IMMIGRATION PROSECUTIONS INCREASING

A new study finds that Federal prosecutions of immigration crimes such as alien smuggling and visa fraud have increased dramatically in the last few years and now is the type of crime most prosecuted by US Attorneys.

The study was conducted by the Transactional Records Action Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center based at Syracuse University in New York. According to the study, the number of prosecutions doubled to 14,616 cases between 1992 and 1998. 11,592 convictions were made out of those 14,616 cases. Of the 72,000 cases referred by the INS during that period, 84% of cases were prosecuted.

The statistics translate into the INS being the largest law-enforcement agency in the country. More convictions result from INS activity than any other federal agency including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The INS attributes the increases to changes in the immigration laws in 1996. They also hope that the success in this area will help to ward off attempts by Congress to break up the agency.

Critics of the Justice Department believe that the immigration cases are so popular because many of the people are poor minority members who cannot afford lawyers as opposed to white collar criminals that can afford to defend themselves.

Justice Department officials claim, however, that they are prosecuting more immigration cases simply because the cases move faster than other cases. An immigration case takes an average of about three months to prosecute as opposed to nearly ten months for a tax evasion case.

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