laws in this country.

The article covers the Harris County Jail, in Houston, where out of over 3,500 inmates who told staff booking them into the jail they were in the country illegally, around 75 percent had no action taken over their illegal status, including some who were ordered deported decades ago. They were turned loose, back onto the streets of Houston, back onto the streets of the United States. And we're talking about child molesters, rapists and drug dealers, among others. Naturally, some stuck around to build on their criminal resumes, including more sex crimes against children and capital murder. Great. That'll teach them a lesson. While they may be going great guns, no pun intended, on the turnover rate on Texas' death row, the clear lesson in Houston is you apparently have nothing to fear of deportation- you aren't going anywhere. Hell, you'll wind up in a prison yard burial plot before you wind up back in the country from whence you came.

Now, out of the 3,500 inmates in the Chronicle's review, 11 percent had three or more convictions, some for violent crimes and some with outstanding deportation orders. I have this great mental image of a hardened criminal arguing with the staff at Harris County Jail..."how many time do I have to tell you I'm here illegally?" Even sadder yet, it probably does happen in real life, and more times than I want to think about.

Now, keep in mind people, the findings in the Chronicle article was based on documents filed from June 2007 - February 2008, the earliest immigration records available. No damn wonder nothing is getting done, apparently the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Houston has only been aware of this whole "illegal alien" problem for about a year and a half. How could they be expected to half-ass their way to a solution when the other side has that big a head start?

There actually are, if you can believe this, results nationwide on deportation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 107,000 convicted criminals from the U.S. in the 2008 fiscal year, which ended in September, but sent home more than twice as many illegal immigrants without criminal records, which prompted criticism from some members of Congress. In Houston, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office set a record by removing 8,226 illegal immigrants with criminal records from Southeast Texas last year, an increase of about 7.5 percent from fiscal 2007. Notice how it doesn't say the Houston office removed them from the country, but rather from Southeast Texas. Are they actually being deported, or rather dropped off in another part of the state or the country, so it's another office's problem? With only 107,000 convicted criminals being deported, and the glaring inability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do something about the remainder, even when they volunteer the information they are in the country, I think it's not only a fair question, but one that needs an answer, not excuses or buck-passing masquerading as an answer.

The buck-passing and excuses from Houston begin with Kenneth Landgrebe, ICE's field office director for detention and removal for that city. "No agency has enough law enforcement officers to do the job the way they'd like. If you look at law enforcement in general — at Houston or New York City or Los Angeles police — do they apprehend every criminal that commits a crime? No. Do they arrest every person that speeds in a traffic zone? No. "We have to prioritize what we handle."

Yes, Landgrebe actually said this. Let me break it down for Ken, I think his head may be hurting from the attempted thought patterns he's trying to unloose upon us. No law enforcement agency anywhere arrests every criminal who commits a crime, and it is ludicrous to use that as a template for the failure of your agency, and notably the office he is in charge of. And are we to believe he is equating illegally entering the country with a speeding ticket? I have had three speeding tickets written to me in the 16 years I have had my driver's license, and the damnedest thing is, I have never been arrested for speeding. Not once. I will agree with Landgrebe on the prioritization of what his office handles, which is the issue at hand. The police departments in Houston, Los Angeles, and New York City have a wide variety of crimes for which to police. Mr. Landgrebe's office has one responsibility, and that is detention and removal of illegal aliens as it pertains to Immigration, and utterly nonsensical answers in addition to the usual whining about lack of staffing fails, and miserably, to answer why nothing is being done when the problem is dropped right in your lap. I understand tracking down illegal aliens and deporting them may not be that easy, but when they flat tell you they are illegal, and your office still fails to perform its duty, how much sympathy are we supposed to be able to muster?

Just when you thought, however, the soundbiting and yesholing had passed, here come the underlings! Matthew Baker, an assistant field office director for ICE in Houston, said agents try to screen out as many violent criminals as possible to avoid preventable crimes. Again, I think that may be blind optimism in the clothing traditionally worn by cloudy facts. Baker added "No one can measure the cases where we picked up and removed someone and prevented that carjacking or that drunk driving accident that kills a family. There are hundreds of thousands of incidents that we prevent every year; those are not measured because they don't happen."

Must be turning into a continuing theme here. Yes, Baker actually said this. If I may be so bold, perhaps the reason no one can measure those cases you mentioned is that there are not enough to make it worth counting. Maybe it's because the earliest records available only go back to June 2007, thereby meaning you haven't been attempting to attempt doing your jobs long enough. With the numbers I have seen in the course of writing this column, I find it hard to believe that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has prevented hundreds of thousands of anything period, let alone on a yearly basis. For all this talk of hundreds of thousands of acts prevented, why is it so hard to handle 3,500 cases in just one city? Out of those very 3,500 illegal aliens mentioned in Houston, Immigration and Customs Enforcement only filed paperwork to detain about 900, just over 25%. If only doing a quarter of your job results in "hundreds of thousands" of cases prevented, can you crunch some numbers and tell me what half, or 75% would get us? Not only would it start to satisfy Americans sick of runaway largess from Homeland Security and other federal agencies supposedly charged with and assisting in securing our nation's borders, but it would, if you can believe this, actually address and make headway on the issue at hand.

