We don't have enough beds in border detention facilities, and would have to pay to send non-Mexican illegal immigrants back to Brazil or Honduras, or wherever else, because "international law" says we can't just bounce 'em back across into Mexico. We give them a "notice to appear" at a hearing and let 'em into the U.S. They rarely show up at the hearings. Nice route for terrorists, don'cha think?

More from Jerry Kammer of Copley News Service:

McALLEN, Texas – In the silvery-blue light of dusk, 20 Brazilians glided across the Rio Grande in rubber rafts propelled by Mexican smugglers who leaned forward and breast-stroked through the gentle current.

Once on the U.S. side, the Brazilians scrambled ashore and started looking for the Border Patrol. Their quick and well-rehearsed surrender was part of a growing trend that is demoralizing the Border Patrol and beckoning a rising number of illegal immigrants from countries beyond Mexico.

...The group was detained overnight and given a court summons that allowed them to stay in the United States pending an immigration hearing. Then a Border Patrol agent drove them to the McAllen bus station, where they continued their journey into America. The formal term for the court summons is a "notice to appear." Border Patrol agents have another name for it. They call it a "notice to disappear."

Of the 8,908 notices to appear that the immigration court in nearby Harlingen issued last year to non-Mexicans, 8,767 failed to show up for their hearings, according to statistics compiled by the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review. That is a no-show rate of 98 percent.

The problem is that U.S. immigration authorities are short on detention space. They can send Mexicans back across the border within hours. But international law prohibits them from sending non-Mexicans to Mexico. Instead, they must arrange travel documents and flights directly to the immigrant's country of origin. The process, which the U.S. government pays for, takes weeks or even months.

The result is an unintended avenue of entry for a rapidly growing class of illegal immigrants from Central and South American who now see the Border Patrol more as a welcome wagon than a barrier.

...Many Border Patrol agents express frustration over the dilemma. They also worry that the high volume of non-Mexicans is taking up much of their time and might be making it easier for potential terrorists to slip past. Some said they spend much of their 10-hour shift processing non-Mexicans.

...Others with the Border Patrol complained that they are being reduced to little more than gun-toting travel agents in uniforms.

Washington, we have a problem. Well, at least a few guys there get it.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at July 9, 2005 07:57 PM