Catching illegals on the way home

Houston Chronicle:

The government pulls people suspected of being here illegally out of airplane lines and then pays to detain, prosecute and deport them to the country they were headed to in the first place.

Public defenders say it's a colossal waste of time and taxpayer money.

"What's silly about this is that they are on their way home. They have gotten the message that they shouldn't be here," said Houston's Federal Public Defender Marjorie Meyers. "It's not cost-effective."

Not true, says Houston's U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle.

The people they are prosecuting are repeat violators of U.S. immigration laws and it's not only necessary, but also efficient, to stop them and prosecute them, he said.

"We had already expended some time, effort and money before to institute deportation," DeGabrielle said.

To allow them to come back into the country without proper permission and then just let them leave would minimize what the government is trying to accomplish, he said.

"We feel it's definitely worth the resources to hold these people accountable," DeGabrielle said.

It's not the number of people who've been detained and prosecuted that has public defenders most concerned. The numbers have been relatively small.

But a trend could be developing: five cases since July, four in the past three months.

All five had been deported previously, had no criminal convictions and were stopped and detained by Customs and Border Protection officials at Bush Intercontinental Airport while trying to board planes to leave the country.

The four men and one woman were heading south — to Mexico, Honduras or El Salvador. All were accused of the felony of re-entering the United States illegally after their prior deportation. A felony record will make it difficult for them to ever get legal permission to come back to this country.

...

Hector Manuel Palafox-Acevedo, 29, pleaded guilty to the felony of entering the United States without proper documentation and was sentenced to the two months he has already served in detention. He will now be deported to Mexico, where he was heading when he was stopped as he tried to board a plane Dec. 12.

...

What prosecutors are building is a deterrent effect. If they just let these guys go home without tagging them with a felony, it would not deter others with multiple illegal entries. By having the felony on their record it also will make these people ineligible for application for citizenship. That is another deterrent to multiple illegal entries. If we are going to stop giving incentives for illegal entries these deterrents are an important part of the system of doing so. They are a final don't comeback notice. If they do comeback, they can be sent straight to jail.