So Much For That: Other Nations Won’t Take Back “Our” Deported

July 11, 2016 (Mimesis Law) — It’s never as simple as it seems, just ask Mr. Mencken. We here at Fault Lines have previously reported on someone’s unrealistic enthusiastic deportation plans, but that discussion was limited as to what we do here in the good old U.S. of A with regards to kicking out those deemed removable by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Review. But it turns out that there is another obstacle to getting rid of those deemed by the Executive to be unfit to remain in the U.S.: the designated country of repatriation must be willing and/or able to take them back. From The New York Times:

Thousands of immigrants with criminal convictions, including for assault and attempted murder, have been released from detention because their native countries refused to take them back, according to statistics recently released by the Department of Homeland Security. The inability to deport the criminals has prompted outrage among lawmakers and advocates of tighter immigration laws, who say that the Obama administration could be doing much more to pressure uncooperative countries. But the department faces a number of obstacles. It is legally barred from indefinitely detaining immigrants who cannot be repatriated. And poorer nations are often reluctant to take back violent offenders because they have limited resources to deal with them.

Yes, folks. After ICE’s Office of the Chief Counsel puts a purported undocumented through all the hoops, it can all end up being for naught if no country will take her back. It’s like that insufferable Tom Hanks movie, “The Terminal,” but with the numbers multiplied in the estimated hundreds and playing out all over the U.S.

Not all politics is local, and there’s no mechanism in place to “force” another country to take a guy back. As any competent immigration attorney or foreign customs service would respond, “hey you let him in, now he’s your problem.” But as usual, there are always a few political points to be scored stateside as Messrs. Blumenthal and Grassley showed when they couldn’t help themselves:

“There is no reason we should have to go on bended knee to ask them,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “We shouldn’t have to keep someone in this country who is here illegally but also dangerous.” Mr. Blumenthal said he planned to introduce legislation that would impose sanctions on countries that refuse to take back their nationals. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, urged Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, in a letter this week to do more to press recalcitrant countries. “Lives are being lost,” Mr. Grassley wrote. “It can’t continue.”

Senator Blumenthal, bended knee or not, no one is required to take in anyone, just ask the Castro regime. As for Senator Grassley, he should stick to his other hobby, which involves railroading any sensible federal criminal sentencing reform. This stinks just like that other moronic “debate” as to whether the U.S. prisons were ill-equipped to warehouse inmates from Guantanamo Bay.

Had anyone from the trenches been consulted, they would’ve advised that these alleged jihadists would have been hypermiserable in a federal prison, and that their escape would be logistically impossible. So much for using brain cells. And other countries, including some of our supposed allies, have come up with their own flavor of excuse so that they don’t take back our “aliens:”

The countries include China and important allies like India and Afghanistan, as well as several African countries with close ties to the United States, among them Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Countries often refuse to take individuals identified for deportation because of a lack of proper identification, problems in confirming citizenship, or poor record-keeping. Zhu Haiquan, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said that his government tried to work with the Department of Homeland Security in deportation cases, but that the Chinese authorities must first receive proof that the person being deported is a Chinese citizen. “We adhere to the principle of first verification, then repatriation,” he said.

For those who are freaking out about these people (yes, they are still people, whether they are called “aliens,” “undocumented” or “respondents”) roaming about, take comfort that the U.S. immigration system is permitted to detain them pretty much indefinitely without recourse.

But as to anyone from the U.S. (Senator or otherwise) telling other countries to take back those who were deemed not non-criminal enough to stick around, they may be met with a response similar to former Mexican president Vicente Fox’s response to Donald Trump’s demand that Mexico pay for that “big, beautiful wall.” Ear muffs recommended for the sensitive.

Share this: Reddit

Email

Print

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google

Twitter

