Source: http://www.michiganlawreview.org/articles/who-s-bringing-the-children-expanding-the-family-exemption-for-child-smuggling-offenses
Timestamp: 2014-09-20 22:02:47
Document Index: 800976230

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1182', '§ 212', '§ 1227', '§ 237', '§ 237', '§ 212', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 236', '§ 101', '§ 237', '§ 237', '§ 101', '§ 237', '§ 212', '§ 222', '§ 440', '§ 321', '§ 1101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 274', '§ 212', '§ 237', '§ 203', '§ 462', '§ 274']

Michigan Law Review - First Impressions - Who's Bringing the Children?: Expanding the Family Exemption for Child Smuggling Offenses
Who's Bringing the Children?: Expanding the Family Exemption for Child Smuggling Offenses
Rebecca M. Abel I. Introduction and Statutory Framework
Under immigration law, an alien smuggling offense takes
place when one knowingly encourages, induces, assists, abets, or aids an alien
to enter or to try to enter the United States.[1] Committing this offense is cause for either removal[2] or inadmissibility[3] charges
under the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"). In addition, a federal
criminal conviction for alien smuggling under INA section 274(a)(1)(A) or
274(a)(2) classifies the immigrant as an aggravated felon,[4] leading to near certain deportation.[5]
Although the INA levies harsh penalties against smugglers,
the practice has not showed any signs of slowing. In 2010, the United States
Border Patrol apprehended 463,382 individuals smuggled across the border,
including 8,905 smugglers.[6] Of the smugglers, 3,027 were deemed
deportable under the INA.[7] The types of smugglers who are seized vary "from self-smugglers [that is,
migrants illegally crossing the border on their own] . . . , to local-level
individual smuggling entrepreneurs [family-based smugglers] . . . , to highly organized and
sophisticated transnational smuggling networks . . . ."[8]
Despite the severe penalties imposed on most categories of
smugglers, a small refuge exists for some family-based smugglers. All three of
the major INA sections punishing alien smuggling include either a discretionary
waiver or an outright exception for a smuggler who is the spouse, child, or
parent of the smugglee.[9] These nuclear family exemptions provide a safe haven for some immigrants;
however, strictly limiting this waiver to three relationship categories fails
to protect all aliens deserving of congressional exemption.
This paper argues that in order for the U.S. Congress to
faithfully carry out the purposes behind these exemptions, it must expand the
family exception and waivers to include all close genetic relatives when the
smugglee is a minor child. Using the procedural history and legislative
framework of the current exemptions, Part II defines the three primary purposes
for excluding parents, spouses, and children
from immigration smuggling prosecutions. Part III examines the current enforcement
practices in the area of family-based alien smuggling, drawing on empirical
data from recent case law, anecdotal accounts, and prosecutorial policies established
by the Department of Homeland Security and United States Attorneys Offices.
Finally, Part IV suggests a statutory or regulatory modification to the
current exemptions that would better serve Congress's stated goals for these
II. Procedural History and Legislative Purposes:
Congress's Concern for Families, Children, and Dangerous Offenders
A close examination of the legislative and procedural
history leading up to the enactment of the nuclear family exemptions uncovers
three recurring congressional purposes. First, Congress wanted to encourage the
unity of families living across borders. Second, U.S. House and Senate members
were interested in protecting and supporting the needs of all children. Finally,
Congress sought to restrain the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") and the
United States Attorneys Office ("USAO") from prosecuting small-time offenders,
and instead to encourage these agencies to focus on large-scale, dangerous
While exploring the procedural history leading up to the
current nuclear family exemptions, it is useful to focus specifically on the
aggravated felony exception, as opposed to the two discretionary waivers. The
aggravated felony exception is the only one that applies as of right, without
any exercise of discretion by the Attorney General. Moreover, this exception
protects against the most severe sanctions, including mandatory detention and immediate
deportation.[10] Therefore,
it is likely that Congress would have been extremely deliberate in its wording
of the exemption and in articulating its reasons for enactment.
