Operation Streamline Watch

Report Stresses Impact of Streamline on Immigrants, Detention System in Texas; Calls for Repeal of Controversial Program

NEWS ADVISORY

For Immediate Release: July 19, 2010

Contact: Bob Libal, Grassroots Leadership, (512) 971-0487, blibal@grassrootsleadership.org

Austin, TX – Grassroots Leadership today issued a “green paper” of the report Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande. Operation Streamline is a controversial policy that mandates the criminal prosecution of border-crossers in certain areas.  Before Streamline, immigration was usually enforced in the civil immigration system.  The report analyzes the impact of Streamline on two border districts in Texas.

“Operation Streamline has clogged federal criminal courts with prosecutions of border-crossers,” said report co-author Tara Buentello.  ”Our report shows that Operation Streamline has had little deterrent effect on migration while it has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.”

Key findings include that federal districts along the Texas-Mexico border have spent more than $1.2 billion in government dollars on the criminal detention and incarceration of border-crossers since the onset of Operation Streamline in 2005. More than 135,000 migrants have been criminally prosecuted in these two border districts since 2005 under two sections of the federal code that make unauthorized entry and re-entry a crime. Continue reading →

The following is the executive summary to Grassroots Leadership’s “green paper”  Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande.  The full report is available at www.grassrootsleadership.org.  This is a green paper, meaning that we invite feedback, criticism, and suggestions.

Executive Summary

Operation Streamline, a policy begun in 2005 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in conjunction with the Department of Justice (DOJ), mandates that nearly all undocumented immigrants apprehended near the southern border in designated areas be detained and prosecuted through the federal criminal justice system, a dramatic departure from previous practices when most immigration cases were handled exclusively within the civil immigration system.  According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Streamline press release:

“Those aliens who are not released due to humanitarian reasons will face prosecution for illegal entry.  The maximum penalty for violation of this law is 180 days incarceration.  While the alien is undergoing criminal proceedings, the individual will also be processed for removal from the United States.”[i]

Operation Streamline’s key component is that it mandates that immigrants crossing the border in designated areas be arrested, detained while awaiting trial, prosecuted with a misdemeanor or felony charge, incarcerated in the federal justice system, and finally deported.  On December 16, 2005, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched Operation Streamline along a section of the Texas-Mexico border near Del Rio, Texas, spanning a total of 210 miles.[ii] Operation Streamline has spread to other areas along the U.S.-Mexico border, including much of Arizona and Texas. Continue reading →