The Obama administration is selectively enforcing immigration laws depending on the gender of the illegal alien and which country he or she is from, according to new government data that shows Mexicans are getting special treatment.
Obtained by a nonprofit university group dedicated to researching the U.S. government, the records reveal a surprising variability in immigration detainer trends by gender and nationality. Detainers are notices issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asking local law enforcement agencies to hold suspected illegal immigrants until the federal agency takes them into custody, presumably to deport them.
It’s part of a federal-local partnership in which local police agencies identify deportable criminal aliens that then get reported to ICE. Municipalities that offer illegal immigrants sanctuary refuse to contact federal authorities and often release the offender back into the community. Last spring Judicial Watch sued Cook County in Illinois challenging its refusal to honor ICE detainers, instead releasing as many as 1,000 criminal aliens sought by the agency.
It turns out that even when the agency is notified it’s selectively enforcing the law. Among the sharpest declines in the use of detainers was against individuals identified as born in Mexico, the government records show. The data spans from October 2011 to August 2013 and reveals a decline of 25% in detainers issued against Mexicans as well as a decrease of 32% in detainers issued against women and a 22% drop against men. Some countries, such as Laos and Haiti saw an increase of 12% and 9% respectively, but the total number of immigrants from those countries is tiny.
According to a report released by Fronteras at the beginning of March, the number of Mexicans seeking political asylum in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last year. Fronteras, a multimedia collaboration of radio stations, compared the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration Courts Asylum Statistics from 2010 and 2011, finding an increase of 2,900 applicants as a result of the country's drug war violence.
Mexico's staggering drug-related violence, destruction, loss of lives, torture and insecurity has inadvertently created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who have well-founded fears of returning to Mexico because of these conditions. According to federal courts, the United Nations' Convention Against Torture is applicable to a Mexican fleeing drug violence. This class of people may be eligible for asylum and thus be on the path to U.S. citizenship.
