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The anti-immigrant hysteria that became a mainstay of President Trumps agenda and the hymnal of the GOP rests on the assumption that we are awash with illegal immigrants. Its illegal immigrants who are responsible for a crime wave. (There isnt a wave, but stick with this for a moment.) Its illegal immigrants, they say, who are responsible for the economic suffering in the Rust Belt. (If we just got rid of them, jobs and wages would go up!) Hillary Clinton was going to continue the Obama administrations policy: open borders!

Well, its all fake. There was a dramatic downturn in illegal immigrants under President Barack Obama, who deported record number of people. As many of us argued, the economic recession reversed the flow of immigrants so on net more are now leaving for Mexico than coming from there. Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute observes, President Trump cant take credit for the unprecedented collapse in illegal immigration since 2007 but the Great Recession, growing Mexican economy, and Mexican demographics can.

The Pew Research Center tells us:

There were 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2015, a small but statistically significant decline from the Centers estimate of 11.3 million for 2009, the last year of the Great Recession. The Centers preliminary estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2016 is 11.3 million, which is statistically no different from the 2009 or 2015 estimates and comes from a different data source with a smaller sample size and a larger margin of error. This more recent preliminary data for 2016 are inconclusive as to whether the total unauthorized immigrant population continued to decrease, held steady or increased.

Oops. You mean getting rid of all those illegal immigrants didnt create job openings for unemployed factory workers in the heartland or boost wages or prevent Chicagos crime increase in the past two years? Nope. It seems the anti-immigration crowd will need to find new scapegoats to blame and new ideas for solving our systemic economic problems.

In particular, Trumps obsession with the Mexican border appears to be entirely misplaced:

Mexicans have long been the largest origin group among unauthorized immigrants and the majority for at least a decade but their numbers have been shrinking since peaking at 6.9 million, or 57% of the total, in 2007. In 2014, they numbered 5.8 million (52% of the total). In 2015, according to the Centers new estimate, they declined to 5.6 million, or 51% of the total. And in 2016, according to the Centers preliminary estimate, the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico was the same, but their share fell to 50% of the total, marking the first time since at least 2005 that Mexicans did not account for a majority of the unauthorized immigrant population.

Why, then, do you suppose the Trump team is so fixated on illegal immigrants and the southern border? Well, immigration exclusionists have been ignoring readily available facts for some time. There is no illegal immigrant crime wave. The border is much more secure.

Were hard-pressed to come up with any other explanation than the obvious one: As in France, fear and hatred of immigrants are a convenient excuse for voters and policymakers who cannot grapple with messy truths.Trump has no policy agenda to help the working and middle class, so he sells xenophobia. Get rid of illegals and youll all have $30-per-hour jobs! You cant make a middle-class living as a manual laborer? blame the immigrants! Scared of terrorism and dont want to think about the problem of radicalization of Westerners? Blame the refugees, the most thoroughly vetted immigrants there are.

Its time to put an end to the nonsense, stop turning our cities and communities upside-down, alienating our ally Mexico over an unneeded wall, wasting money on building a wall and vilifying outsiders. Right-wingers should stop pushing the comforting fantasy to displaced workers that nothing they have done (e.g., not gone to college, not developed computer skills, stayed in locales with no jobs) and nothing they have to do (e.g., go back to school, develop new skills, move to where the jobs are) matter so long as all those illegal immigrants are stealing their jobs. That sort of fatalism is wrongheaded and ultimately does a huge disservice to those who need to catch up to the globalized economy. And now we now have plenty of evidence that the immigration scaremongering is fraudulent.

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The jig is up: Hysteria over illegal immigration is baseless - Washington Post (blog)

By Joe Guzzardi

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in a recent Meet the Press interview that a wider array of criminal behavior by illegal immigrants, including DUIs, could lead to their deportation. Kelly added that during the Obama administration a DUI was unlikely to result in deportation even though it would have put the alien in the DHS system.

The United States, Kelly stressed, has a legal justice process that allows it to deport aliens, and that practice is consistent with President Trumps new enforcement-first policy. The definition of criminal has not changed, but where on the spectrum of criminality we operate has changed, said Secretary Kelly.

But as clear as federal immigration laws are in their definition of who is deportable, Kellys frank statement that a DUI could expedite removal is certain to spark more protests that President Trumps commitment to enforcement is extreme. The American Civil Liberties Union condemned Kelly, even before he was confirmed, for his reasonable warning that unchecked immigration represents a national security threat.

The law on whats generally referred to as improper entry or entry without inspection is unambiguous: Whether by crossing the U.S. border alone, with a coyotes help or buying a fake U.S. passport, a foreign national who enters the U.S. illegally and not through a designated port of entry can be both convicted of a crime and fined. For the first improper entry, a civil violation, the alien can be fined or imprisoned for up to six months, or both. A subsequent offense, a felony, carries a fine or imprisonment for up to two years, or both.

