Jun. 15, 2006 - 18:32 MDT

FROM SCRAMBLED EGGS

Thunder and lightening, smoke and mirrors and the rave continues. Here is what is going on in Colorado, in the Rocky Mountain News this morning there is a page long side bar on how immigration problems are being handled here. Quoted in full herein:

ISSUE: THE SYSTEM IS OVEREWHELMED

"State Patrol troopers stop three or four vans a day in Colorado with suspected illegal immigrants -- an average of 527 immigrants a week, the patrol says. But ICE is short on detention space, so state troopers release many of the immigrants."

"WHAT TROOPERS SAY:

##Eastern Plains "The State patrol says troopers stop vans carrying about 70 suspected illegal immigrants a week. Troopers who patrol the area estimate ICE detains one out of every 10 to 20 van loads caught on Interstate 70."

"It goes on every day, year-round," State Trooper Bert Kirby said. "There's never a slow season."

"There just has to be more resources, more manpower to handle this, I know ICE is doing everything humanly possible with the resources they have."

##Western Slope: "During the fall and spring state troopers along the western I-70 corridor stop vans transporting an average of 112 illegal immigrants a week," said Sgt. Dean Garcia of the State Patrol's Glenwood Springs office. Most vans come from Arizona and California bound for southern states."

"Garcia said ICE agents pick up immigrants from about half the stops. The others are allowed to proceed after the patrol gives ICE their license plate numbers and destinations."

WHAT ICE SAYS

"We could quite honestly have a 700-bed facility and have it full and always wish we could have a little more space," said John Good, deputy field office director of detention and removal for ICE in Denver."

"Jeff Copp, special agent in charge of investigations in the Denver office, said ICE agents in Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction respond to vans in those areas. But the Denver office responds to calls on I-70 in the east and it's three hours out and three hours back," he said."

"If it's a large wreck, it's easier for them (State patrol) to respond than for me to go all the way out to the Kansas border," Copp said, "if there's a and injury, death, if the vehicle is not road-worthy, those are our priorities."

By --- Bart Hubbard, Daniel J. Chacon

++++++++++++++

Below that is another, also quoted in full:

ISSUE: STATE CRACKING DOWN ON HUMAN SMUGGLING

A state law passed this year designates a team of State Patrol Troopers to crack down on human smuggling. Another law makes human smuggilng a state felony.

BACKGROUND

"The law creating a State Patrol team is estimated to cost $1.5 million in the first year for 12 officers and startup costs such as vans and $2.2 million in sub sequent years for 24 officers, according to the Colorado Legislative council. The team would seek out smuggling operations to arrest the leaders and disrupt their operations."

"The projected result would be two new state prosecutions a year for human smuggling, according to an analysis of the new law on human smuggling. The analysis, based on how a similar law has been carried out in Arizona, assumes federal prosecutors will handle most cases, although the drivers or leaders of smuggling rings could be tried in state court. Smuggling already is a federal violation but only four cases were prosecuted last year in Colorado"

"The smugglers paseengers would be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

WHAT THE STATE PATROL SAYS

"We will enforce whatever they vote on downtown," said Sgt. Jeff Goodwin, patrol spokesman."

WHAT CRITICS SAY

Some Hispanic state legislators fear the team could lead to racial profiling."

WHAT ICE SAYS

ICE officials declined to comment.

By Burt Hubbard

+++++++++

+++++++++

Seems as if all that BIG TALK in Congress will be about all the action that will come of this. Big promises, but the men in the trenches are too few and too hampered to do much in the way of effective control.

And it appears to me that our forces are out-numbered at the very beginning.

Looks like to me it's the old political bit of trying to make a chicken FROM SCRAMBLED EGGS . . . . . . . . . .

Blog