Meh, 'unusual methods', 'creative accounting', shenanigans, fraud, LYING TO THE SOVEREIGN AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Below is a direct reprint from the Washington Post web site (as printed in several other newspapers).  Other than capturing some background links under the by-line, it is copied as published, including the author's text source links.  He doesn't need any help from me in getting this point across.

~SophosArchaeus

Unusual methods helped ICE break deportation record, e-mails and interviews show

[Thanks to WashingtonPost.com]

By Andrew Becker

Center for Investigative Reporting
Monday, December 6, 2010; 12:08 AM

• VIDEO: ICE press conference (October 6, 2010)
• LINK TO: Documents, emails and interviews

For much of this year, the Obama administration touted its tougher-than-ever approach to immigration enforcement, culminating in a record number of deportations.

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.

When ICE officials realized in the final weeks of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, that the agency still was in jeopardy of falling short of last year's mark, it scrambled to reach the goal. Officials quietly directed immigration officers to bypass backlogged immigration courts and time-consuming deportation hearings whenever possible, internal e-mails and interviews show.

Instead, officials told immigration officers to encourage eligible foreign nationals to accept a quick pass to their countries without a negative mark on their immigration record, ICE employees said.

The option, known as voluntary return, may have allowed hundreds of immigrants - who typically would have gone before an immigration judge to contest deportation for offenses such as drunken driving, domestic violence and misdemeanor assault - to leave the country. A voluntary return doesn't bar a foreigner from applying for legal residence or traveling to the United States in the future.

Once the agency closed the books for fiscal 2010 and the record was broken, agents say they were told to stop widely offering the voluntary return option and revert to business as usual.

Without these efforts and the more than 25,000 deportations that came with them, the agency would not have topped last year's record level of 389,834, current and former ICE employees and officials said.

The Obama administration was intent on doing so even as it came under attack by some Republicans for not being tough enough on immigration enforcement and by some Democrats for failing to deliver on promises of comprehensive immigration reform.

"It's not unusual for any administration to get the numbers they need by reaching into their bag of tricks to boost figures," said Neil Clark, who retired as the Seattle field office director in late June, adding that in the 12 years he spent in management he saw the Bush and Clinton administrations do similar things.

But at a news conference Oct. 6, ICE Director John T. Morton said that no unusual practices were used to break the previous year's mark.

"When the secretary tells you that the numbers are at an all-time high, that's straight, on the merits, no cooking of the books," Morton said, referring to his boss, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "It's what happened."

ICE declined to make any officials available for interviews. In selected responses to e-mailed questions, spokesman Brian P. Hale wrote that the agency did nothing different from previous years but did not deny that ICE had focused on voluntary returns when it faced a shortfall weeks before the fiscal year ended. Rather, field offices were reminded of the voluntary return option, he said.

"ICE offered eligible aliens . . . the opportunity to accept voluntary return," Hale said. "The decision to accept VR [voluntary return] was the aliens'."

Those efforts did not appear to result in a spike in voluntary returns. Statistics provided by ICE show that voluntary returns peaked at 8,960 in June, before dipping and then leveling off in the last two months of the fiscal year. A total of 64,876 immigrants were voluntarily returned to their home countries in 2010.

Chris Crane, president of the American Federation of Government Employees National Council 118, the union that represents ICE immigration agents and officers, said offering voluntary return was not common practice for the agency. The union has been at odds with Morton over what it calls lax enforcement and gave him a no-confidence vote in June.

"It's breaking the rules to break the record," Crane said. "You don't change the way you do business to meet some quota. Morton said we don't do quotas. But that's what this is."

New accounting

On Oct. 1 - the start of fiscal 2011 - Robin F. Baker, an acting ICE assistant director, cheered field directors on to the finish line in an e-mail obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

"We are just 1061 shy of 390,000. However, we still get to count closed cases through Monday, October 4th so . . . keep having your folks concentrate on closing those cases," Baker wrote.

Starting in 2009, ICE began to shut its books for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 in the first few days of October. Any deportations that take place in one fiscal year but are confirmed after Oct. 5 are added to the next fiscal year's statistics.

Based on the new accounting approach, the agency counted 19,422 removals from 2009 in the 2010 statistics. In 2010 itself, 373,440 other people were deported.

Current and former ICE employees also point to an expanded U.S.-Mexico partnership as another way the agency increased overall deportation numbers.