The analysis begins with an examination of the plain language
of INA section 101(a)(43)(N)-the statutory provision that defines alien
smuggling as an aggravated felony.[11] Initially, the definition provided that "an offense . . . relating to
alien smuggling[] for the purpose of commercial advantage" was an aggravated
felony.[12] Two years later, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
("AEDPA") deleted the phrase "for the purpose of commercial advantage" and
added the requirement that the smuggler receive a term of imprisonment of at
least five years.[13] Shortly thereafter, Congress again amended section 101(a)(43)(N) by removing
the term of imprisonment requirement and including the parent, spouse, and
child exemptions.[14] Since 1996, the statutory language has remained relatively unchanged and currently
states that an alien smuggler is exempt from classification as an aggravated
felon if "the alien committed the offense for the purpose of assisting,
abetting, or aiding only the alien's spouse, child, or parent (and no other
individual) . . . ."[15]
The plain language of the current statute clearly supports
the first purpose of family reunification, as it ignores smuggling when the offenders
have a close family relationship. In regard to the second goal, the inclusion
of both parent and child as two of the three exemptions expresses Congress's
special concern for minors and their need for a strong family unit. Finally, at
each point in its modification, Congress sought to limit the number of
offenders who could be labeled aggravated felons to only the most severe
criminals: those who were paid off, jailed, or lacked a family relationship.
Thus, since at least 1994, Congress expressed its intent to reserve alien
smuggling prosecutions for large-scale, dangerous offenders.
This third purpose is buttressed by the legislative
history, which includes a House Judiciary Committee Report stating that when
alien smuggling is "carried out by so-called coyotes ([paid] smugglers) . . .
or through sophisticated organized crime rings, . . . [it] increases
the financial and other incentives for such trafficking to continue."[16] Other sections of the alien smuggling statutes also support recognizing a congressional
focus on for-profit smuggling rings. For example, the federal criminal statute making
alien smuggling a felony assigns the harshest penalties to smugglers who commit
the offense for the purpose of commercial advantage or in a manner that
endangers lives.[17] Finally, the Obama Administration, applying Congress's focus on large-scale offenders,
has made it clear that its immigration priority is the removal of adults
convicted of "serious crimes," and not minors or those with close family ties
to the United States.[18] In sum, the legislative history, companion statutes, and Obama Administration
priorities support the conclusion from the plain language that Congress's
intent was to focus on prosecuting serious criminals, particularly those acting
for financial gain or in concert with other offenders. [19]
The legislative history also supports the congressional purposes
of family reunification and child protection. INS Commissioner Doris
Meissner testified before Congress on the platform that "the reunification of
U.S. citizens with . . . minor children is legal immigration's top
priority."[20] Moreover, the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") wrote that "the legislative
history . . . clearly indicates that the Congress intended to provide
for a liberal treatment of children and was concerned with the problem of keeping
families of United States citizens and immigrants united."[21] Throughout the historical development of immigration law, family unity and
child welfare have consistently remained top priorities for Congress,
particularly as they relate to alien smuggling.
Conversely, Congress's repeated insistence on the
importance of children and family could be read as being limited to the
importance of one's immediate or nuclear family, and not one's extended family.
For example, several sections of the INA, including the three relating to alien
smuggling, restrict exemptions to only direct relatives.[22] Nevertheless, since 1965 the INA has granted visa preferences to extended
family members including adult brothers and sisters and their spouses and
children, signaling Congress's concern for family outside the nuclear context.[23] Moreover, in other immigration contexts, Congress has expressed willingness to
grant benefits to those who share no genetic or marital relationship and would
only fit under a much looser definition of family. For example, Congress has
acquiesced to extending citizenship benefits to nonbiological children of
citizen and legal permanent resident parents based on policy rationales nearly
identical to those expressed here.[24] If Congress is willing to extend immigration preferences to extended family
members and to those with no genetic links, than it is reasonable to assume it may
be willing to exempt smugglers with a wider range of relationships to their
smugglees. This supposition gains additional legitimacy when examined in cases
involving children, where as shown, Congress is willing to be more lenient.
