For a illustration of just how dysfunctional our criminal deportation system is, consider that even now, with all the improvements in tracking technology (e.g. FEDEX), the government still cannot manage to deport the worst criminals from prison to their home countries.

There are many examples of convicted criminals who were released into America after completing their sentences instead of being deported, and cop-killer Ezeiquiel Lopez is clearly the sort of habitual lawbreaker who presents a danger to one and all. Lopez should have received a one-way ticket home for his extensive rap sheet, but was allowed to remain and kill Kenosha County Deputy Sheriff Frank Fabiano.

Lopez, 45, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was free at the time of the May shooting, after having been jailed for two prior violent crimes. By law, he should have been deported, but federal immigration authorities didn’t know he had been in custody, and state and local police didn’t tell them.

The case isn’t an exception. Fewer than half the foreigners convicted of crimes in the U.S. — most of whom are in the country illegally — are deported after serving their sentences, according to the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general.
[U.S. Unable to Deport Most Illegal Immigrants Who Commit Crimes, Bloomberg News 7/6/07]

There is some hope for improvement, however, with increased funding to identify and track criminal aliens.

[Rep. David] Price’s legislation, which passed the House June 15, would require the immigration agency to check monthly with the nation’s prisons and jails to get an up-to-date number of incarcerated illegal immigrants. Another provision in the legislation would expand a program to deputize local and state police to help identify potential deportees among people they arrest.

Is it possible for such commonsensical crime-fighting legislation to actually be signed into law? We shall see what comes out in the end.

Gary Endelman writes in the Immigration Law Weekly about prospects for new immigration legislation:

We can expect that all H1B employers will have to prove the unavailability of qualified Americans. We can expect that all H-1B employers will have to prove they did not displace US workers. We can expect random audits without the need for specific complaints by DOL that simply does not believe what our labor condition applications say. We can expect that H-1Bs will become mini- labor certifications, that L employers will have to prove they pay a prevailing wage. For the first time since its creation in 1970, the L no longer flies under the radar. Even the blanket L is not safe. It is not out of the question for Congress to require that employers submit a separate application for each L-1 visa. Whether true or not, the linkage of the L and H with outsourcing to India is very much on Congress’ radar screen. Any employer who sends white collar jobs out of the United States should not expect an easy time in using the H or L visa when they seek to bring foreign workers in. It does not matter that this is an anecdotal outrage limited to an unscrupulous few; Congress now believes it to be so and, given our credibility on the Hill and with the American public, will not hesitate to frame immigration policy on the basis of this belief.

When I was in high school, the son of a local attorney committed a felony–and when bragging his friends about getting away with it, he said the “The key to getting off, is to deny, deny, deny”.

I really don’t think that the changes Mr. Edelman is suggesting would do much more than just provide a bit of modest relief–if that. These measures don’t go to the root of the issue of maintaining the value of US citizenship rights–and keeping those impacted by changes in immigration law from being horribly impacted.

Buckminster Fuller once suggested if would be far cheaper for society to pay attorneys to do nothing than to have them do what they often do. One study claimed the negative economic impact per attorney was $1 Million/year. Low Immigration societies like Japan seem to get by with a lot fewer attorneys than the US has.

Immigration attorneys are an occupation based on the practice of mining the value of citizenship to earn a living. We clearly need much better oversight of the bar–and of this specialty in particular.

The current immigration system is fundamentally bad-and creates enormous conflicts of interest-and brings out the worse in people.

If you think things are bad now-just wait until many of the H-1b/L-1 workers now here start to realize they don’t have a real future in the US and start to cash in their chips.

Eoin Callan writes for the Financial Times:

US employers created more jobs than anticipated over the last three months, according to fresh government figures which suggest a turnround in the American economy.

The department of labour said on Friday that payrolls swelled by 132,000 in June and that 75,000 more jobs were created in the previous two months than initially thought. The unemployment rate held steady close to a six-year low at 4.5 per cent.

Now these folks are just plain ignoring immigration and natural increase of the US pool of potential workers.

Here’s a headline from London’s Daily Mail, where they write good headlines:

Eight Al Qaeda fanatics working for the police (but they don’t dare sack them)
By STEPHEN WRIGHT - 7th July 2007

Up to eight police officers and civilian staff are suspected of links to extremist groups including Al Qaeda.

Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Their names feature on a secret list of alleged radicals said to be working in the Metropolitan and other forces.

Why did this happen? Apparently, it’s due to affirmative action:

The dossier was drawn up with the help of MI5 amid fears that individuals linked to Islamic extremism are taking advantage of police attempts to increase the proportion of ethnic staff.

A combination of civil service rules and political correctness would seem to be what’s keeping these Islamic fundamentalists on the London Metropolitan Police Force:

Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because - it is claimed - police do not have the “legal power” to dismiss them.

We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq.

He is said to have argued that he was trying to “enhance” debate about the war.

Other problems–it’s difficult to carry out background checks on officers who were born in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, or have spent large amounts of time overseas, since in that case, the London police have to rely on Pakistan’s police force, or Saudi Arabia’s. Good luck!

Now, compare this tenderness towards Muslims accused of consorting with terrorists with the size of the hammer that falls on any police officer accused of being “racist.”

As a result of the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry report, which accused the Met of being “institutionally racist”, Scotland Yard has in recent years employed thousands of officers and civilian staff from the ethnic minorities in an attempt to reach recruitment targets.

This has not only led to hiring minorities with bad backgrounds, but persecution of actual British policemen who are accused of being too British.

BBC NEWS | England | Merseyside | Probe over ‘racist’ police e-mail

Racist police officers must be sacked and prosecuted, not allowed to resign

BBC NEWS | UK | ACPO bans police from joining BNP
27 July, 2004
Police officers and staff could face dismissal if they join the British National Party (BNP) under a new policy agreed by senior officers.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said the policy was unanimously endorsed at a Chief Constables’ Council meeting this month.

The policy applied to membership of bodies in conflict with the force’s duty to promote race equality, it said.

But the BNP says it is a legal party, and that Acpo’s policy is undemocratic.

The last story describes the persecution of policemen who belong to legal party which wants to restrict immigration–imagine how much better off they’d be if they were Muslim terrorists.