GovernmentExecutive.com

The Bush administration is ramping up its ability to detain and deport illegal immigrants caught trying to enter the country.

The Homeland Security Department announced this week that it has expanded to all border areas a program that allows immigration enforcement agents to more quickly deport illegal aliens. The expedited removal program was previously operating at all U.S. ports of entry and along the Southwest border, and now will be extended to the Canadian border and all coastal areas.

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said the program is part of the department's Secure Border Initiative. The department ultimately envisions SBI as having three integrated components: improved border security, strong interior enforcement to go after illegal aliens and employers who knowingly hire them, and a temporary worker program allowing migrants to enter the country legally.

"We have seen success in deterring illegal border crossers since expedited removal was implemented throughout the Southwest," Chertoff said. "Implementing this process along all borders will provide DHS agents and officers with an additional tool to protect our nation's boundaries and quickly remove those who entered our country illegally."

DHS will use expedited removal on illegal immigrants who have spent 14 days or less in the United States, and are either apprehended within 100 miles of the border with Mexico or Canada, or arrive by sea and are apprehended within 100 miles of a coastal border area. Aliens who have a credible fear of persecution or torture will have the opportunity to present their case before an immigration judge.

In related news, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract last month worth up to $385 million to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, to build emergency detention and processing facilities for illegal immigrants.

Under the contract, the company will build facilities that can help the DHS' Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau "in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs," according to a company statement.

The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a one-year base period, followed by four one-year options.

"The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster," the company said. "In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts."

COMMENTS

• I am very happy that the U.S. is working so hard to end the "catch and release" policy. What is the use of catching illegals if they won't be deported? But it is only one small step up the stairs of stopping Illegal Immigration. We must stop the incentives and also secure the border. If their is no border security, then the illegals will just continue to cross the border. Without the job incentive, illegals will have no incentive to come illegally to the U.S. We must increase work site enforcement and implement a verification system. That way, we can stop employers from illegally hiring illegal immigrants. If illegal immigrants can't get hired, they will not be able to live in the U.S. But as long as they can get jobs, the incentive will still be there, and they will still come. The idea that illegal immigrants can come to the U.S. and live for years without detection and continue to violate the law, is unacceptable. Every crime and illegal immigrant has ever committed, should be counted as a terrible mistake that should never have happened. Because the fact remains; they should never have even been here in the first place. Each crime, could and should have been stopped by the U.S. While we can't completely stop illegal immigration, we can vastly reduce the number. We must not allow millions of law-breakers reside in our country. This country is known as the "land of the free, and the home of the brave." We can not be the land of the free when millions of people continue to violate the law, and we must be the home of the brave to stop it. Albert Einstein said "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people that do nothing about it." America has a tradition of not leaving the people who make this world dangerous alone, but they are now; by allowing illegal immigrants stay in this country. Rex Posted March 18, 2008 8:21 PM
• It is a fundamental precept of international law that every nation has a right, duty and obligation to secure its own borders. Our borders are unbelievably porous, and have been badly neglected, secured and managed. If this plan is well executed this could be a very small step in the right direction. I worry, however, when I see "weasel words" such as "Employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens" in the text of such plans. If DHS can't stop employers from hiring and exploiting illegals they will keep coming. It is all too easy for an employer to point to "fake" green cards, or identification documents, and to claim they were acting "in good faith" to avoid prosecution, while winking at the illegals as they hire them. Government also needs to crack down on vendors, holders, and users of these "false documents" big time. These fake documents add to the growing problems of identify theft, and other crimes, not to mention the national security problems presented by possible terrorist use of such documents. There are people making "armed incursions" over the border, as recently happened in Hudspath County, Texas, and digging tunnels under the border near San Diego. Our government seems to be ineffectual and helpless to stop this activity. If things keep going the way they are, we will be close to having to cede Florida, Texas, Arizona and Southern California to "de facto" foreign control by illegal alien immigrants. The United States has benefited greatly from the energy and hard work of its immigrants. We need their strength and vigor. But, this new wave of illegal immigrants is not assimilating, to a degree that excludes U.S. values, and promotes divisiveness. Illegal immigrants do not share in the American view of the value of higher education. Their members work in mostly menial low paying jobs that do not generate large tax revenues. Increasingly violent crimes are being committed by "criminal" illegal aliens, imposing additional costs on society and victims. For illegal aliens their "drop-out" rates are huge, and they are putting a tremendous burden on medical, social, law enforcement, and other services. It is a problem that government cannot ignore. GovExec.com reader Posted February 3, 2006 10:52 AM