III. Who's the Target? Cases and Stories from the Border
Given the three policy rationales for crafting these
exemptions and the Obama Administration's prosecutorial priorities, it is
useful to examine how these smuggling statutes are realistically enforced.
Although Congress only included three exceptions for parents, children, and
spouses, it is possible that DHS and USAO selectively prosecute so as to
bolster the true purposes of the legislation: to punish serious offenders with
no family ties to the children they smuggle. However, this has not been the
case. Instead, DHS and USAO prosecute offenders, in both immigration and
criminal court, who Congress may not find to be worth the federal government's
time and resources. As such, a substantive change to the statutory framework or
a set of guiding regulations is necessary to ensure the executive enforcement
mechanisms stay true to the letter and spirit of Congress's law.
Initially, it is useful to detail the facts of a case that
typifies the overinclusiveness identified in this paper. The Ninth Circuit case
Gonzalez v. Mukasey[25] provides a model example of the category of cases that Congress should seek to
exclude from immigration prosecution.
Modesta Gonzalez entered
the United States as a legal permanent resident in 2000. On October 23, 2003,
Modesta's father told her of his plan to bring two undocumented infant nephews
into the United States from Mexico. He asked to use Modesta's son's birth
certificate for one of the infants and told her it would be easier to get
through inspection if the child's "mother" was with them.[26] Twice she refused. When
asked a third time, she "reluctantly said yes."[27] Modesta and her father
drove to Mexico. Upon their return, DHS referred their vehicle to secondary
inspection, and Modesta and her father
admitted that the infants were not U.S. citizens. Modesta was charged with
alien smuggling and placed in removal proceedings. At the time of arrest,
Modesta was a steadily employed single mother with a five-month-old son and no
criminal record.[28] Eventually, the Ninth Circuit held that Modesta's actions were not an
affirmative act sufficient to satisfy the charge of alien smuggling under INA
section 212(a)(6)(E)(i).[29]
Nevertheless, the full-scale immigration prosecution of
Modesta in Gonzalez v. Mukasey contravenes all three of the purposes intended by the family waiver. First,
Modesta's trip to Mexico was expressly for the purpose of reuniting her family
by bringing two infant nephews to live near their aunt and grandfather in the
United States. In addition, the smugglees in this case not only were children,
but infants. Congress has vowed to show leniency toward vulnerable children,[30] and infancy is a tremendously vulnerable age in which proper care and stability
are essential. Lastly, Modesta had no prior criminal convictions and showed no
proclivity toward becoming a repeat offender. Her lack of financial gain and
appropriate due care for the children demonstrate that Modesta was not the type
of hardened criminal with which Congress is most concerned.
Modesta's case is not an isolated incident. An empirical
survey of Ninth Circuit and BIA cases involving child smugglees and close
relative smugglers yielded a total of seventeen similar cases.[31] Another 124 cases indicated a close familial relationship between the smugglee
and smuggler, but the facts of the cases did not indicate the age of the
smugglee.[32] It is
likely that a portion of these cases involved a minor smugglee who would also
be exempted under the proposed statutory or regulatory changes. In addition, it
is reasonable to conclude that if the search were expanded to include all
federal courts of appeals, the number of similar immigration cases would
dramatically increase, perhaps particularly in Circuits bordering Mexico.
All seventeen of these cases met the three congressional
purposes outlined above. In each, there were no more than three children being
smuggled; where there were two or more children smuggled, the children were
siblings. As such, the scale of the offenses was small and the smuggling
incidents served to preserve family unity. Moreover, in no instance was any
money exchanged as payment for the smuggling services, further indicating the
secure nature of the relocation and the improbability of a malicious motive or
intent to harm the smugglee.
Anecdotal accounts from U.S. Attorneys confirm the
frequency with which these cases are brought and fully prosecuted in federal
criminal courts. Serra Tsethlikal, a U.S. Attorney in Tucson, Arizona,
described the office's zero-tolerance policy established in 2003 to combat
child smuggling along the border.[33] The 2003 policy superseded the prior practice of releasing the smugglers and
returning the children to Mexico.[34] Within four years of implementation, federal attorneys in Arizona prosecuted
more than 140 child smuggling cases and sought mandatory prison sentences in
every case.[35] Paul
Charlton, another U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, described that "most
of the suspects arrested on charges of smuggling children . . . along
this part of the border have been women with no criminal records."[36] He characterized these women as "small-time operators."[37] The experiences of federal prosecutors echo the frequency of cases involving
related children smugglees and should encourage Congress to consider the harsh
unintended consequences on families and children of incomprehensive statutory
DHS and USAO policy directives confirm these anecdotal
accounts, signaling a systemwide failure to heed Congress's intent and the Obama
Administration's priorities. Since the early 2000s, many districts throughout
the Southwest have implemented zero-tolerance policies.[38] Cumulatively known as "Operation Streamline,"
this program mandates full immigration and criminal prosecution for all
undocumented border crossers regardless of age, relationship, or circumstance.[39] "The program channels law
enforcement funding and attention toward the apprehension and prosecution of
low-level offenders[, such as family-based smugglers], rather than focusing on
the crimes that create border violence . . . ."[40] Stripping prosecutorial discretion
from individual Border Patrol Agents and U.S. Attorneys who may be more
attentive to Congress's purposes,[41] Operation Streamline ignores congressional intent by diverting resources away
from violent crimes along the border and ignoring the powerful ties between families
and children.[42]
IV. Recommendations, Counterarguments, and
The procedural and legislative history of U.S. immigration
law regulating alien smuggling offenses make it clear that, by way of its
exemptions of parents, children, and spouses, Congress intended to preserve
family unity, support the well-being of children, and focus prosecution
resources on the most dangerous, recidivist, and profiteering criminals.
However, Congress's current statutory scheme fails to satisfy these purposes.
Instead, the three permissible exemptions are overinclusive, punishing more
offenders than necessary to serve Congress's stated goals. In fact, this
overinclusiveness undermines Congress's stated intent by tearing families apart
and putting children at risk while wasting valuable border patrol, attorney,
and court resources on small-time offenders.[43]
It is the recommendation of this paper that Congress
expand the nuclear family exemptions to include all close genetic family
smugglers when the smugglee is a related minor child. It is within Congress's
discretion to decide which categories of family members should receive
exemptions. Based on the prevalent smuggler-smugglee relationships appearing in
the case law, some suggestions include grandparents, aunts, uncles,
stepparents, siblings, and first cousins. If, however, changes to statutory
language are not politically possible due to the hostile immigration climate in
the current U.S. House and Senate,[44] the Obama Administration could forge a compromise by requesting that DHS issue
guiding regulations on this issue.[45] The regulations could include a set of priorities for Border Patrol Agents to follow
when deciding whether or not to detain an alien for a smuggling offense. Under
this model, the relative smugglers and child smugglees would receive the lowest
degree of Border Patrol vigilance.
This expansion would further the goal of family unification
by helping families build stronger connections to each other and to the United
States with less incentive to return to their home country. Moreover, this
change in legislation would further Congress's commitment to protecting
children from parental separation and inadequate supervision. Distant relatives
often raise children who are left behind in their home country, and children
left with neighbors or friends may end up on the streets or tempted by gangs.[46] This extension would also ensure more time and resources are available to spend
on finding and prosecuting smuggling cases involving financial gain, harm to
the smugglee, or conspiracy.
Skeptics of this plan may argue that if more smugglers
escape punishment through exemptions, then immigration laws pertaining to
smuggling would no longer be effective deterrents and the rate of human
smuggling would increase. In practice, however, our current narrow family
exceptions to alien smuggling, which allow very few to earn an exemption, are
ineffective deterrents to smugglers. The current narrow exemptions have
produced years of steady increases in smuggling, with more than 8,000 smugglers
detained in 2010.[47] Therefore, it is unlikely a slightly more inclusive list of exceptions will
affect the statutes' deterrence or have any appreciable impact on smuggling
Aside from a functionalist deterrence argument, dissenters
may argue that the limited exceptions for parents, children, and spouses should
not be expanded because these exceptions make up the core of the nuclear family
unit that should be preserved. Moreover, an adult who leaves his native land "makes a decision
to be separated from brothers and sisters, parents, and adult children," and he or she must live with that choice.[48] However, these policy arguments fail to consider the
diversity of family types that immigrants bring from other countries and
cultures. By preserving only the traditional conception of a nuclear family,
the immigration laws propagate a narrow understanding of family that ignores
the diversity and multiculturalism our nation has historically embraced.[49] In addition, the opposition asserts that immigrants choose separation. This
argument overlooks the fact that the consequences of this choice do not fall on
the immigrant, but instead are borne by the children
left at home who must grow up without the benefit of a close family
network. By declaring that immigrants choose to separate from their families,
dissenters contradict two of the key rationales behind the family exemption: the
protection of vulnerable children and the unification of families.
By adopting these statutory or regulatory changes,
Congress and the executive branch would remind the world that the protection of
children and the reunification of immigrant families "serves the national
interest not only through the humaneness of the policy itself, but also through
the promotion of the public order and well-being of the nation."[50]
* J.D. Candidate, May 2012, UCLA School of
[1]. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(e) (2006) [INA § 212(a)(6)(e)];
8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(E) (2006) [INA § 237(a)(1)(E)]. For simplicity,
subsequent references will be to sections of the Immigration and Nationality
Act ("INA").
[2]. INA § 237(a)(1)(E).
[3]. INA § 212(a)(6)(e).
[4]. INA § 101(a)(43)(N). Conviction
of any crime described in INA § 101(a)(43) will result in an immigrant's
classification as an aggravated felon. The immigration consequences of an
aggravated felony conviction are numerous and include mandatory immigration
detention following penal custody (INA § 236 (c)(1)(B)), permanent bar
from becoming an American citizen (INA § 101(f)(8)), and deportation (INA
§ 237(a)(2)(A)(iii)).
[5]. INA § 237(a)(2)(A)(iii).
[6]. Letter from Dorothy Pullo, Dir. of
Freedom of Info. Act Div., Office of Int'l Trade, to John Althen, Judicial
Watch (Feb. 17, 2011), available at http://www.judicialwatch.org/ files/documents/2011/cbp-foia-response-02172011.pdf.
[8]. Peter Andreas, The Transformation of Migrant Smuggling
Across the U.S.-Mexican Border, in Global Human Smuggling: Comparative
Perspectives 107, 108 (David Kyle & Rey Koslowski eds., 2001).
[9]. See INA § 101(a)(43)(N) (exception to aggravated felony
classification); INA § 237(a)(1)(E)(iii) (discretionary waiver of
deportability); INA § 212(d)(11) (discretionary waiver of
inadmissibility).
[10]. See supra note 4.
[11]. See INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 432 n.12 (1987) (noting
that there is a "strong presumption that Congress expresses its intent through
the language it chooses").
[12]. Immigration and Nationality
Technical Corrections Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-416, § 222, 108 Stat.
4305, 4322 (amended 1996).
[13]. Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, § 440, 110
Stat. 1214, 1278 (amended Sept. 30, 1996).
[14]. See Illegal Immigration
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-208, § 321,
110 Stat. 3009, 3009-628 (current version at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(N) (2006) [INA
§ 101(a)(43)(N)]).
[15]. INA § 101(a)(43)(N).
[16]. H.R. Rep. No. 104-469, pt. 1, at 116
[17]. See INA § 274(a)(4) (providing for sentence increases of up to
ten years for smugglers who were part of large-scale commercial smuggling
[18]. Cecilia Muñoz, Immigration Update: Maximizing Public Safety
and Better Focusing Resources, White
House Blog (Aug. 18, 2011, 2:00 PM), http://www.whitehouse.gov/ blog/2011/08/18/immigration-update-maximizing-public-safety-and-better-focusing-resources.
[19]. See, e.g., Alien Smuggling: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on
International Law, Immigration, and Refugees of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary,
103rd Cong. (1993) (debating changes to the alien smuggling and asylum laws
following the arrival of several boats of Chinese immigrants confined in
deplorable conditions, and focusing primarily on penalizing smugglers profiting
from, enslaving, or mistreating smugglees).
[20]. Reform of Legal Immigration: Hearing
Before the Subcomm. on Immigration of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 104th
Cong. 13 (1995) (statement of Doris Meissner, Comm'r, U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Services).
[21]. In re G, 8 I. & N. Dec. 355, 358 (B.I.A.
[22]. See, e.g., INA § 212(h)(1)(B) (waiving ground of
inadmissibility if the immigrant has a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident
spouse, parent, son or daughter who will suffer extreme hardship); INA
§ 237(a)(3)(C)(ii) (waiving grounds of removability if the offense was
committed solely to support the immigrant's spouse or child).
[23]. See INA § 203(a); see
also Patricia Strach, All in
the Family: The Private Roots of American Public Policy 82-88 (2007)
(detailing several unsuccessful congressional attempts to eliminate nonnuclear
family visa preferences, and arguing that the bills failed to gain traction, in
part, because of the ill effects the changes would have on family unity).
[24]. See Scott Titshaw, Sorry
Ma'am, Your Baby Is An Alien: Outdated Immigration Rules and Assisted
Reproductive Technology, 12 Fla.
Coastal L. Rev. 47 (2010) (summarizing legislative, judicial, and
administrative evidence allowing a parent who has no genetic link to the child
to transmit citizenship).
[25]. 534 F.3d 1204 (9th Cir. 2008).
[26]. Gonzalez, 534 F.3d at
[29]. Id. at 1211.
[30]. See Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, § 462(b)(1)(B),
116 Stat. 2135, 2202 (2002) (assigning responsibility for the care of
unaccompanied or separated alien children and mandating that immigration
officers "ensur[e] that the interests of the child are considered in decisions
and actions relating to the care and custody of an unaccompanied alien child");
see also Jacqueline Bhabha, "Not a Sack of Potatoes": Moving and
Removing Children Across Borders, 15 B.U.
Pub. Int. L.J. 197, 212
[31]. Avina-Renteria v. Holder, 434 F.
App'x 626, 630 (9th Cir. 2011) (uncle/niece and nephew); Diaz Ibarra v. Holder,
440 F. App'x 592, 593 (9th Cir. 2011) (uncle/niece); Valdovinos-Corona v.
Holder, 399 F. App'x 214, 215 (9th Cir. 2010) (aunt/niece); Avdalyan v. Holder,
358 F. App'x 809, 810 (9th Cir. 2009) (grandmother/grandson); Sidhu v. Ashcroft,
368 F.3d 1160, 1161 (9th Cir. 2004) (aunt/nephew);
United States v. Rivas-Gonzalez, 384 F.3d 1034, 1038 (9th Cir. 2004) (first
cousins); In re Rocio Lopez-Olivares,
No. A076-375-446, 2010 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 4810 (B.I.A. Dec. 23, 2010)
(aunt/niece and nephew); In re Jose Felipe
Montalvo, No. A079-555-057, 2010 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 4952 (B.I.A. Nov. 4, 2010)
(father/stepchildren); In re Alfonso
Ramirez Herrera, No. A078-119-847, 2010 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 5193 (B.I.A. July
16, 2010) (aunt/niece and nephew); In re Olegario Amezquita, No. A099-146-137, 2010 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 3016 (B.I.A. Mar.
4, 2010) (father/stepson); In re Maria Guadalupe Rojas-De Gallardo, No. A047-253-142, 2009 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS
5504 (B.I.A. Oct. 30, 2009) (grandmother/granddaughter); In re Francisco Avina-Renteria, No. A090-023-370, 2006 Immig. Rptr.
LEXIS 6191 (B.I.A. Sept. 18, 2006) (uncle/niece and nephew); In re Damalis Rosalina Perez Suriel De
Batista, No. A045-874-185, 2006 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 652 (B.I.A. July 12, 2006)
(uncle/nephew); In re Kuauhtl
Gutierrez-Hernandez, No. A075-606-126, 2006 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 12201 (B.I.A.
May 31, 2006) (uncle/niece and nephew); In
re Adalberto Delgado, No. A073-824-186, 2006 Immig. Rptr. LEXIS 7929
(B.I.A. Apr. 4, 2006) (aunt/nephew).
[32]. See, e.g., Rodriguez v. Holder, 401 F. App'x
212, 213 (9th Cir. 2010) (brother);
Milicich v. Holder, 402 F. App'x 321,
322 (9th Cir. 2010) (niece);
Blanco v. Holder, 386 F. App'x 734,
734 (9th Cir. 2010) (sister).
[33]. Daniel González, Targeting
Child Smuggling at Entry Ports May Backfire, Ariz.
Republic, Mar. 26, 2007, available
at http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/ articles/0326childsmuggling0321.html.
[35]. Id. (The Tucson U.S. Attorneys Office also "pushed to strip
smugglers with green cards of their legal status and deport them.").
[36]. Ginger Thompson, Crossing with Strangers: Children at the
Border; Littlest Immigrants, Left in Hands of Smugglers, N.Y.
Times, Nov. 3, 2003, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03EEDA1130F930A35752C1A9659C8B63&pagewanted=3.
[38]. See Joanna Lydgate,
The Chief Justice Earl Warren Inst. on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity, Assembly-Line
Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline 3 (2010), available at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Operation_Streamline_Policy_Brief.pdf (including
the districts of Yuma and Tucson, Arizona, Las Cruces, New Mexico, and El Paso,
Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville, Texas).
[40]. Id. at 8.
[41]. See id. at 8-9
(cataloging accounts of U.S. Attorneys "lament[ing] their inability to
aggressively prosecute the criminal organizations" responsible for serious crimes
along the border due to their high caseload of minor immigration offenses).
Signaling that, absent Operation Streamline, U.S. Attorneys may be more
attentive to Congress's goal of focusing on large-scale, violent crimes.
[42]. See id. at 3 ("Most
Operation Streamline defendants are migrants from Mexico or Central America who
have no prior criminal convictions and who have attempted to cross the border
. . . to reunite with family in the United States.").
[43]. Cf. id. at 12 (estimating
that one implementing district spends $54.5 million per year to detain and
represent Operation Streamline defendants).
[44]. See Alicia A. Caldwell, Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Unlikely to Pass GOP, Huffington
Post, Apr. 20, 2011, http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/20/comprehensive-immigration-reform-probably-doomed/.
[45]. For a set of sample guidelines
issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE"), see Memorandum from John
Morton, Dir. of the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, to All ICE
Employees (Mar. 2, 2011), available at http://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/ releases/2011/110302washingtondc.pdf.
[46]. See Barbara J. Fraser, Left
Behind: Amid Immigration Debate, Children Often Are Forgotten, Cath. News Service, Dec. 28,
2007, http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/ cns/0707403.htm.
[47]. See supra note 6
and accompanying text; see also Lydgate, supra note 38, at 2 n.8 ("Alien smuggling prosecutions under [INA
§ 274(a)] in the border district courts went from 2208 cases in 2002 to
3900 cases in 2008."); Amanda E. Schreyer, Human
Smuggling Across the U.S.-Mexico Border: U.S. Laws Are Not Stopping It, 39 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 795, 796
(2006) (citing a dramatic increase in alien smuggling from 1997 to 2003).
[48]. H.R. Rep. No. 104-469, pt. 1, at 134 (1996).
[49]. See Moore v. City of E.
Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 504 (1977) ("Ours is by no means a tradition limited
to respect for the bonds uniting the members of the nuclear family. The
tradition of uncles, aunts, cousins, and especially grandparents sharing a
household along with parents and children has roots equally venerable and
equally deserving of constitutional recognition.").
[50]. United States Immigration Policy and the National Interest, Final Report
of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy 112 (1981). // VIEW PDF