The Occasional Observer

My Spanish is not exactly solid. But I can count to six. Which means I have nothing to fear if I want to fly to Mexico and attempt to enter the USA without paperwork. Because if you are an illegal immigrant, you can get arrested five (5!) times by border patrol and not be prosecuted by a US Attorney. Turns out that when the Dept of Justice inquired as to the policies being followed by the US Attorneys in the field, the word they got back was, "the sixth time is the charm."

What I love about this story is how the incompetence gets spread up and down the chain. A policy this ridiculous is only possible because of the abdication of responsibility by those at the highest levels of law enforcement, and that means the Executive Branch. The 6-strikes rule is just another example that this President has decided that illegal immigration can only be addressed through legalization and amnesty, and that enforcement is futile. Hence, no border fence or meaningful impediments that would prevent people from trying to enter the country six times in a row.

At the same time, middle managers and line employees are wasting the resources at their disposal (time, energy and dollars) on useless activities (arrests that are not leading to prosecutions). That line employees never communicated this ridiculous policy up the chain in the DOJ is hard to imagine, even if they felt such communication would be viewed as complaining and frowned upon.

That middle managers in the US Attorney's offices and at CBP were content to waste taxpayers money, despite the crisis they are suppossed to be confronting, is unforgiveably incompetent.