*After spending the last 3 weeks in Tucson speaking with people and groups about immigration, spending a day at a conference at the Uof A, being on the border and traveling back to Flordia by bus,I can tell you the repession by the US government is increasing against the people on both sides of it.* * * *Capital $$$ has no borders why should workers...* * * *Cort* ** *http://centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/ * Saturday, December 11, 2010 Why manipulate immigration numbers in the first place?<http://centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-manipulate-immigration-numbersin.html> Mike Munger at Kids Prefer Cheese<http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2010/12/grand-game-immigration-edition.html>and Greg Weeks at Two Weeks Notice<http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2010/12/playing-with-immigration-numbers.html>have commented on a recent WaPo<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/05/AR2010120503230.html?nav=hcmodule&sid=ST2010120503239>story on the Obama administration's manipulation of immigration numbers. It looks like the administration implemented a host of accounting gimmicks to ensure that last fiscal year's deportation numbers exceeded the previous one.
But in reaching 392,862 deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement included more than 19,000 immigrants who had exited the previous fiscal year, according to agency statistics. ICE also ran a Mexican repatriation program five weeks longer than ever before, allowing the agency to count at least 6,500 exits that, without the program, would normally have been tallied by the U.S. Border Patrol. I don't really understand why the administration is trying so hard to make it look like it deported more illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2010 than it did in fiscal year 2009 (each ends September 30). Well, I do understand, but if the administration wanted to be honest present a perfectly reasonable explanation for why 2010's deportation numbers were down from 2009, it could just have said that as a result of increased deportations during Obama's first year in office (as well as increased deportations during the Bush administration), a slower U.S. economy, and stricter border enforcement, there are fewer illegal immigrants living in the United States. The estimated number of illegal immigrants living in the United States fell from 11.6 million in 2008 to 11.1 million in 2009 (Pew Hispanic Center estimates <http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/126.pdf>). As the total number of illegal immigrants living in the US declines, we are also likely to see fewer people deported. Just take a page from the drug war playbook and say that fewer deportations is a sign of success. The when the number of illegal immigrants in the country increases (again) and a greater number of people are deported (again), you can call that success. -------------------- >From Greg Weeks: Labels: Book Review<http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/Book%20Review>, Peru <http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/Peru> Saturday, December 11, 2010 Playing with immigration numbers<http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2010/12/playing-with-immigration-numbers.html> Although I share his indignation, I disagree with Mike Munger's conclusion here<http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2010/12/grand-game-immigration-edition.html> and my indignation is a bit different. The story is that ICE officials used very dubious means (just read the *Washington Post *article<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/05/AR2010120503230.html?nav=hcmodule>, which is depressing) to reach "record" numbers of deportations.* But each successive revelation about how ICE "broke" the record is more preposterous and outrageous. Have we completely lost respect for the basic rule of law? And then to have these bureaucrats just LIE....Wow. I mean, the guy who outed the administration's fibs is the head of their own union. The admin lied about changing the rules, and artificially decreed that the year would be longer, on both ends. Good lord. WaPo is hardly some right wing blogger. There actually appears to be something moving, where fair-minded people on the left are sick and tired of the Obama shenanigans. But here is the point I think Mike misses. * Even without the fake counting, the Obama administration is deporting people in truly massive numbers, with a commitment that exceeds the Bush administration even if a "record" is not achieved, which in any case was very close. The tinkering is therefore at the margins. That deportation commitment--which is very expensive but very easy to get funding for--greatly exceeds its own professed commitment to immigration reform. *In other words, I think it is fair to say that many people, myself included, are tired not so much of shenanigans, *but of policy*. * Obsession with records is a pet peeve of mine. I've written before about how how pervasive that has been in drug interdictions. Trying to reach artificial record numbers also helped create the false positives scandal in Colombia. 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