Pirate's Cove

Sounds like a plan

(News Tribune) A task force created to focus on the needs of immigrants and refugees in Tacoma has recommended that the City Council spend $440,000 per year to establish a legal-defense fund for Tacoma residents detained at the Northwest Detention Center on the Tideflats.

The money would pay for two attorneys and two paralegals who would represent people facing deportation, said Amanda Diaz, a member of the task force and student body president at the University of Puget Sound. Another option would be to spend half that money for one lawyer and paralegal to provide some measure of legal representation to detained people, Diaz said.

The recommendation comes seven months after the task force was created and at a time of heightened awareness over federal immigration policy. Stepped-up deportation efforts that have come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration have created serious emotional and financial strain for many Tacoma families, she said.

Well, that’s interesting. Let’s dive back and remember this letter to the Los Angeles Times

To the editor: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and County Supervisor Hilda Solis in December announced the creation of a $10-million legal aid fund to “hire lawyers to defend local immigrants without legal status.” (“A $10-million fund will help immigrants fight deportations. But should it help those with violent criminal convictions?” April 17)

My street hasn’t been swept for years. When I tried to find out why, I was told that my area is not “on the list” because there are no longer enough machines and people to drive them. Services that I continue to pay for have been stopped.

If there is enough money around to help illegal immigrants, surely there is enough to begin sweeping my dirty street again. Shouldn’t citizens come before illegal residents?

In the comments, one resident would like the city to fix the malfunctioning traffic control systems. And, let’s look at a smattering of headlines from the Tacoma area

• Opioid crisis declared in Pierce County, but what exactly does that mean? (well, $440k would certainly help fight this, as Tacoma is in that county)
• Seattle-Tacoma Traffic Makes List Of 25 Worst In The World ($440K would help, eh?)
• Problem with growing Tacoma homeless camp goes beyond trash (Think how much $440k would help)

This could surely go on and on, but, the point is made: citizens of Tacoma, just like most cities, have problems that should come before protecting people who are unlawfully present in the U.S., who are, at a minimum, trespassing.

Read: Tacoma Looks To Spend $440,000 A Year To Protect Trespassing Immigrants »

Seriously, Trump, like any Republican, cannot catch a break. He’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. The so-called impartial media will always find something to complain about, versus when they’d always find something to squee about when it came to Obama, Hillary, and other Democrats

Trump is deporting fewer immigrants than Obama, including criminals

President Trump has vowed to swiftly deport “bad hombres” from the United States, but the latest deportation statistics show that slightly fewer criminals were expelled in June than when he took office.

In January, federal immigration officials deported 9,913 criminals. After a slight uptick under Trump, expulsions sank to 9,600 criminals in June.

Mostly deportations have remained lower than in past years under the Obama administration. From January to June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 61,370 criminals, down from 70,603 during the same period last year.

Well, it helps when sanctuary jurisdictions are not working overtime to make sure ICE doesn’t pick the illegal up.

During the election, Trump vowed to target criminals for deportation and warned that they were “going out fast.” Later, he suggested he would try to find a solution for the “terrific people” who never committed any crimes, and would first deport 2 million to 3 million criminals.

But analysts say he is unlikely to hit those targets. Since January, immigration officials have deported more than 105,000 immigrants, 42 percent of whom had never committed any crime.

Except for coming across the U.S. border/overstaying visas, which is against federal law.

John Sandweg, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said part of the reason for the decline is that illegal border crossings have plunged since Trump took office pledging to build a “big, beautiful” wall and crack down on illegal immigration. Immigrants caught at the border accounted for a significant share of deportations under the Obama administration.

Trump’s policy of making potential illegals, and current illegals, fearful has worked well to keep the potentials from attempting to cross the border illegally.

Another factor, however, is that immigration officials are arresting more people who never committed any crime — some 4,100 immigrants in June, more than double the number in January — clogging the already backlogged immigration courts and making it harder to focus on criminals.

Except for being present in the U.S. in contradiction to federal law. Why is it so difficult to understand that?

A big difference in the numbers is that Obama was counting those caught at the border and immediately sent packing as a deportation. In fact, interior deportations, including of those “bad hombres”, was down during the Obama administration. People throw around numbers ranging from down 25% to 40% to 70%. In 2014, the LA Times wrote

But the portrait of a steadily increasing number of deportations rests on statistics that conceal almost as much as they disclose. A closer examination shows that immigrants living illegally in most of the continental U.S. are less likely to be deported today than before Obama came to office, according to immigration data.

Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009.

On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at or near the border has gone up — primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics.

The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now.

All in all, ICE and the Trump administration are doing pretty well. Counting deportations the same way as Obama makes it seem as if there are fewer, but, it comes from there being fewer illegals being caught and immediately deported because there are fewer illegals attempting to come across the border. But, many, many more are being scooped up in the interior.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Washington Post Is Concerned That Trump May Deport Fewer Illegals Than Obama »