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'Send Them All Back' Not So Easy

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 6, 2008

It's been said many times in letters to the editor and radio call-in shows: The U.S. government should round up all illegal immigrants and send them home.

Two recent factory raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency show, however, that such an attempt would be enormously costly and cause massive disruption in the criminal justice system.

In May, ICE raided a meatpacking plant in Postville, Ia., and detained 389 immigrant workers. Mass court hearings in temporary quarters followed and almost 300 pleaded to charges such as using false Social Security numbers to gain employment. Most were sentenced to five months in prison, then deportation.

Civil libertarians, immigration groups and The New York Times widely criticized the government for rushing the defendants through the hearing process and pressuring them to plead guilty. In the end, this small attempt at wholesale deportation was not judged a success.

Last week ICE agents raided Howard Industries, an electric transformer factory in Laurel, Miss., arresting 595 workers suspected of being in this country illegally. It was the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history. This time, authorities only charged eight people with identity theft, memories of Postville obviously fresh on their minds.

Both raids show the enormous challenge in deporting the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. Imagine the millions of dollars and the manpower needed to arrest, detain and deport individuals who must be given due process, which takes time. The load would paralyze the criminal justice system and cost taxpayers more than they know.

Presidential and congressional candidates need to get specific about what this nation can realistically do about the millions of undocumented workers who live in our midst. Sound bites like "protect our borders" and "send them all back home" might assuage voters, but the logistics and costs would be enormous, exhausting and emotional.

The Postville and Laurel raids make a few things clear: An enforceable immigration policy will not happen overnight and it won't come cheap.

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