Val writes:
The rate of non-immigration prosecutions at the southern U.S. border was down 57 percent in June compared to March as federal officials changed focus under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, according to a new report.
In March 2018, non-immigration prosecutions accounted for one in seven (14 percent) of all total prosecutions at the southern border’s five federal districts.
That rate fell steadily over the next several months, and by June the ratio had fallen to one in seventeen (or six percent) of all prosecutions, according to an analysis of government data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
In March 2018, non-immigration prosecutions accounted for one in seven (14 percent) of all total prosecutions at the southern border’s five federal districts. By June the ratio had fallen to one in seventeen (or six percent) of all prosecutions
‘Unless crimes are suddenly less prevalent in the districts along the southwest border, the odds of being prosecuted for many federal offenses have declined,’ the report found.
The timing of the change coincides with the Trump administration’s April 6 announcement that the government was taking a zero-tolerance approach to immigration at the southern U.S. border.
Statisticians at TRAC concluded that the push to prioritize prosecuting illegal border crossers had taken focus away from other crimes that federal prosecutors are charged with enforcing – including narcotics trafficking, weapons offenses and pollution crimes, among other things.
‘There are these capacity issues; everything can’t be your top priority,’ said Susan Long, a statistician for TRAC. ‘I think it’s difficult to believe that the stepped-up immigration prosecutions were just happenstance and didn’t have anything to do with policy.’
Former immigration judge Paul Wickham Schmidt agreed, saying most illegal immigration cases are misdemeanors that result in time served – typically 2-3 days.
‘Courts have limited capacity, prosecutors have limited capacity and when you prioritize one thing that means deprioritizing something else,’ he said. ‘In this case, what they’ve deprioritized is absolutely insane. There are real crimes out there.’
The TRAC report also bolsters assertions by San Diego-based Justice Department prosecutor Fred Sheppard that the zero-tolerance policy would be ‘diverting staff, both support and attorneys, accordingly’ from non-immigration cases, according to a June report by USA Today.
Sheppard warned border authorities that prioritizing immigration cases would ‘occupy substantially more of our resources,’ according to an email obtained by the paper.
************************************
Clearly, Sessions’s obscene, irrational, xenophobic fixation on brown skinned asylum seekers (who, in most cases should just be taken to the nearest port of entry and processed civilly through the credible fear/removal system) is destroying the U.S. Justice system. His insane program ignores the fundamental truth of law enforcement in any system: putting minor first offenders of regulatory laws in court displaces the cases of major offenders.
That’s why no well functioning justice system does it! What would you think if your local courts and prosecutors were so busy processing jaywalking cases that they couldn’t investigate and prosecute burglaries and bank robberies? But, that’s essentially what Sessions is doing here.
Moreover, the Federal Prosecutors, Federal Judges, and Federal, Magistrates who have failed to use their independent authority to put an end to these abuses are also complicit.
While much has been written about the supposed “resilience” of our democratic institutions and their ability to stand up to Executive abuses and tyranny, in this case it’s not happening. The system is essentially letting Sessions “get away with murder.” As Americans we should all be both outraged and appalled by this failure!
Stop the abuses! Stand up for Due Process, humanity, and rationality!
PWS
08-08-18