Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC)
A new statistical report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) on annual federal prosecutions notes a disturbing trend in law enforcement priorities — immigration cases now make up more than half of all Justice Dept. prosecutions. Meanwhile, white collar crime receives a mere fraction of the feds attention.
The latest data show that the number of all kinds of federal criminal prosecutions peaked at 169,612 cases in FY 2009, up nearly 9 percent from the previous year’s total of 155,694 and 42 percent from five years ago when prosecutions came to only 119,492.
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This across-the-board increase occurred even while the counts for most of the broad categories of cases the Justice Department used to track its activities were up only slightly or actually had declined.
The major factor driving the overall increase has been the sharp rise in individuals prosecuted for immigration offenses. Last year immigration prosecutions jumped 15.7 percent — from 79,431 during FY 2008 to 91,899 in FY 2009. One notable result of TRAC’s analysis is that of these 91,899 immigration prosecutions, only thirteen employers in eight cases were prosecuted for the felony offense of illegal hiring of undocumented workers, as indicated in the detailed discussion below.
… immigration prosecutions now make up well over half — 54 percent — of all federal filings. The next largest FY 2009 Justice Department category was drugs, currently representing only 16 percent of the total. This was down from a high point reached during the 1997 war on drugs when such cases made up 37 percent. Looked at over the 24 years since these records began, no other category has ever so dominated the basic work of federal prosecutors.
More concerning is who the government is targeting — undocumented individuals not the employers who create the conditions for the illegal mass migration.
Just two lead charges accounted for more than nine out of ten immigration prosecutions (92 percent): illegal entry of an alien and illegal re-entry of an alien under Title 8, Section 1325 and Section 1326, respectively, of the United States Code. Another 3 percent were accounted for fraud in the use of visas, permits, and other forms of IDs. Out of the 91,899 immigration prosecutions last year, only 13 employers in 8 cases were prosecuted for the felony offense of illegal hiring of undocumented workers under Subsection (a)(3)(A) of Title 8 USC 1324. An additional 36 individuals in 24 cases were charged with a petty offense under Section 1324a of Title 8 of the United States Code for recruiting, referring for a fee, or employing an alien knowing the alien is unauthorized for such employment.
