The Feds are working too hard

I’ve never known a bureaucrat to sign up for extra work, but it seems to me that the feds are doing this thing the hard way. Let me explain a couple of enforcement efforts.

Last week there was a raid at O’Hare Airport where they caught 36 people in a fraudulent ID, illegal alien worker scheme.

Now, here’s an accounting of the program which netted 27 illegal aliens and nine citizens (if I read the newspaper reports correctly):
1) The investigation took eight months.
2) It involved several ICE agents and the Special-agent-in charge.
3) Also involved was the Cook County State’s Attorney.
4) U S Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald also participated.
5) The Chicago Police Department was involved.
6) The Chicago Department of Aviation had a hand in it.
7) TSA was also involved.

By my accounting you’ve got six government agencies, each with scores of man-hours devoted to the problem, and they netted 36 people.

This is not an isolated case. Remember the Little Village raid back in April? The three year investigation took 60 agents from ICE, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the U S Attorney …and it netted 12 arrests.

Or the sweep in October 2006 that netted 16 illegals who defied deportation orders. It took hours of preparation and investigation, seven agents, and four days to round them up.

Plain and simple, these folks are working too hard.

Compare these numbers to the ICE agent stationed in the Costa Mesa City Jail. He sits in the office and the local police bring him suspects in handcuffs. Sometimes the interview is conducted over the phone.

The people he is interviewing are accused of recent criminal acts in the community, not just running from an old deportation order.

So, how’s the productivity of this single Maytag repairman sitting at a desk in Costa Mesa? About 47 a month for each of the last ten months! That’s 468 deportation detainers from one police department in less than a year.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m glad they did these other sweeps. Those folks needed to go. But pound-for-pound, screening at the local level is obviously far more productive.

Of course, we need these special investigations. What I don’t understand is the resistance to the local programs, especially when they are taking the active criminal element off the street.