Immigration laws also apply to visa overstays that make up as much as 40 percent of the 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. When an alien crosses into the U.S. illegally or enters on a valid, legal visa but fails to depart on the designated date, Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 applies: Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable.

Despite the laws crystal clarity, Congress legislative branch, which includes many lawyers, cant agree on who should remain. For some legislators, aliens who get past the border patrol or visitors on a temporary visa who overstay should be allowed to remain indefinitely. But illegal entry will never end unless laws are enforced. When immigration laws are enforced, living illegally in the U.S. becomes more challenging and less satisfying.

Attrition through enforcement is better for taxpayers and for foreign nationals unlawfully present. Taxpayers dont have to spend billions of dollars to subsidize DHS deportation efforts, and illegal immigrants can return home on their own terms when they realize that the option forced removal is less appealing. There is precedent for returning home voluntarily. According to a Pew Research study, between 2009 and 2014, the years that immediately followed the recession and the dried-up job market, more than 1 million Mexicans returned home; only 14 percent were deported.

The Trump administrations stepped-up enforcement helps American citizens and legal permanent residents get jobs, and discourages future illegal immigration, already down 40 percent from Mexico during January and February. The sharp drop in illegal immigration should encourage President Trump to continue his interior enforcement commitment. President Trump campaigned on an enforcement platform, and now hes delivering.

Joe Guzzardi is a senior writing fellow with Californians for Population Stabilization. Contact him at joeguzzardi@capsweb.org and find him on Twitter @joeguzzardi19.

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DUIs could mean removal for illegal immigrants - Desert Dispatch

The birthplace of the American Revolution joined the so-called sanctuary city movement last night as Concord Town Meeting approved a warrant making the town a welcoming community for illegal immigrants.

The overwhelming show of hands in favor by the crowd of more than 500 people followed a contentious debate by town residents pro and con.

The warrant states that no police officer can detain a person on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant, and calls on police to ignore ICE detainers without a judges order, or evidence of a violent felony conviction. It bars police officers and other town employees from responding to any ICE requests for information on peoples incarceration status, hearings, length of detention, home address or personal information.

The town where American militia faced British soldiers in the Revolutionary Wars first day of battle in 1775 now joins Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, Northampton and Amherst as towns that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says limits cooperation with the federal government on immigration.

Resident Phil Villers said the measure has the support of the state attorney general and he claimed it is in line with the U.S. Constitution.

Weve all seen the pictures of babies gassed to death in Syria and the 500,000 dead there by bombings and killings from their own government, Villers said. At the same time the Trump administration has slammed closed the door on the 50,000 refugees from there. Undocumented immigrants are being expelled at record numbers. Theyre breaking up families. Some 42,000 immigrants are languishing in our prisons, euphemistically called detention centers. As you heard, many cities are resisting this outrageous turning of our traditional values. Concord needs to uphold its traditional values and say loudly and clearly against these abuses, Not in my name.

Nancy Barrett spoke out for legal immigration, opposing the measure, though she drew applause from the largely pro-sanctuary crowd when she told her story about coming here as a 4-year-old immigrant from the Middle East.

Both of my parents endured a lifetime of religious persecution and war. They dreamed of coming to America. It was a long process to get to America. We had to wait until we had an aunt and uncle who came before us who could sponsor us to come to this country, she said. Im personally offended by language in this article that equates my story with the story of people who have broken the laws of this country. No matter what my parents were fleeing from, they loved and respected this country too much to break the law to come here. They taught us to love and respect this country as well.

Dozens of angry residents stormed out of the meeting after the town moderator cut off comment and moved for a vote while several people were still queued up, awaiting their chance to speak.

This is an example of the corruption in Concord, fumed David Stevens, who had written remarks opposing the measure which he said he planned to deliver before Town Moderator Carmen C. Reiss ended comment after 30 minutes.

David Marsh called the actions to end debate on the issue embarrassing. He said the job of keeping the town and the nation safe is too big for police to do on their own, and they need citizens to support giving them the tools they need to do their job.

It was disgusting. It was embarrassing, Marsh said. Referring to Concords ban on plastic bottles, he added, I thought I was embarrassed over the plastic bottles, or the fact that they try to get cats on a leash, but this is really a serious, serious situation.

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Concord votes to be 'welcoming' to illegal immigrants - Boston Herald

The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States in 2015 fell to its lowestlevel since 2009 a drop marked by a steady decline in the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico, a new study showed.

The analysis of U.S. census data by Pew Research Center published Tuesday found there were 11 million illegal immigrants in 2015 about 3 percent fewer than the 11.3 million undocumented people in 2009, at the end of the recession.

During that same six-year period, the number of Mexicans in the country illegally dropped to 5.6 million from 6.4 million, the analysis found.

