Illegal immigration and a US attorney who did not prosecute

Darrell Issa:

Despite reports and irresponsible statements to the contrary voiced by the media and some Democrats in Congress, concerns about U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's performance in prosecuting serious border crimes were bipartisan, substantive and long-standing.

I first wrote to the U.S. attorney about border crimes more than three years ago after learning from a reporter that her office had declined to prosecute an alien smuggler apprehended while transporting a car loaded with undocumented immigrants near Temecula. The smuggler, Antonio Amparo-Lopez, had attempted to escape the arresting Border Patrol agents and, upon capture, the Border Patrol learned that the smuggler had 21 known aliases and had been arrested and deported more than 20 times without ever having been prosecuted.

I sought information from sources in the Border Patrol, and others in the law enforcement community, about what was really happening with border prosecutions. They described a broken system, lacking needed resources, exacerbated by a U.S. attorney who had pulled back from prosecuting all but the most egregious smuggling cases.

Border Patrol agents were forced to accept a reality in which smugglers knew what they could get away with. A smuggler knew he could drive a van full of illegal immigrants across the border without fear of any consequence other than being sent back to Mexico to try again. Smugglers who were American citizens faced no consequences at all. The threat of prosecution was a joke unless the smuggler brought a dozen or more illegal immigrants across the border at the same time or somebody literally died.

Last July, San Diego Border Patrol Sector Chief Darryl Griffen expressed concerns about changes made to prosecutorial policies related to smugglers in front of a bipartisan House panel. “Foot guides are the foot soldiers for the criminal cartels that traffic cargo, narcotics and contraband across our border,” said Griffen who explained how Lam's policies reduced prosecutions of foot guides from 367 in one fiscal year to only five under the new policy in the following year. “What would happen then, we would apprehend people that were guiding people across the country, many times at risk. And without meeting prosecution guidelines, they were simply voluntarily returning back to Mexico where they could continue to conduct illicit activity. There is no level of consequences,” Griffen stated.

In June 2006, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to express concerns about Lam's performance in office, “It has come to my attention that despite high apprehension rates by Border Patrol agents along California's border with Mexico, prosecutions by the U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District of California appear to lag behind. . . . It is my understanding that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California may have some of the most restrictive prosecutorial guidelines nationwide for immigration cases, such that many Border Patrol agents end up not referring their cases. While I appreciate the possibility that this office could be overwhelmed with immigration related cases; I also want to stress the importance of vigorously prosecuting these types of cases so that California isn't viewed as an easy entry point for alien smugglers because there is no fear of prosecution if caught.”

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Issa is a congressman in the San Diego area. Lam prosecuted Duke Cunningham and the demagogues of the Democrat party are making the false charge that that was the reason she was terminated. Issa makes a compelling case that she did not believe in the rule of law when it came to illegal immigration. The repeated failure to prosecute cases against clearly guilty human smugglers undermines the rule of law and attempts by the US to control its border.