The Chronicle has posted some troubling reporting by Susan Carroll on illegal immigration and crime in the Houston area. Here’s an excerpt from the story:
A Houston Chronicle investigation found dozens of cases in Harris County involving suspected illegal immigrants who posted bail and absconded on criminal charges, including murder, aggravated sexual assault of a child and drug trafficking.
The Chronicle examined arrest and immigration records for 3,500 inmates who told jailers that they were in the country illegally during a span of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.
The review found at least 178 cases involving suspects who absconded, meaning they had their bails revoked for missing court dates or allegedly committing more crimes. Of those, 30 cases involved felony charges and two-thirds had initial bails set below $35,000 — the minimum recommended in the county’s bail schedule for illegal immigrants accused of felonies.
Local officials said the problems stem from a shortage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents dedicated to identifying illegal immigrants in the county’s jails.
The entire story is well worth reading. Also see this related story.
Most readers here are aware of the broken-down immigration system and have some sense of the resulting illegal-immigration problem. But this story makes concrete the criminal impact of the illegal-immigration problem on the area (as opposed to, say, MayorWhiteChiefHurtt denying that Houston is a sanctuary city while simultaneously defending sanctuary policies as useful in getting illegal immigrants to trust the police and report crimes). It’s the sort of analytical local journalism we like to see.
Carroll follows up with a report tonight that Sen. John Cornyn has called for an investigation of the ICE screening process in the Harris County jail.
UPDATE (11-18-2008): Another installment in the series is posted here. This one explores the use of probation in cases where deportation is an option.
The Chronicle‘s Teen Diarist also peeps in on the series to chide all you racist Houstonians for having your prejudices confirmed by… Carroll’s detailed, analytical reporting. Here is one of the Teen Diarist’s rambles:
There are many lessons from the Houston Chronicle’s three-part series on federal officials’ failure to detain or deport admitted illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
One is that immigration officials should spend more time at the Harris County Jail and less raiding Shipley Donuts, rag factories and meat-packing plants.
Another, confirmed by reader response to the articles, is that hatred knows no nuance.
Actually, the lessons from reality are that immigration officials need to enforce immigration law at the workplace (Shipley Donuts, rag factories, meat-packing plants, and other places that employ illegal immigrants… illegally!) AND that immigration officials definitely need to step up their game at the Harris County Jail. Thanks to Susan Carroll’s excellent reporting, we know the latter, which we would not know if we relied on the Teen Diarist’s opinion on such matters (we would just know that the Teen Diarist thinks many Houstonians who are critical of illegal immigration are racists).
Speaking of the Teen Diarist and race issues, this is a fine correction in today’s column:
My apologies to Harris County prosecutor Tiffany Johnson. In my column Thursday about former prosecutor Mekisha Murray’s decision to change her name to Jane after losing a judicial race, I mentioned how a trial bureau chief at the DA’s office used to confuse Mekisha, who is white, with Tiffany, who, I wrote “happened to be white.” I ended up making the same mistake as the trial chief. Tiffany is black.
It is unfortunate that this is what Jeff Cohen offers as a metro columnist in the nation’s fourth-largest city (alongside a plagiarist whose background is San Antonio). I know the quality of a John Kass is a bit much to hope for, but surely Houston can do better than this.
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