Ladies and gentlemen, witness the results of Homeland Security without border security.
Teams assigned to make sure foreigners ordered out of the United States actually leave are grappling with a backlog of more than 600,000 cases and can't accurately account for the fugitives' whereabouts, the government reported Monday.
"The report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general found that the effectiveness of teams assigned to find the fugitives was hampered by "insufficient detention capacity, limitations of an immigration database and inadequate working space. Homeland Security Department's inspector general found that the effectiveness of teams assigned to find the fugitives was hampered by "insufficient detention capacity, limitations of an immigration database and inadequate working space."
Even though more than $204 million was allocated for 52 fugitive operations teams since 2003, a backlog of 623,292 cases existed as of August of 2006, the report said.
The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has been estimated at between 11.5 million and 12 million. About 5.4 percent of them are believed to be "fugitive aliens," those who have failed to leave the country after being ordered out.
According to the article, after 9/11 special teams were assigned the task of rounding up alien fugitives without the added burden of other duties. It seems that we've added bureaucracy without increasing results.
After the attacks, an Absconder Apprehension Initiative was created within the Justice Department to find, apprehend and deport such immigrants. When the Homeland Security Department was created in March 2003, it assumed responsibility.
Be fore you console yourself by saying "we haven't suffered a major attack since 9/11", consider this, al-Qaeda took eight years between WTC attacks. Leaving me to wonder this, over the next few years, will we still be chasing alien fugitive numbers this large?
Also blogging on this issue: Right Truth
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