Known as the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program, the bilateral effort between the U.S. and Mexican governments focuses on reducing the deaths of migrants attempting to cross the border during the scorching Arizona summer. Mexicans caught by Border Patrol agents in the Sonoran Desert region and southern Arizona are turned over to ICE agents, who carry out the removals to Mexico.

In a February memo, James M. Chaparro, ICE's head of enforcement and removal operations, called on field directors to "maximize" participation in the program, which he outlined as one of the ways to increase removals and "move us into position to meet or exceed the fiscal year goals."

Since its launch in 2004, the program had never started earlier than July 7. This year, the first flight full of Mexicans departed June 1. By starting in June, ICE tallied 6,527 returns that in the past would have been handled - and counted - by the U.S. Border Patrol. Overall, a record 23,384 Mexicans between June and September accepted flights back to Mexico City, and then a bus ticket to their home town, at a cost of almost $15 million.

ICE spokesman Hale said the agency started the program early because of available funds and a timely agreement between the United States and Mexico. He acknowledged that some of the immigrants removed through the program were caught or detained hundreds of miles from Arizona.

Select individuals from west Texas were offered an opportunity to volunteer for safe return to their place of origin in the interior of Mexico," Hale said.

He also confirmed that Mexican nationals detained near Seattle - possibly as many as 500 immigrants, according to one local officer - were also included on the flights.

A year-end scramble

The surge to break the deportation record in the final weeks of the fiscal year consumed the agency, said a high-ranking immigration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

"They had everyone burning the candle at both ends to reach 390,000," the official said. "They were basically saying anything you can do to increase the overall removal number, that's what you should do - over everything else."

lIn the Seattle area, immigration officers were instructed to give the voluntary return option to immigrants who did not face mandatory detention and didn't have attorneys.

lIn the Atlanta area, ICE officers were told to persuade immigrants who had already asked to see an immigration judge to instead voluntarily leave the country.

lIn Chicago, officers were told to stop releasing eligible immigrants and monitoring them with electronic ankle bracelets, which might spur more to accept voluntary removals, according to a Sept. 22 e-mail.

"Due to our increase in funding for detention for the remainder of the fiscal year, do not release anyone on an order of recognizance at this time," James McPeek, an assistant field office director in Chicago, wrote in the e-mail to employees. "Another option is to offer a VR [voluntary return] and keep in custody - this will increase our removal numbers for the fiscal year."

An ICE employee in Louisiana, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, estimated that over a two-week period at least 100 to 150 Mexican nationals, some of whom had multiple drunken driving convictions, had their court cases reassigned as voluntary return, which was not common practice. ICE agents elsewhere reported similar numbers.

Several ICE employees said, however, that once the fiscal year ended, their offices reverted to infrequently offering the return option. In the Pacific Northwest, some employees received an e-mail stating just that.

"Effective immediately: do not offer V/Rs [voluntary returns] to aliens who have been convicted of or are pending DUI," ICE supervisor Elizabeth Godfrey wrote Oct. 4.

ICE's goal for 2011 is to remove 404,000 immigrants.

Andrew Becker is a reporter for the Center for Investigative Reporting. He can be reached at abecker@cironline.org.

Keep facts sorted and labeled

Reader Jack Berens (“Fable and labels” Dec 2), liked Keynesian statistics presented in favor of unequal, taxes for the “rich” in dealing with tax cut extensions (Perspectives, Nov 28).  He did not like my borrowed story, scaling distribution of tax burden (measured in trillions of dollars) into accurate but everyday terms, or my use of “Leftist”, “Socialist”, “class warfare”, etc.

I wrote “Taxes in Scale” weeks prior as a stand-alone piece and posted it here with a reference to bourgeoisie.  It was selected, edited and re-titled by the editorial board (thank you) for their head-to-head spread along with anti-prosperity writer Brian Setzler.  I would have used a different set of arguments for such a debate.

As to Mr. Setzler’s “reasonable, rational and clear reasons”, statistics (as Benjamin Disraeli so pithily explained) can be, and were, conveniently collected and presented to give false impressions.

