csua.org/u/am1 -> story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=47&u=/usatoday/20050106/ts_usatoday/onthetrailof400000fugitives
com By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY On the 12th floor of an East Harlem housing project, Ray Simonse and his four-member squad of federal immigration agents thought they had their m an cornered.
More USA TODAY Snapshots For days, the agents had tracked Juan Pablo Goris, 40, a native of the Do minican Republic who was in the USA illegally. The trail led to an apart ment where Goris was believed to be staying with friends. The agents gat hered there early one morning last month, figuring it would be the best time to catch him. But no one was home, so the frustrated agents moved t o their next target.
Photo gallery) It was a familiar scenario for the immigration agents, who are among abou t 80 fugitive hunters nationwide assigned by the Department of Homeland Security to find an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants who disobeyed o rders to leave the USA or who failed to appear at immigration hearings. In an unprecedented effort inspired by post-9/11 concerns about national security, DHS is using 18 teams of immigration agents to hunt for these fugitives and add some bite to immigration laws that for decades have r arely been enforced. The teams from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of DHS, ha ve been successful, to an extent. Along with border agents, the teams ar rested 7,239 people from March through September last year, a 112% incre ase from that period in 2003. But because the list of fugitives continue s to grow, US agents have made modest progress in cutting the overall number, says Victor Cerda, a top ICE official. Meanwhile, teams such as Simonse's painstakingly track fugitives, one by one, focusing mostly on those with criminal records. "There is enough he re to keep me busy for the rest of my career," Simonse says, referring t o the roughly 20,000 fugitive immigrants in the New York City area. Huge challenges The continuing increase in the number of fugitives, the difficulty in tra cking them and the relatively few agents assigned to do so offer a hint of the enormous challenges the government faces as it seeks to clamp dow n on illegal immigration. Fugitive immigrants account for only a small fraction of the total number of illegal immigrants in the USA, which the 2000 Census estimated at 8 million. To boost the crackd own on just the known fugitives, Congress recently approved plans for DH S to hire 10,000 more border agents and 4,000 more Customs and immigrati on agents over the next five years. But even if more fugitives are caught as a result, US officials face ot her hurdles in reducing the number of illegals here: The immigration detention system has only 19,440 beds, and it's full. A n anti-terrorism bill Congress passed last month called for expanding th e system, but it's unclear how money will be allocated for that and how quickly space can be added. "We need to have (more) bed space or our eff orts are fruitless," ICE spokesman Russ Knocke says. Much of the information about immigrant fugitives in government databas es is out of date, to the point that Cerda and other US immigration of ficials acknowledge that they aren't sure whether their estimate of 400, 000 fugitives nationwide is accurate. During the past year, government audits have suggested that as many as 10 0,000 of the names on the fugitives list could be deleted. Thousands of the fugitives apparently have died, fled the USA or gained legal status since their names went on the list, Cerda says. Agents have begun to purge the rolls of incorrect names only recently, Ce rda says, so other agents almost certainly have wasted time chasing ghos ts. "The information just wasn't being kept up to date," Cerda says. The flow of illegal immigrants into the USA has not abated, and despite significantly tighter security along the borders with Mexico and Canada , it remains easy for illegal immigrants to enter this country through r emote areas. The policy allows a captured illegal immigrant to remain free in this cou ntry if the person agrees to appear at a court hearing, which often is s cheduled in a US city that was the immigrant's destination. But about 86% of those who agree to show up in court do not, and they become fugit ives. Knowing they're unlikely to be jailed, thousands of immigrants have surre ndered to Border Patrol agents, then have been allowed to continue their journey into America, court summonses in hand. "It's so bad that some (illegals) are taking taxis from the border to the Border Patrol offices to turn themselves in," says TJ Bonner, preside nt of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents about 10,000 Border Patrol agents and staff members. "The immigration system is broke n to the point where you just want to throw up your hands." The federal commission that examined the 9/11 attacks suggested that terr orists might take advantage of gaping holes in US border security to e nter this country. That notion is helping drive efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Among other things, the commission found that at least two of the 19 fore igners who were suicide hijackers on 9/11 got into this country illegall y, with fraudulent passports. The hijackings put a spotlight on lax enforcement of immigration laws and prompted the government's hardened attitude toward illegals. That inclu ded the crackdown on immigrant fugitives, whose cases typically had rece ived scant attention from the government during the past several decades . DHS officials acknowledge that a more aggressive approach to fugitives be fore 9/11 probably would not have exposed the hijackers. Those on the fu gitives list often have made themselves known by applying for asylum or by committing crimes; Michael Garcia, DHS' assistant secretary in charge of Immigration and Cus toms Enforcement, also says that although the fugitive teams were create d in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks, his agency has found no evide nce that terrorists have entered the USA by exploiting security gaps alo ng the borders. "I can't point to a case where we have found a (terroris t) group," Garcia says. Run to ground It was still dark one morning last month when Simonse's team arrived at a small apartment complex in the Bronx in search of Vernon Miller, a nati ve of Jamaica who had been ordered deported in 2002 after being convicte d on marijuana charges. Roused from sleep, he answered the door and poli tely invited agents inside. Miller, a mechanic, was handcuffed and led a way from the apartment where he has lived for more than a decade. Miller was to be locked up until Jamaica's government approved his return there. A thin smile broke across his face when he was asked about comin g back to the USA. Twelve days after agents first showed up at the East Harlem apartment, th ey returned there - and finally caught Goris, whose lengthy criminal rec ord includes convictions for assault and weapons violations. "But as we get sufficient, the numbers (of fugitives) will be reduced."
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