Program to Return Illegal Immigrants to Expand

WASHINGTON —  U.S. immigration officials announced plans Tuesday to expand a program that returns illegal immigrants to their home countries without a judicial hearing.

The program, known as expedited removal, will soon be applied to undocumented immigrants who are caught near the border areas of Tucson and Laredo, Texas, Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said.

Currently, immigrants whose home countries do not share a border with the United States and who are apprehended outside the ports of entry are held temporarily, given a court date and then released on bond, but about 90% of them do not show up for the court hearing, Hutchinson said.

Beginning later this month, illegal immigrants from countries other than Canada and Mexico who are caught by patrols in Arizona and Texas within 14 days of their arrival and within 100 miles of the border will be detained and flown home as soon as possible. They would not enter the legal system unless they applied for asylum or expressed a fear of repatriation.

Of the 1 million illegal immigrants caught nationwide since October, more than 57,000 came from countries other than Mexico -- mostly from Central and South America, said U.S. Border Patrol spokeswoman Gloria Chavez. Of those non-Mexican immigrants, about 3,000 came from 140 countries outside the Western Hemisphere.

The changes are likely to be expanded to other border regions, including the Canadian border, said Homeland Security spokesman Bill Strassberger.

Hutchinson, who is responsible for border and transportation security issues, also confirmed that his agency was lengthening from three to 30 days the amount of time Mexicans traveling on a special border-crossing card can stay in the United States. The card, issued by U.S. consulates after completion of a background check and fingerprinting, allows Mexicans to travel within 25 miles of the border in Texas, New Mexico and California and within 75 miles of the border in Arizona without filling out additional immigration paperwork.

The changes are consistent with the Bush administration’s immigration policy, Hutchinson said. They will take effect upon publication in the Federal Register this week.

“We are rewarding those that seek a legal path to our country,” Hutchinson told reporters. “We’re very committed to enforcing our immigration laws. It is important for the security of our country and the integrity of our immigration law.”

Tuesday’s announcement may help President Bush court two critical constituencies: Latinos in border communities in the battleground states of New Mexico and Arizona, who could benefit from increased business and tourism promoted by the border-crossing card extension, and conservatives who rank domestic security and tighter immigration high on their list of concerns. Bush campaigns today in those two states.

The expedited-removal revisions expand a program in use since 1997 at ports of entry to include land areas between the official entry points -- such as the Arizona desert, a common route for illegal migrants.

“It is certainly in this administration’s interest to hold on to the support of the people at the conservative end of the party who might perceive that with all the talk of a guest-worker program that this administration isn’t sincere about enforcing U.S. immigration law,” said Louis DeSipio, associate professor of political science at UC Irvine. “It’s not unheard of for Arizona to go Democratic.”

Bush, a former governor of Texas, had said that immigration reform would be a priority of his administration, but plans stalled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This year, the administration has introduced a series of trial initiatives aimed at tightening borders. Competing plans to overhaul the immigration system have stalled in Congress, and Hutchinson said he did not expect passage of any immigration bill before the Nov. 2 election.