The END Game
by Jaime Aguilera
When millions of people poured into the streets in the spring of 2006, the Sensenbrenner Bill lost any possibility of ever becoming law. But the massive protests did not deter the federal government from implementing its plan to deport as many as 12 million undocumented citizens.
Under the guise of keeping “America secure,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is executing a ten year plan to remove all undocumented citizens.
The plan states, “…removal of all removable aliens is critical to allow the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to provide the level of immigration enforcement necessary to keep America secure.”
This expansive and detailed plan is a directive for the Office of Detention and Removal (DRO). The ten year directive is titled, ENDGAME: Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan, 2003 – 2012. The DRO, under the control of the ICE, is responsible for detaining and deporting individuals.
Endgame is a multi-year comprehensive enforcement plan with a single mission, to “[p]romote the public safety and national security by ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens….”
In other words, the DRO plans to deport any and all persons who are ordered to be deported. According to the plan, ICE and the DRO will increase the number of arrest and deportations by 10% annually until reaching their goal of a 100% removal rate.
This ten-year vision is focused on the development of the infrastructure, resources, personnel and leadership necessary to develop, maintain and sustain a program that will accomplish its mission efficiently and effectively throughout the next ten years, and beyond.
Building the “…infrastructure, resources, personnel and leadership necessary…” to implement such a rigorous plan as Endgame will require several years time.
Meanwhile, “DRO’s short-term focus until that capacity [infrastructure and resources] is built will be the identification, location, apprehension, processing and removal of the criminal element of the illegal alien population.”
This focus on the “criminal element of the illegal alien population” is currently being carried out through “Operation Return to Sender,” a nationwide enforcement initiative between ICE and local law enforcement to locate and arrest immigrant fugitives. Unfortunately, fugitives and criminals are not the only ones being arrested in the nationwide dragnet.
Since “Operation Return to Sender” was initiated in May of 2006, the DRO and its Fugitive Operation Teams (FOTs) have arrested and deported, “18,860 criminal aliens, illegal alien gang members, fugitive aliens, sexual predators and other immigration status violators.”
For example, a recent operation in San Diego and Imperial Counties culminated with the arrest of 359 immigration violators, but only 111 of those arrested had a criminal record or order of deportation. This means only one third of the people taken into custody were criminals or fugitives. The other 248 people were victims of ICE’s larger objective, to deport all deportable aliens.
ICE and the DRO will continue their incursions into immigrant communities in pursuit of reaching their goal of, “… a 100% rate of removal of all removable aliens….”
Large, permitted protest should not be our endgame for stopping Endgame, Operation Return to Sender, or any other assault on immigrant people.
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Fall 2007
Number Two