I found and reported (as a conscientious conservative) my erroneous quote of the “700 billion [not 700 million] increase in debt” claimed by Leftists in opposing fair extension of Bush’s tax cuts.  In fact, history and the Laffer Curve show that reasonable, across-the-board lower taxes increase revenue by encouraging robust employment, investment and spending, while singling out “rich” employers and investors for unfair tax burdens reduces revenue, thus increasing the debt.  It was just proved again, in Maryland and New York’s “millionaire taxes”.*

Finally, my appellations were used for accuracy, since it is unfair to tar sincere democrats (small ‘d’) and honest liberals (small ‘l’) with the same brush as those that co-opted the DNC (and many Republicans) and now willfully run up disastrous deficit and debt, in violation of the Constitution.  Most of the current administration uses “Progressive” to describe themselves, and “Progressive” only means “Progressive Socialist” (kin to Fabian Socialists of Europe).  Obama appointee Van Jones prefers “Communist revolutionary”.  So, the terms are neither “name calling” nor “meaningless” as Mr. Berens tries to convince readers that don’t watch “Fox News” as he does**.

*Note: a few billionaires (Warren Buffet,  George Soros, etc) shout that “the rich" 5% should pay more than the 70% of all taxes that they currently do.  However, though the government accepts donations beyond tax code minimums, not one of these "philanthropists" contributes.  Their legions of lawyers shelter them from taxes.  Each gives to charity, but many “millionaires” give more (far more by percent of income) to charity than any of them.  Soros profits from collapsing economies, prepositioning his assets and then triggering the event with a doomsday letter (crushing people dependant on those systems), while Beck and O’Reilly donate over 10% of their income to churches and charity, as well as paying their share of taxes.
**Though the Left keeps a very close watch on outlets like FOX themselves, they prefer that only "politically mature" (dedicated Socialists) do the monitoring, as access to factual information would eventually lead to the "masses" becoming too educated to accept their lies easily.  Not that Berens is necessarily a hard Leftist; he may simply be still in denial.

Biased poll no surprise

 Just the title of the Dec. 1 AP article demonstrates the problem.  “Poll: Ideas for cutting U.S. deficit unpopular.”  The propaganda piece then goes on to quote a narrow, badly phrased section of a poll conducted by the Liberal AP itself for Leftist CNBC (Nov. 18-22).

One reason that , is that they constantly skew stories to promote a Keynesian/Socialist agenda. In today’s case, a plurality (47%) willing to cut government services, while fewer (46%) would prefer to keep their freebies, somehow makes it “unpopular”.  Nobody expects a reduction in services to be a great joy, but they understand that government is bloated and unsustainable.  They know that we must cut wherever we can (even trivialities like earmarks that Dems say "only make up .05% of the deficit"... $2,500,000,000.00) to protect our childrens future and prevent a possible collapse in the near term.

As a matter of fact, the same AP/CNBC poll actually shows that a clear majority place unemployment and the fragile economy above terrorism as threats to our country.  Taxes are rated lower, but 70% still rate them as a high priority.  So even middle and lower income Americans understand that government, especially at the federal level, is supposed to maintain a positive infrastructure, not run everything.  Things like “turtle tunnels”, “aid” for oil producing countries (while banning American oil),  mandatory health insurance, private (style, USAF) jets for Pelosi, an airport for Senators* and increasing benefits for illegal aliens are just ridiculous.  They also know that un-American class warfare against employers will not help them get jobs and that statist economies have never succeeded anywhere. 

Cuts to a bloated government might be unpleasant, but they are better done now than down the road.  The course we have been put on leads to Europe: Communist/union led riots in Greece, Spain, Britain, France, Portugal, Italy, Ireland…

[*ED NOTE: in print version, I incorrectly noted "Frank's airport", when it was John Murtha's semi-private, taxpayer paid and maintained, 3 taxpayer underwritten flights a day, luxury airdrome.]

Which way to turn?

Independents have to choose between the left and the right.  They got conned along with many of us in 2008, but it’s not really all that difficult of a question if you have the facts.  The majority of the people have figured it out, despite an unending (and recently intensified) Leftist assault on truth in the "mainstream" media and by public officials.  The recent election and Progressives’ responses to it are just more proof.

Let me be clear: there are crooks in all parties.  Also, two (or more) voices are absolutely required in our American, Constitutional system, because (unlike Socialism) open debate and real choices are key to maintaining freedom.  All major Communist states have (or had) single party, single candidate ballots.  Their media is (or was) funded and controlled by the state.  Even the “soft” Euro-Socialist states suffer union-organized rioting and attacks on opponents when things don’t go their way.  And here there are elected officials, like Progressive WV Senator Rockefeller, who wants censorship by the F.C.C. to ‘get rid of the right and left’ by shutting down FOX news and MSNBC (considering the number of viewers for each channel, that would be like the Socialist team giving up a weak, fumbling, bench warmer, while the People would lose a powerful, MVP team captain).  Our current President, elected by a majority that wanted more honesty and transparency in government (and now overwhelmingly disapprove of him), calls information “a deversion” and conservative media “destructive”.

