Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Catch and release will continue for at least a year

Washington Time:

Ending the "catch-and-release" policy for non-Mexican illegal aliens will take at least a year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has estimated.
But Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said he has heard estimates from Mr. Chertoff's department that it will take as long as three years to end the policy, stressing why better enforcement must come before Congress acts on President Bush's call for a guest-worker program.
Mr. Bush has spent the past two days in Arizona and Texas pushing for an end to the policy in which non-Mexican aliens are processed and then released into society on the usually false hope they will return voluntarily to be deported.
Mr. Chertoff, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, said it would take a year to end the program as the department boosts the number of detention beds to hold illegal aliens and tries to trim the time each illegal occupies a bed.
"This is an area where we can have an impact in one year in keeping away people coming from outside Mexico," he said in his Oct. 18 remarks.
Illegal aliens from Mexico regularly are returned to the border but OTMs, or "other than Mexican" aliens, have to be sent back to their home countries. That act requires going through a legal process in the United States and getting clearance from those governments, which can take weeks or months.
Only 25 percent of the 160,000 OTMs caught last year were deported, while the rest were released. The odds were so favorable that aliens from Brazil would seek border authorities and turn themselves in, knowing they were likely to be released immediately.

...

If they don't have the beds, they should get some ankle bracelets that lets law enforcement monitor their whereabouts like they did Martha Stuart when she was released on parole. Put some tag on them.