Immigration prosecutions straining court system

McALLEN – Outside a small courtroom on the eighth floor of McAllen’s federal courthouse, Thomas Lindenmuth steels himself for what he dryly refers to as “la cosecha del fin de semana” – the catch of the weekend.

Dozens of haggard looking men and women – each picked up since Friday for illegally crossing the border – fill pews, the jury box and every other available space, waiting for a few moments with an attorney.

As the chief of the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Lindenmuth starts each Monday morning in the din of this room, where various Spanish accents occasionally emerge from the overall commotion – each giving voice to its own individual story.

But the number of stories he and his attorneys hear each day is only getting larger.

While apprehensions of immigrants like these have steadily declined since 2005, a change in enforcement policies has landed more and more of them before a criminal court.

First-time offenders with no previous criminal histories — who would have previously been removed from the country though the civil immigration system — are increasingly facing the threat of jail time and a record for their failed attempts to sneak across the border.

Federal law enforcement officials credit this aggressive prosecution strategy with helping curb illegal immigration by 9 percent in the last year, but judges, prosecutors and other court staff fear it is taking an increasing toll on the justice system.

With ever rising immigration case loads, the price of jailing, charging and defending these migrants has become harder and harder to handle.

The “policy of prosecuting all aliens presents a cost to the American taxpayer … that is neither meritorious, nor reasonable,” one U.S. district judge wrote in an opinion issued last week.

‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BORDER WALL?’

U.S. Customs and Border Protection largely credits the disparity between declining apprehensions and rising prosecutions to one initiative – Operation Streamline.

Launched in Del Rio in 2005, the program places nearly every migrant caught crossing the border into criminal proceedings. Before, U.S. Border Patrol agents would detain first-time illegal migrants with no criminal history, slap them with a civil violation and return them to their home country.

Now, most are charged with federal misdemeanors. If this is a second or third offense, the consequences can result in a felony charge.

In its first three years of operation, immigration apprehensions declined by more than 70 percent in Del Rio. Other cities where the plan was eventually rolled out have posted their own dramatic drops in apprehensions.

But while Streamline may have proven effective in rural areas like far West Texas and the Arizona border, courthouses in more urban centers like Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville have begun to show strain.

Laredo, which launched the program two years later, has seen nearly a 320-percent spike in misdemeanor prosecutions — from 3,260 in fiscal year 2007 to 13,664 in 2009 — according to statistics provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

McAllen and Brownsville, where Streamline is only enforced on small stretches of the region’s border, have posted more modest — yet still significant gains.

Misdemeanor cases at both cities’ federal courthouses grew from 6,019 cases to 7,699 — an increase of nearly 30 percent.

Lindenmuth, who runs an office that defends nearly all of these immigration suspects at McAllen’s federal courthouse, said his small staff takes on anywhere from 15 to 30 recently apprehended migrants a day on top of a load of other non-immigration cases for those who can’t afford their own legal counsel.

Staring at his office’s upcoming docket sheet during a recent week, he shook his head in joking exasperation.

“What the hell is going on here,” he said. “What happened to the (border) wall?”

JUSTIFIABLE COST?

Each new case against an illegal migrant takes a small toll on the justice system.

Prosecutors must be assigned to pursue the charges. U.S. Marshals must find detention space to house the defendants. And judges must make time to hear the cases on their dockets.

Often, criminal immigration defendants make their initial court appearances, plead guilty and are sentenced in large groups of up to 70 at a time.

Federal magistrate judges like McAllen’s Dorina Ramos have had to adapt to move through them more quickly.

At a recent set of Monday morning immigration hearings, she addressed a group of 18 misdemeanor and six felony immigration defendants at once, calling all of them before her bench in a group but addressing each individually.

Most were sentenced to time served. The entire process for all 24 took less than an hour.

But each man and woman escorted from the courthouse that morning left with a criminal record that will only enhance the punishment possibilities should they try to re-enter.

Still, some judges have questioned whether the deterrent factor of those records justifies the time their courts must spend on these cases.

In an opinion released last week, Austin-based U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ordered prosecutors to be prepared to justify every immigration case brought before his court involving a migrant without a criminal past.

“The expenses of prosecuting illegal entry and re-entry cases on aliens without any significant criminal history is simply mind-boggling,” he said.

A report issued last month by the Warren Institute at the University of California-Berkeley went further, calling into question whether the increasing load of immigration cases had forced some courts to “cut procedural corners” and violate the due process rights of their defendants by rushing them through the system.

“Operation Streamline has unacceptable consequences for the agencies tasked with implementing the program, for the migrant targets and for the rule of law in this country,” the report states.

TOUGH CHOICES

Tim Johnson, the U.S. Attorney for a judicial district that stretches from Huntsville to Laredo, maintains his office has handled the added workload capably, but concedes his employees are at their limits.

“We probably can’t stretch the system any more than the number of cases we’re currently prosecuting,” he said. “Frankly, they’re tired of working immigration cases — it takes up so much of their docket.”

With finite resources and time, they have had to make tough decisions about which types of cases to pursue. Other crimes that may have more of an impact on life on the border can fall through the cracks.

While prosecutors across his district have taken on 39 percent more felony immigration cases in the last four years, the number of felony drug cases has dropped, according to the U.S. Office of Court Administration.

“I would prefer to focus on health care fraud (or) child pornography to prosecuting economic migrants,” Johnson said. “You But we realize that this is partly just the reality of crime along the border.”

Lindenmuth, too, has seen the effects of constant immigration work taxing his public defenders.

Each attorney carries around a typical load of 90 active cases at any given time, he said. They each average a total of 215 cases closed out each year.

Still, with a mandate to take on nearly all of the misdemeanor immigration cases and 75 percent of felonies, he realizes dealing with this onslaught just comes with the territory.

Every morning, he and his lawyers will wake up and start their days in that same crowded courtroom. Every day hearing those same migrant stories.

The faces may change, but their stories keep coming.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.