Laxsaltman wrote:

Our Tax dollars at work

Few takers in immigration's 'self-deport' program

By AMY TAXIN,AP
Posted: 2008-08-21 21:39:28

SANTA ANA, California (AP) - The federal government will scrap a program for illegal immigrants to turn themselves in for deportation after only eight people volunteered during a nearly three-week trial, an official said Thursday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offered the pilot program in five cities, giving illegal immigrants facing court orders to leave the country 90 days to plan their departure and coordinate travel with relatives. The alternative was the prospect of being arrested, detained and deported.

ICE will end its "Scheduled Departure" program when the trial period concludes Friday, Jim Hayes, acting director of ICE's detention and removal operations, told The Associated Press.

"The bottom line is, it is not effective," Hayes said. "Quite frankly, I think this proves the only method that works is enforcement."

Hayes said other tactics have proven more effective. ICE has been tracking down so-called immigration "fugitives" by knocking on their doors at home, often during pre-dawn hours.

ICE offered the program to 457,000 illegal immigrants nationwide who have ignored judicial orders to leave the country but have no criminal record.

Illegal... with no... criminal...? Wait; what? [editor Wry Mouth]

Applicants could sign up at ICE offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago; Phoenix; and the California cities of San Diego and Santa Ana.

Immigrant advocates said the program had few incentives and failed to consider undocumented immigrants' ties to family in the U.S.

Is "illegal" such a hard word to type? I'm trying it out over "undocumented" and it seems easier to type. Ditto using "alien" instead of "immigrant." [Wry Mouth again]

They said they worry that ICE will cite the weak turnout as a reason to step up the raids, since it now can say that it made an effort to enforce the law in a way that was less disruptive to illegal immigrants and their families.

"My hope is it isn't going to empower them or fuel their enforcement even further," immigration lawyer Lisa Ramirez said Thursday.

Anyone who uses the word "empower," post 1972, should immediately be barred from publication.

The program was criticized for offering little incentive for illegal immigrants to step forward since they would be barred from returning to the United States for as long as a decade.

And while ICE has increased arrests of illegal immigrants who fail to heed court orders to depart, several immigrants said many people feel they have a decent chance of sticking it out here longer than the government would give them if they came forward.

"Why are they going to go back to their country and pay someone to bring them over here again?" asked Rigoberto Moreno, 46, who entered the country illegally from Mexico as a teenager in the 1970s and has since become a U.S. citizen.