In 2015, the number of Mexican illegal immigrants was about 51 percent of the total illegal immigrant population, The Daily Caller reported.

"The numbers are not going up, and in fact, the numbers for Mexicans have been going down for almost a decade now," Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew,said in an AP interview, per Vocativ. "And that is counter to a lot of the rhetoric you hear."

According to Pew Research, illegal immigration surged for nearly two decades during the 1990s and 2000s, reaching a high of 12.2 million in 2007, but it later fell and has since has stayed around 11 million.

As Mexicans living in the country illegally has dwindled, the number of illegal immigrants from other parts of the world has grown, however, the report found.

Asian immigrants without legal status rose by to 1.5 million in 2015, from from 1.3 million in 2009. Those living in the United States illegally from Central America, meanwhile, increased to 1.8 million from 1.6 million during that time, according to the report.

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Illegal Immigration Totals Fall Below Pre-Obama Level - Newsmax

April 25, 2017 Del Rio, TexasOne by one, the Mexican men stood in the jury box, shackles rattling as they fidgeted slightly and pleaded guilty to crossing the US border illegally.

They had come for better jobs, many to earn more money to help raise their children, their defense lawyer told a federal magistrate in a quiet west Texas courtroom about 3 miles (5 kilometers) north of the Mexican border. The magistrate, Collis White, warned that a guilty plea would mean jail time and they couldn't return to the United States legally for years. Speaking in Spanish, each of the 15 men said they understood. They faced up to six months in jail, but most were sentenced to just a few days.

They had the misfortune of landing in America's toughest courthouse for people who cross the border illegally. In other jurisdictions, authorities routinely skip the criminal charges and order quick deportations. But for the past decade, just about everyone arrested near Del Rio gets prosecuted.

That tough approach is a model President Trump hopes to replicate as part of his sweeping plans to stop illegal immigration, the cornerstone of his campaign. He wants to prosecute many more people caught crossing the border illegally as a warning to others that crossing the border illegally has serious consequences.

Supporters of aggressive prosecutions point to a drop in arrests for illegal border crossings in the Del Rio area as evidence that the tough approach works. Fewer arrests are seen as an indication that fewer people are trying to cross illegally.

Stepping up prosecutions wouldn't be cheap. Immigration cases already account for more than half of federal prosecutions. Mr. Trump is seeking hundreds of million dollars more for more jail cells, prosecutors and marshals to transport prisoners. It's unclear if Congress will give him the money.

Civil libertarians object to the prosecutions, saying those arrested are rushed through the legal system without having a chance to exercise their rights.

And a previous attempt to expand the Del Rio approach had mixed results. Prosecutions spiked at the end of the Bush administration and during the first years of the Obama administration, but later declined. Limited resources, including jail space and not enough prosecutors, contributed to that drop.

Still, Trump administration officials plan to press ahead. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly made the point as they've toured the border in recent weeks, saying that those who enter the US illegally will be prosecuted and deported. The Justice Department this month called on prosecutors to appoint border security coordinators in every judicial district.

"This is a new era. This is the Trump era," Mr. Sessions said while visiting the border in Nogales, Ariz.

In Mr. White's Del Rio courtroom, cases of illegal border crossings were handled in under a minute. Only one man was sentenced to more than a few days.

"If you can find a legal way to come back, you're more than welcome," White told the men, his words translated by an interpreter. "But it has to be just that."

The new push for prosecutions comes as the number of people crossing the border illegally has plummeted. Under former President Barack Obama, there was a steady decline in arrests. And in March, the second full month of the Trump administration, border agents reported the fewest border crossers in a single month in at least 17 years.

Illegal immigration straddles a line in federal courthouses. Being in the United States illegally whether after crossing a border or overstaying a visa is a civil offense. But those caught crossing the border illegally, can face criminal charges, though that generally doesn't happen. Those who return illegally after being convicted can face years imprisonment.

The Del Rio prosecution strategy was the result of an earlier push to secure the border. Before it started, agents in the Border Patrol's Del Rio Sector arrested more than 68,000 people in a 12-month period. Now arrests in the area have dropped to an average of about 20,000 a year.

The acting chief patrol agent in Del Rio, Matthew Hudak, said the effort has succeeded for several reasons.

"Policy matters, enforcement matters, the work of agents matters," Mr. Hudak said.

It helps that the Border Patrol's sector there only covers one judicial district. In other areas, agents often work across state and judicial district lines, making it more difficult to coordinate prosecution, jail space and transportation.

The often-brief court proceedings alarm civil libertarians.

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said border crossers facing prosecution are urged to plead guilty and don't fully know the implications of that. Immigrants convicted of a crime often lose their chance to make claims to stay in the United States, including asylum.

"People have no idea what is happening," Ms. Wang said. "It's completely lost on (them),"

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How does Trump plan to stop illegal immigration? A Texas court offers a model approach - Christian Science Monitor