WASHINGTON — Signaling another partisan fight over immigration enforcement after next week’s midterm elections, all seven Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee signed a letter last week asking the Department of Homeland Security how much money it needs to deport every illegal immigrant the government encounters.
The request came in an Oct. 21 letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and asks her to “detail exactly how much funding” would be needed “to ensure that enforcement of the law occurs consistently for every illegal alien encountered and apprehended.”
The Republican senators requested a response by Nov. 15, two weeks after the midterm elections.
The Obama administration, which in its first full year in office set a record for U.S. deportations, wants to continue its policy of focusing law enforcement resources on securing the border, bolstering the Border Patrol and deporting dangerous and violent offenders in the U.S. illegally. At the same time, the president supports legislative reforms that would create a path to legal status for longtime residents who meet specific criteria.
Republicans on key oversight committees in Congress favor a more uniform enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, whether the offender is someone who crossed the border and committed a violent crime or a grandmother who is pulled over by police for speeding after living in the U.S. for years.
In an election cycle that has inflamed the debate, Republicans in leadership positions have been reluctant to endorse a potential path to legal status for any of the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.
An Obama administration official responded that the zero-tolerance approach suggested in the senators’ letter is more political theater than a realistic plan for solving the nation’s illegal-immigration problem.
“This isn’t about doing this job better in the end. This is about scoring political points, which is exactly what’s wrong with the immigration debate right now,” said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the political debate.
The GOP letter came in response to directives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton, including an Aug. 20 memo in which Morton requested that U.S. attorneys consider dismissing immigration cases against people who have a green-card application pending and are likely to be approved.
A subsequent temporary spike in dismissals in Houston, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, caught the attention of Republican lawmakers.
The senators’ letter to Napolitano contends that the government is routinely dismissing cases against illegal immigrants who have no felony convictions and “no more than two misdemeanors,” and says the practice “raises serious questions about your department’s commitment to enforce the immigration laws.”
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, is concerned that the deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who have committed additional crimes have been dismissed.
