U.S., Mexico Agree on Deportations

U.S. and Mexican immigration authorities have agreed to a plan in which illegal immigrants who complete prison sentences in California will be deported to the interior of Mexico, rather than being released at the international border.

The goal of the pilot program, according to INS Commissioner Gene McNary and Mexican immigration officials, is twofold: to deter so-called “criminal aliens” from re-entering the United States after deportation and to reduce crime in Mexican border communities.

This will be the first time that the two countries have cooperated on repatriating illegal immigrants identified as convicted criminals, officials said.

Although Mexico remains skittish about being perceived as working with the United States on immigration issues, cooperation between the two nations has increased in the last several years.

McNary said in a recent interview that officials are “on the brink” of agreement on a similar program involving immigrants who have committed no crime beyond crossing the border illegally.

He said Mexico would offer transportation back to Mexican interior states for non-criminal migrants who are caught by the Border Patrol, sometimes repeatedly.

“The Mexicans are talking about meeting us at the border and taking these people to their villages or wherever it might be, so we don’t have this game we play when we take them back to Tijuana and we get them back the next day, or the same day in some cases,” McNary said during a recent speech to an immigration reform group in San Diego.

A Mexican immigration administrator confirmed that his government plans to offer free bus transportation for some non-criminal immigrants to return to their home states from the San Diego-Tijuana border.

The border south of San Diego accounts for half of all illegal immigration into the United States.

But Edmundo Salas, director of inspection for the migration section of Mexico’s secretariat of the interior, said the plan would be strictly voluntary and is still being developed.

“This would be a humanitarian measure,” Salas said. “We would help people who are without resources and want to return to their points of origin. . . . We feel there would be a good percentage who, after various attempts at crossing the border, might make the decision to go home.”

The Mexican government last provided such return transportation on a temporary basis about five years ago, officials said.

The pilot program for criminal immigrants will initially involve 100 California prison inmates monthly who will undergo deportation procedures while still incarcerated, according to INS spokesman Duke Austin. Mexican officials will then screen the deportees to determine whether they are fugitives in that country.

U.S. officials hope to expand the effort if they determine that it discourages those targeted from returning to the United States.

Salas said Tijuana and other border cities have suffered increased crime rates because of the presence of deported criminals.

“We don’t want the border to be full of people with bad records,” he said.

There are an estimated 15,000 “foreign felons” in the California prison system, the bulk of them from Latin America, according to state officials.

Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy recently proposed legislation that would require deportation of illegal immigrants convicted of felonies.

No such law exists, and critics have said that a lack of INS resources prevents the deportation of many illegal immigrant felons upon their release.