Speeding things up- Barely

The Miami Herald reports on regular deportation flights out of Miami.

The 121 men and one woman quietly boarded the Boeing 737-400 at Miami International Airport.

But the Mexicans entering the white aircraft with few fuselage markings were not regular passengers. Shackled and handcuffed, they were leaving aboard one of two weekly deportation flights from MIA.

This particular flight carried three times the average sent back to their home countries on any given day. Stepped-up immigration enforcement, promised by the Bush administration this summer after the collapse of an overhaul bill in Congress that would have eventually legalized millions of undocumented immigrants, is yielding more deportees.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement allowed The Miami Herald to witness the flight's departure on the eve of Tuesday's release of new figures showing a sharp increase in arrests of fugitives with final deportation orders. This particular plane carried 80 to 85 immigrants who had been convicted of unspecified crimes in state or federal courts. The rest were undocumented immigrants.

In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, special agency teams arrested nearly double the number of fugitives from the previous year: 30,408 compared to 15,462. The past two years, 31,475 were deported nationwide.

But even at that accelerated rate, it would take about 20 years to deport the 595,000 fugitives that immigration officials estimate are still on the loose.

The convicted criminals who got deported garner no sympathy from me. As for the rest, its a little trickier. This country has a great many low paying jobs which Americans don't want to take and we have millions of people south of our border willing to do the work. Before anyone raises the issues about lost jobs, unemployment at present is 4.7. Well within the range of what many economists consider full employment. 4% is fairly close to the consensus figure.

Anyway, the article also shows how deporting the 12 million illegals in this country is an impossible task. If we can't deport them, how is the US to rid itself of illegal aliens. Note there are plenty of laws on the books requiring employers and employees to prove eligibility to work. Is toughening the law really go to change matters?

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