Catch and Release
Illegal Aliens Flouting the Law
By Daniel Muniz

According to guidelines established by U.S. Attorneys which was released through the Justice Department, an illegal alien has to be arrested at least six times before he or she can be prosecuted although there are a few exceptions to that policy. However, this revelation ignited outrage by immigration reformers who see enforcement of our immigration laws as being too lax with little incentive to punish those who repeatedly break the law especially since there are plenty of illegal immigrants who have far exceeded that minimum number of arrests.

But for me, I was not caught by surprise.

In fact, what surprised me was the righteous indignation of certain immigration reformers who were shocked at this discovery. If there are millions of people who illegally cross our border, it is logistically impossible to prosecute and punish these offenders with our current infrastructure. It just cannot be done because the sheer numbers would easily overwhelm the enforcement agencies as well as the courts and our correctional institutions. So it was not really a big secret that illegal aliens were not being punished.

It is one thing to be upset at a flagrant violation of the law but it is totally different to do something about it.

This country currently has millions of people who are here illegally and there are thousands who illegally cross our border every day. Yet, the harsh reality is that we don’t have anywhere close to the resources needed to completely deal with the problem because the volume is staggering. As it stands, this country has a “catch and release” mentality because we only prosecute the worst of the worst offenders and even at that, our legal system would sometimes prefer to deport a violent felonious illegal alien.

To punish the people who are repeatedly arrested, we would have to create a massive penal system to house millions of illegal aliens who brazenly flout our laws. And the costs would be outrageous because it is already expensive to house just a single inmate.

Instead, the catch and release strategy is what we are using when dealing with illegal immigrants although the policy emboldens the violators to pursue this perverse incentive because they know that are not going to be punished. In fact, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have already demonstrated on our streets to protest the illegal immigration debate in Congress and they did it knowing full that absolutely nothing adverse was going to happen to them.

So what kind of meaningful punishment can be meted out against people who shamelessly defy the laws of our country?

There is an alternative to the catch and release program.

Most of this country’s correctional institutions are fortified bunkers which are expensive to build and can only hold a small number of inmates. However, most illegal aliens are simply in this country to look for work so they are definitely non-violent offenders. Instead of constructing concrete bunkers, illegal immigrants can be housed in massive tent cities, very reminiscent of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail facilities of Maricopa County in Arizona.

For the same costs of building a prison to hold a few thousand inmates, a tent city can hold tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. Of course the conditions are harsh since there would be no air conditioning in these tents and absolutely no luxuries like weightlifting equipment but after all, this is jail and if an illegal alien doesn’t like it, then perhaps that is the best incentive not to come back.

In fact, what made Maricopa’s jails so cheap to run is that they have no fringe benefits for an inmate to enjoy. Naturally, civil libertarians like the ACLU and other activist organizations are outraged by such treatment but jail is not supposed to be a fun place to live in.

However, in order to make such public policy palatable to the country, some leeway has to be given.

For instance, the first arrest will have to be catch and release. Although this notion offends many immigration reformers because they demand zero tolerance, they have to remember that politics is very much involved in public policy so that means that no reform can ever be perfect. A one time freebie is a humanitarian gesture intended to give a break to first time offenders which allows a broader spectrum of people to support this measure.

But the second arrest results in an automatic three month incarceration in a tent city facility. The third arrest is an automatic six month incarceration but the twist is that the illegal alien is now permanently barred from ever attaining citizenship. Permanently restricting the path to citizenship is perhaps the best carrot to wave.

And additional arrests from this point on automatically results in spending hard time in a correctional institution.

So in other words, this is really a “three strikes” program with the third strike being the ultimate punishment of forever denying citizenship. Naturally, immigration reformers would like to see a zero tolerance program but that is not politically feasible. The public in general likes flexibility especially when it comes to a first offense. However, the public also has little patience for repeat offenders so this is where a three strikes program comes into play. And it is this latitude that will make such reform realistically possible to become law.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has shown the country that tent cites do work as jails especially for low risk inmates. This form of incarceration along with prosecution beginning with the second arrest can provide an effective deterrence to illegal immigration. Of course such a measure won’t stop everybody and that is fine because there is a nice tent in the hot sun that can be offered to such offenders.

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