Interior Repatriation Part of Illegal Immigration Crackdown -- GOPUSA

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Interior Repatriation Part of Illegal Immigration Crackdown
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
November 29, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- President Bush Monday unveiled a three-part plan Monday designed to tackle the illegal immigration problem in America.

The plan will include an interior repatriation plan whereby illegal immigrants from Mexico who are caught at the border will be flown back to Mexico and bused back to their hometowns in the interior part of the country.

"Interior repatriation is showing promise in breaking the cycle of illegal immigration," Bush said. Thus far, the pilot program of interior repatriation, which focused on the west Arizona desert, resulted in almost 35,000 illegal immigrants being returned to Mexico.

"Last year, only about 8 percent of them were caught trying to cross the border again - a much lower rate than we find among illegal immigrants who are escorted directly across the border," said Bush.

He said as it stands now, non-Mexican illegal immigrants who are caught are taken to detention facilities, but there are not enough beds for everyone, so four out of every five non-Mexican illegal immigrant is released into society and told to return for a court date. That results in about 75 percent not showing up for court, Bush said.

"As a result, last year only 30,000 of the 160,000 non-Mexicans caught coming across our southwest border were sent home. This practice of catch and release has been the government's policy for decades," he said.

To solve this problem, the U.S. will work to increase the number of beds at detention facilities, and speed up the processing of illegal aliens.

Also, Bush said the certain provisions of the immigration laws need to be strengthened and some need to be done away with altogether.

"Under current law, the federal government is required to release people caught crossing our border illegally if their home countries do not take them back in a set period of time," Bush said. That leads to the release of some murderers, rapists, pedophiles and other violent criminals, he said.

Also, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that illegal immigrants have a right to re-litigate before an immigration court as many times as they want.

"This decision obviously would encourage illegal immigrants who've been deported to sneak back into the country as many times as they want," he said.

Another part of the plan will include the increasing manpower, technology and infrastructure and integrating them in new ways, Bush said. Since 2001, 1,900 new border patrol agents have been hired, and another 1,000 will be added, he said.

But the part of his plan that has drawn the most criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike is the guest worker plan, designed to match foreign workers with U.S. employers, to fill jobs most Americans won't take.

"This program would help meet the demands of a growing economy, and it would allow honest workers to provide for their families while respecting the law," Bush said. "This plan would also help us relieve pressure on the border by creating a legal channel for those who enter America to do an honest day's labor."

Bush hopes the plan will reduce the number of illegal immigrants trying to sneak across the border by instead redirecting undocumented aliens through the program.