Since Progressives came to power with super-majorities and the Presidency :  “Stimulus” and other reckless spending drove unemployment past the promised 8% and held it at or above 10% for 18 months; GM and Chrysler were taken from the stockholder owners and handed to the Unions, our health care industry was hijacked, causing insurance rates to rise 15-25% ahead of government-mandated services; “Justice” Dept changed policy, eliminating civil rights of whites;  ignored a massive oil spill (caused by forcing rigs out to dangerous depths); shut down all U.S. rigs without cause, forcing 75,000 more out of work, many rigs to leave American leases for foreign ones and even giving billions in “aid” to those countries;  driven U.S. debt and deficits to record-shattering levels; sued a sovereign U.S. state for protecting citizens against uncontrolled illegal alien invasion as civil war rages across the border, but ignored “amnesty cities” that actively defy American law; delayed reinforcements for U.S. troops in combat; defended terrorist groups while defaming American ideals; brought the U.S. before a U.N. “Human Rights commission” stuffed with NoKor, Iran, Cuba, China, Libya and other totalitarian regimes for humiliation; paid billions of tax dollars to cronies’ companies for “X-rated” airport scanners and increased the intrusiveness of pat-down searches for every passenger, but giving exemptions for Muslims in traditional dress; and more.

Since the People rejected the Leftist agenda last month : Obama (who did nothing when NoKor sunk ally South Korea’s ship last March) does nothing when NoKor shells South Korean civilians and boasts of new nuclear violations (the USS Lincoln visit was scheduled months ago); Reid re-introduces his “DREAM” act (to permit 35 year old “children” of illegal aliens to stay in the U.S. forever just for applying, get taxpayer-subsidized discounts for college, and unconditionally vouch in their entire family for permanent residency) which was already defeated as part of the Defense Appropriations Act;  the Federal Reserve ordered the printing of 600,000,000,000 dollars to buy down our own debt, devaluing our money;  Bush tax-cuts are being ignored, which will raise everyone’s income, estate  and other taxes if they expire;  a class-warfare campaign is pushed against “rich, millionaire (everyone over $250,000 - employers)” in those same tax cut debates; the Commerce Dept.  just lowered its projections on recovery (unemployment will stay high through 2015 due to healthcare costs and tax uncertainty); and - - no kidding - - the administration is seriously considering a grant of taxpayer money to pay for construction of the “Cordoba House” victory Mosque that will literally overshadow the 9-11 Ground Zero memorial in NYC.

Any party or ideology that completely misrepresents its intentions to the electorate, intentionally slanders our own country’s exceptional ideals and history, sponsors class warfare and racial tension, suppresses media and fabricates statistics, recklessly cripples our energy and healthcare industries in the name of global Socialism, generally weakens our defenses while encouraging enemies and ignores and insults both the Constitution and the will of the people, is simply wrong.

Being a democrat or liberal (lower case) can be patriotic and our system requires a left as well as a right for balance.  We as a people have been steadily pushed to the left for 240 years, with only a few, small corrections (like the repeal of Prohibition) back toward our center.  Much of it has been in the form of Constitutional “improvements”, thoughtfully crafted and legally enacted.  However, too much has been done covertly and without authority, usurping the power of the People in order to favor individuals, cronies or special interests.  We have been ‘nudged’ further in the last decade, and especially the last 2 years, than in the last 70 years.  There is now a strong push to ‘finish the job’ of humbling the American giant that has always protected free people from ambitious tyrants.  The anti-U.S. Progressive Socialists have decided that now is the time, but most of us have caught on too soon and they fear being set back for another hundred years by Americans.  You see, the whole concept of "Progressive Socialism" was developed because freedom-loving Americans already beat back the overt Communists and Socialists.  They found out that we will not knowingly trade our liberty for an unsustainable nanny-state, and they needed to have a low and slow, covert way of infiltrating instead of a revolution that damages the one that started in 1776.

For our friends in the middle, I suggest keeping an eye on the left while looking to the right.