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.

Look out! The marching band has escaped onto the field!

Ah, yes...the marching band takes the field. I was never a band geek in high school, more the writer type than anything else, but stories like this never fail to make me crack a smile. Down in San Antonio, Texas, the Churchill High marching band is under fire for the routine they have been performing as of late. The complaints started after the performance of their routine, "Symphonic Schizophrenia," at the recent University Interscholastic League state band competition, where it placed eighth out of thirty, by the way. The routine featured fake padded walls and some band members in strait jackets rambling around the field erratically.

Despite the fact this routine had been performed several times by the band at their schools' football games, the first complaints came after the state competition. I guess it would be kind of irritating for the kids at Dallas School for the Criminally Insane, you know, the only school in the Lone Star State with multiple personalities.

Ed Dickey, head of the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness said that he had received several calls from people upset over the performance, and that Churchill's band lacked sensitivity and were trivializing mental illness, adding "This is ignorance." Damn, and to think of all the times I have used the phrase "batshit crazy" in blog posts or on my radio show. What a shot to my ego, finding out a high school marching band has less sensitivity than I do.

Aw, come on Ed...how many other examples of insensitivity toward mental illness are out there, and you want to pick on a high school band? Have you had a sit-down with the composer of the piece they were performing, from which the band chose its theme? No, probably not. I'm just saying is all. Besides that, you have to give that band a hand for creativity. Honestly, you show me the kid who can play a trombone while in a strait jacket, and then tell me they only got eighth place. What the hell did the winning school do, freakin' levitate?

"We're taking a step back and looking at what we do here, and we're going to make some changes.""We don't want this to happen again," according to Laura Calderon, a yeshole for the Northeast Independent School District. "We don't want this to happen again." Calderon added that NISD will add an additional layer of review before allowing student to perform potentially controversial routines.

Some people may chalk this up to simple political correctness, but think about this story the next time you twirl your finger around your temple, or better yet, next time you have the urge to tell the cashier that the gas prices are crazy, keep it to yourself. While it's a perfectly valid opinion, you never know what crusade lurks around the corner.

Wonder if this interrupted helping McCain blow out the candles on his birthday cake?

While John McCain was having Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin metaphorically jump from his birthday cake yesterday, announcing her puzzling selection as the GOP vice-presidential candidate, President Bush was attempting to look busy, you know, now that the sand's almost run through the hourglass on his presidency (and thank God or your personal deity of choice for that).

Early this morning, according to reports from the AP, Bush was in contact with the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas, co-ordinating efforts to brace for the impending arrival of Hurricane Gustav, which has hit wind speeds of up to 120mph as it prepares to bitchslap Cuba on its way to the United States. White House yeshole Scott Stanzel said Bush told the governors of those states they'd have the full support of the federal government.

I'm sure that made a lot of people feel better- as they were getting the fuck out of Dodge, so to speak. I'll bet the consensus is simple "keep your jacked-up FEMA trailers, and go read to some kids or something." I'm sure Bush could use a little help on his phonics, and who better to assist than some NCLB "success" stories? Of course, knowing our, ahem, president, he'll wind up bringing a pop-up book with him.

Here's to hoping for the best for the Gulf Coast, although personally, I think they're fucked...

10.5.07

...so, Fred Thompson got a demonstration in drawing power in Iowa, huh? Puts me in mind of the scene in Last Man Standing when Christopher Walken's character says he doesn't want to die in Texas. Thompson and Sen. Barack Obama both booked banquet rooms at the same hotel, creating some fucked-up political algebra question. Two senators deliver 25-minute speeches a hallway apart in the same hotel. Who gets the crowd? Wasn't much of a fight, folks. Thompson drew less than 100 people. Obama, a little over 1,000. Yep, can't wait to see Thompson back in movies real soon. Maybe a guest shot on Law and Order...

...glad to see oblivion has taken a slight hold at Time magazine. On October 2, Time.com featured an article entitled Christianity's Image Problem, in which a poll revealed an increasing number of Americans said they had a bad impression of Christianity-at-present. A key statistic to consider was the 75% of those polled who said that Christianity had become "too involved in politics." And to think, just last month Time, in cooperation with Beliefnet.com, launched a God-o-meter, to track presidential candidates' use of religion while campaigning for 2008. Way to pretend you aren't part of the issue you are reporting. At least nobody's making shit up for you all, just yet...

...it may seem odd to follow up some politics with a story about a rapist, but after six years of the Bush administration, it's basically the same thing. Anyhow, up in Washington state, a county sheriff was preparing to take to the airwaves to ask for help in tracking down a rape suspect, when the suspect walked right on by. You know what they say, timing is everything. The suspect was actually on his second attempt to turn himself in, if you can fucking believe this. Earlier, he had tried to turn himself in at the county jail, but was told he would have to go to the police department if he wanted to do that. WTF? Seriously, what the fuck is that? According to jail officials, the suspect was directed to the police because he had no ID to back up his claim that he was a wanted suspect. Again...What the fuck? So, if some guy shows up at the county jail with a dripping hatchet in one hand, severed human leg (presumably not his) in the other, the jailers are going to tell him to take that shit downtown?...stay tuned on that one...I don't think it's far off, now...

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