To further compound the problem, the Chronicle's review found that 43 percent of those arrested and admitting they were in the country illegally had no prior criminal records in Harris County, and were charged with misdemeanors. Okay, no criminal record in Harris County, but what about the rest of the country? What about any criminal records from their country of origin? Not only that, but they were charged with misdemeanors? What about the glaring omission of a federal charge, you know, for illegally entering the country? Is that just on the books for show? Immigrant advocates are quick to plea that one should not stereotype illegal aliens based on high-profile cases, but what, in their opinion, is less high-profile than committing a federal offense? I'm all for advocating immigration, but how in the hell does coddling illegal aliens fit into the scope of their efforts? These so-called advocates push for immigration reform, and that's all well and good, but reform should start with those willing to go through the legal process, rather than just walking across the border, doing whatever they feel like, and then either being smacked on the wrist or possibly offered amnesty somewhere on down the line.

Rep. David Price (D-NC), the chair of the House Homeland Security appropriations committee had some decidedly blunt remarks on the issue, saying that "the present situation is unacceptable," and that "the highest priority for ICE should be deporting people who have proven their ability and their willingness to do us harm. Immigration is a very, very contentious issue, but this seems to be one thing almost everyone agrees is a priority." For all the concerned-sounding rhetoric, wouldn't it be nice if the chairman actually started demanding some accountability for all the taxpayer dollars doled out on a yearly basis?

I have made the statement on more than one occasion that the only right illegal aliens should be afforded is the right to a moderately comfortable bus ride back across the border, or to wherever it was they came from in the first place. Compare the cost, for example, of transporting illegal aliens back to Mexico from Houston against the cost of putting them up in the county jail for a couple of weeks, only to turn them loose in the end? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked, isn't Texas bordered by Mexico? Seriously, how hard can this be? The abject failure at many levels in the operation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has went beyond embarrassing, even for the administration we have been saddled with the last eight years. Rather than thump chests and cry for more money, or more staffing, it is high time people started collecting pink slips for not doing their jobs. I'm willing to bet there are people who would be tickled to have a cushy government job, and would endeavor to perform that job the way it should have been done all along, if the honest-to-God threat of being fired for not doing it was realistically on the table.

And this is a partisan issue, as government-as-usual has failed to act while billions of tax dollars have spiraled down the drain, and for something that should be easy enough to handle. This isn't like the wasteful failure of the war on drugs, or working to repair our tattered image internationally. This is supposedly securing our borders and making our country safer, something we have had crammed down our throats since the inception of Homeland Security, and it has neither been filling nor tasty. The solutions are clear, obvious, enactable, and a hell of a lot cheaper than piling on to the overcrowding problem that already plagues our nation. Use our National Guard the way it was intended, by their very creation, and deploy them to the southern border as a matter of national defense. Enforce the felony that is illegal entry into the country, and make a second offense punishable by permanently barring entry or citizenship. Make use of the E-Verify system mandatory across the board for any employer, regardless of size or whether or not they are working with federal contracts. Most importantly, end any and all public assistance to illegal aliens and their children, and that includes ending the birthright citizenship standard for children born to people illegally in the United States.

The best way to address concerns of an "entitlement society" is to kill the root and watch the plant wither. For a public-at-large that has grown tired of watching public assistance programs strain to the breaking point and beyond, the answer is clear. Quit treating a large criminal class better than the needy, yet lawful, citizens of your very nation. Not by throwing more money to be wasted on more jobs wasted by people with no ability or desire to do those very jobs, but by simply enforcing the laws as they stand.

Capitulation at its finest, people...

The more it changes...in an announcement yesterday, our intrepid HomeSec said it will go ahead with a new policy to crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants, only not so much. When the new policy goes into effect on January 15, instead of targeting companies with federal contracts as low as $3000, now the limit applies only to those contractors with deals over $100,000, and employers are now only required to check the work documents of those employees working on those specific projects. Yeah, I really feel as though the issue is being addressed now.

The changes would apply to solicitations or awards made after Jan. 15, and exempt workers who have already received security clearances, contracts for commercial, off-the-shelf items, and contracts lasting less than 120 days. Oh...well then. Why is it so hard for businesses in this country to accept that they have to check the ID of their employees before they hire them, and particularly if they are working on government contracts? I have never held a job where I didn't have to verify my legal status to work in the United States. It's common damn practice, not thumbscrews being tightened by an unreasonable government, and believe you me, folks, this is an administration that knows unreasonable.

