TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Illegal Immigrants Kicked Out In Record Numbers

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: November 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has arrested and deported record numbers of illegal immigrants - nearly 350,000 - in the past year, authorities say. It has also naturalized a record number of new Americans in the same time, more than 1 million.
Bush administration officials consider these to be great accomplishments within a system that President-elect Barack Obama calls "broken and overwhelmed" on his transition Web site.

"We are seeing the kinds of results that the country hasn't seen for many years," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said last month.

When Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, the administration kicked up its enforcement of the immigration laws on the books. The government also hired more people to process applications for immigrants who want to enter the country legally. These enhancements led to increases in arrests of illegal immigrants and their employers; decreases in the time it takes to process immigration applications - it now takes nine to 10 months for naturalization applications, compared with 16 to 18 months previously. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has reduced its backlog to 1.1 million, down from of 3.6 million in 2004.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT