NYT/IHT: Crime and Banishment - Deporting Illegal Alien Criminals

[matt819]

From the New York Times/International Herald Tribune: Crime and Banishment

MEXICO CITY — The prospects for the immigration bill now under discussion in the U.S. Congress have a lot to do with whether it is perceived to enhance U.S. border security with Mexico. Many Republicans have been reluctant to legalize the status of foreigners illegally present in the United States without more measures to keep other potential illegal immigrants out. On Tuesday the Senate approved a plan to spend $40 billion over the next decade on building more fencing along the border, installing infrared sensors, increasing by almost 20,000 the number of patrol agents and sending surveillance drones flying overhead.

But this latest plan will only put more stress on Mexican border towns that already bear the brunt of unexpected and, often, unwanted waves of returnees from the United States.


Since 2008, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) has increased deportations of illegal aliens under a policy to maximize “the removal of those who pose the greatest threat to public safety or national security.” The agency says it has sent back close to 410,000 individuals from the United States in the 2012 fiscal year, almost 55 percent of them — 225,390 people — convicted criminal aliens. That’s almost double the number of criminals deported in 2008 — and, the agency says, “the largest number of criminal aliens removed in agency history.”

This may reassure the Republicans in Washington, but it worries local authorities in Mexico.

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/crime-and-banishment/

I don't see this as a problem. If an illegal alien is convicted of a crime, even if that crime is "simply" entering the country illegally, I don't have a problem with deportation. And I can't get terribly worked up about the impact that these deportations have on the communities/countries to which these illegal alien criminals are deported.

I support the path to citizenship approach and am opposed to the wholesale deportation of illegal alients. Notwithstanding how they got here, the fact is that they're here, and we have to deal with that. The social and economic cost of deporting 12 million illegal aliens is astronomical.

The issue addressed in the article is what to do with illegal aliens who are convicted of a crime in the U.S. I'm struck by the comments that say that this is wrong, that we have to be mindful of the impact of these deportations in the deportation destinations. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see that we should bear the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens.