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Mr. President,
I would like to first thank you for your outstanding efforts and leadership after the September 11th tragedy. You brought this great nation together again and mandated some great programs to help deter more terrorist attacks. One of those was pushing the Department of Homeland Security.
With mentioning Homeland Security, I would like to bring up something that really has me worried. From what I am hearing, there are still many problems that pertain to the now defunct INS. One major concern that I have involves something going on in your home state of Texas. The "Legacy INS" Detention and Removal office based in San Antonio is supposedly out of funds for the rest of the fiscal year. They are the ones that foot the bill for "other than Mexicans (OTM's)" that are caught and detained by the Border Patrol. Detention and Removal has told the Border Patrol, at least in the Del Rio Sector, to release all OTM's on their own recognizance (no known address, telephone number, nothing!!). The Del Rio Sector has been mandated by this same Detention and Removal office to release all juveniles in the care of whoever they are accompanied by on "their own recognizance" since the Hurricane Mitch disaster in Central America in 1998. This is due to the supposed lack of detention space for juveniles. Literally thousands of people have been allowed into our country after crossing the Rio Grande River illegally (this may be one of the reasons that there now thousands of illegal aliens that have been ordered deported and no one knows where they are). It is getting so bad that the illegal Central Americans are taking taxi cabs to the local Border Patrol stations and demanding their "papers". They are also flagging down local police officers with the same demands.
With this new "initiative" to release all Central Americans on their own recognizance is going to open the so called flood gates. I am told the Border Patrol is even forced to release those who have been previously deported. The only ones that may possibly be detained are aggravated felons. Who knows what crimes these illegals have committed in their home country. Border Patrol agents can only run criminal checks for offenses committed in the United States. Some stations are catching over 15 of these OTM's per shift. If you can only imagine the man hours it takes to process these people, just so that they can walk out the door and disappear. And in the meantime, what is coming across our border undetected due to the fact that nearly the whole shift is in the office "processing" these individuals for release.
With all due respect Mr. President, this has to stop. The Honorable Mr. Ridge needs to chew somebody's rear end for letting this policy begin. Funds need to be found somewhere.
Thank you for your time.
Respectfully,
One Angry Citizen
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