88% no-show rate at Harlingen, Texas immigration court

The Monitor - McAllen, Texas:
"But illegal immigration is not ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]’s main concern. According to Van Pelt, national security has become the watchword for the nation’s borders. ICE expends most of its resources securing airports and facilities that house sensitive chemicals, places where a terrorist mopping the floor could mean a repeat of 9/11."

Thus, thousands abscond while out on bail awaiting a deportation hearing, partly because the US government does not want to pay to incarcerate them, and very little effort is made to find them. This article doesn't mention it, but this laxity is the reason Beltway sniper Malvo was on the loose. A responsible immigration control system very likely would have prevented that boy from becoming a murderer and saved the lives of several US citizens.

Harlingen is far and away the worst region for no-shows which may be related to the very high level of OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) apprehended in that part of Texas - Brazilians, Hondurans, Salvadorans, even Chinese. Illegal immigrants from such places are much more likely to spend thousands of dollars to get here. To forfeit an additional $1,500 to $3,000 bond is just a part of the cost of crashing the gates. Mexicans arrested in this area, however, are very likely to accept immediate repatriation so that they can try their luck another day without going on the list of deportation order absconders.

Harlingen is an anomaly, one other court has about half its no-show rate and most are very much lower still; the fact that it has one of the largest caseloads in the system, over 10,000 cases per year, makes it significant. But it illustrates the weakness of the system.

There are, on any given day, about 400,000 persons who have been ordered deported and who are not in custody. In theory the government is looking for them, but as the quote at the top of this entry point out, it just isn't so. This is out of an illegal alien population said in this article to be seven millions and by the Census Bureau to have been about 8.8 million in 2000. The Mexican government estimates there are 4.5 million of its citizens living in the US illegally.