Most criminal activities emanate from illegal immigrants

We have all heard it from pundits and also read it online as well, that illegal immigration is obstructing our legal system in a bad way. They may come here with dreams of better life and work, but they also bring with them increased crime and trouble.

Most of the people coming here illegally end up in court- either for being here without permission, or for crimes limited to property, finance, drug and violence.

But is there anyone who determines as to how many illegal immigrants enter the justice system, and how much does it cost the taxpayers. Neither the state nor the federal courts formally keeps a track on this. And due to the lack of hard numbers, it becomes almost impossible to determine whether our immigration policies are working or not.

Steven Camarota, of Center of Immigration Studies, said that the data are terrible and it leads to entirely different conclusions. He said that everyone talks about illegal immigration and crime associated with it, but no one ever does anything about it. And this is sad.

It is true that number of people arrested in the Tucson Sector has declined in recent years, but the push is on to prosecute more illegal-entry cases. The emphasis on illegal immigration has plagued federal prosecutors to an extent that they have declined to take on a many serious drug-offence cases in recent years. To keep up, 22 more prosecutors were recently hired by the US Attorney’s Office and have converted a courtroom into a temporary holding area for illegal immigrants waiting to see judges.

Last year, illegal immigration made more than half the lawbreaking sentencing in the federal court, but still, no one can say how many crimes are still ties to illegal immigrants.

Though it is clear that illegal immigrants do affect our court system, but at the same time, it must be understood that getting the accurate count of such cases in practically impossible.

Lynnette Kimmins, chief assistant US attorney who heads the Tucson office, said that they do not keep track of citizenship of the person unless an element of crime is lack of citizenship.

Kimmins said that in order to do so, they would require a change in the computing system used not only in Arizona, but in all offices of US attorneys. However, she estimated that almost 90 percent of all the criminal cases that are prosecuted by her office have some kind of tie to the border and most of the cases are in some way related to either immigration or drugs.