Randel K. Johnson, vice president and yeshole for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the administration "had been responsive to a substantial amount of business concerns," particularly by limiting the rule to large contractors, to new contracts and to workers on those contracts. That's cute, Mr. Johnson, as there is a world of difference between being responsive and fumbling for zippers in the dark over promises in your ear. To translate that, it sounds like the current administration either bent over and took it, or got some bruised knees in the process, cause businesses in this country got their way, and seemingly had their way with this new policy.

E-Verify, a system with which companies can check federal Social Security and immigration databases to determine whether an employee is authorized to work, only covers only 1 percent of an estimated 6 million U.S. employers and about 11 percent of annual hiring, at the present. Kind of makes you want to facepalm yourself, doesn't it? According to claims by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the implementation of the system would cost $10 billion. For something that companies and employers are already required to do? How in the fuck does that math add up?

The final nonsense in this isn't even the businesses that are wanting to buck the system, but rather the Department of Homeland Security. Even after all of this, federal officials predict the initiative will eventually cover more than 20 percent of U.S. hiring, DHS yeshole Laura Keehner said.

That's it? 20 fucking percent? That's our Department of Homeland Security for ya, doing a heckuva job since day one.

In just 15 minutes on an all-new Probably Uncalled For...

Episode #69: Come join us on the international talk radio hit tonight, as we'll be discussing last night's second presidential debate, more dumbassery from Sarah Palin, victories for both voting AND Homeland Security, the usual stupid Britain, Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears, Amy Winehouse, and the possibility of an 85 yr old Indiana Jones cracking whip, among other topics TBA

With success like this, who needs failure?

With all of the flat-out denial we get treated to on a daily basis regarding the current state of our fiasco in Iraq, I imagine sometimes it is easy to forget that Iraq is not the only war America is losing. In the midst of plummeting approval ratings for both the president and congress, a less-than-surprising new chapter in denial made its debut courtesy of the nation's drug czar. According to John Walters, the head of the Office of Drug Control Policy, the war on drugs is seeing some of its best results of the last 20 years. Thankfully, there is no mention of the insipid and ineffectual anti-drug commercials the government has flushed away hundreds of millions of dollars on over the years.

So, what are some of the results that Walters is crowing mightily about? While 90%, give or take, of the cocaine that enters this country comes from Mexico, interdiction efforts have disrupted the flow enough to drive prices up in thirty-seven cities across the nation. The price jump is reported to range from 24% to nearly double in some cities. Okay, let me get this straight. Thirty-seven cities, out of thousands of cities, is considered the best results of the last twenty years? Sounds like typical war on drugs mathematics- high on optimism and low on return. Besides the numbers not exactly playing to Walters' favor, there is the train of thought that increased prices will just increase pressure in the clandestine drug market, leading to increased efforts to get it, at least in thirty-seven select cities. I'm sure any potential increase in the crime rate will make the irony involved somehow worth it.

Another key point in Walters' happy news was his statement that fewer American workers are producing positive drug test results, in addition to fewer cocaine-related hospital admissions. More ado about nothing. While fewer hospital admission can invariably reduce peripheral spending linked to the war on drugs, and fewer workers testing positive for drugs will undoubtedly help employers sleep better at night, it misses two two other obvious points to consider. Interdiction may be helping but the reality is people are simply growing more functional and using smarter. I have said for years that potheads are among the most cost-efficient employees out there. They hate switching jobs, due to often having to test for a new job, and they are among the safest, because workers' comp always drug tests for an on-the-job accident. That right there is more realistic and believable than possibly anything John Walters has said since taking charge at the ODCP.

You may consider Walters a little foolish, as he beams like Don Quixote charging a windmill, but at least he is a humble man, our drug czar, sharing some of the credit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Out of the world leaders battling a major war on drugs, only Calderon seems to be the one willing to put up some serious, and realistic, effort to combat trafficking, sending 25,000 police officers and army personnel to the areas hit hardest by drug violence. Not that sending 25,000 U.S troops to our borders would do much good, seeing as how the DEA, Customs, Border Patrol, ATF, U.S. Marshal's office, Coast Guard, Homeland Security can't coordinate and make a dent in any drug traffic, let alone the scratch to the iceberg Walters is celebrating.

Walters issued his remarks as the United States and Mexico are kicking around the details of an aid package estimated up to $1 billion to help Mexico fight the drug trade. What kind of success can we expect for this $1 billion, the kind John Walters is promoting, or something someone could be proud of with a straight face? Walters says the challenge is sustaining the results for the long term, but that seems to be casting an impossibly large shadow over the challenge of actually producing some results.