More Illegal Immigrants Deported, U.S. Reports : Crime: Clinton administration cites tougher enforcement. Critics link rise to expulsion of criminal foreigners leaving prison.

Clinton Administration officials claimed credit Thursday for an increase in the deportation of illegal immigrants but California officials and anti-immigration activists said that the government has done little more than step up its removal of such immigrants who are leaving prison.

“It’s been a banner year” for deportations, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie Gorelick. “We have reversed years of neglect and lax enforcement of our immigration laws.”

She said a record number of 51,600 illegal immigrants were removed from the country during 1995. The gains were achieved, she added, not by spending more money, but by targeting criminals who are here illegally.

“Our commitment, our battle plan and our innovative use of resources are paying off,” said Gorelick, who announced the results at a news conference with Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The INS figures show an increase of roughly 18% from those recorded in 1992, when 43,867 illegal immigrants were deported during the last year of the Bush administration.

The year-end figures released Thursday include 9,400 people who were stopped and turned back at airports. They are labeled “exclusions” but were included in the total of “removals” cited Thursday.

Of the other 42,200 illegal immigrants, 31,888 are criminals who were deported when they were released from custody.

Critics were quick to note that the totals cited by the Clinton administration suggest that only a fraction of 1% of illegal immigrants who are not imprisoned will ever face deportation.

“I’m glad they have closed an egregious loophole” by ousting more released criminals, said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “But if you get past the Border Patrol and you don’t get imprisoned for a felony, your likelihood of being deported is about nil.”

An estimated 4 million to 5 million people are in this country illegally. The INS data show that about 10,000 illegal immigrants who are not criminals were deported this year.

“That is a drop in the bucket,” said Stein, whose group favors much stronger restrictions on immigration. “It’s outrageous for them to parade these paltry figures as evidence they are doing the job.”

President Clinton’s political advisors know that immigration can be an important election issue in the coming year, especially in California, Texas and Florida. This week, administration aides repeated the theme that strong enforcement of the immigration laws is a top priority for the president.

California Gov. Pete Wilson has been feuding with the Clinton administration over the issue and his advisors said they saw little good news in Thursday’s announcement.

“We have nearly 1,000 illegal immigrant felons released from our prisons every month, and there is no reason that the federal government should not give every one of them a one-way ticket out of the country,” said Sean Walsh, the governor’s spokesman.

State officials said that they notify the INS before criminal illegal immigrants are released. In recent months, they said, INS officials have done a better job of picking up those immigrants before their release. But, they said, they do not know what happens to most of them afterward.

“We know they are not deporting all of them because they are showing up on the streets again,” Walsh said.

Wilson is also fighting with the administration over the state’s cost for imprisoning illegal immigrants. He has estimated that California taxpayers annually pay $400 million to imprison such people. In a letter sent Wednesday to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, the governor demanded that federal officials either begin paying the cost or take custody of criminal illegals.

At the INS briefing, officials touted their efforts at the Los Angeles Central Jail as their best example of cooperation with local law enforcement to oust deportable illegal immigrants.

“The INS has staffed that facility seven days a week,” Gorelick said. “Deportation can begin the day that alien is released.”

A spokesman for county Sheriff Sherman Block also applauded the cooperative effort between local and federal officials.

“We’re pleased with it so far,” said Sgt. Ron Spear.

He noted, however, that only those illegal immigrants who do time at the Central Jail are turned over to the INS upon their release. People who are arrested or kept in custody at other jails around the county are not picked up by the INS, he said.

A spokesman for the San Diego Sheriff’s Department said that the INS does not regularly pick up criminal illegal immigrants who are about to go free.

“It is haphazard. The INS doesn’t have a system in place,” said Sgt. Don Crist. “It depends on the [county] officer. If he calls INS and says, ‘I have a burglary suspect who is illegal,’ they on occasion will send someone to interview that person.” Otherwise, the immigrant simply goes free after he has served his time, Crist said.