Grl Operation Streamline Costs Consequences Sept2012

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Grl Operation Streamline Costs Consequences Sept2012

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OPERATION STREAMLINE:
COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES
GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP
ALISTAIR GRAHAM ROBERTSON
RACHEL BEATY
JANE ATKINSON
BOB LIBAL
September 2012

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Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Table of Contents
Key Findings .........................................................................................................................................3
Recommendations ............................................................................................................................4
A Lucrative Deal for the Private Prison Industry .....................................................................5
A “Mind Boggling” Waste of Taxpayer Dollars ..........................................................................7
Overwhelming the Courts ...........................................................................................................11
Addressing the Arguments for Operation Streamline .......................................................15
Recommendations ..........................................................................................................................18
References ..........................................................................................................................................19
Appendix A: Immigration Incarceration Costs ......................................................................23
Appendix B: 1325 and 1326 Convictions by Court District ..............................................25
Appendix C: Border Patrol Apprehensions and Unemployment Rate .........................26
Appendix D: CCA and GEO Group Revenues ........................................................................27

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Executive Summary
In 2005, the Del Rio sector of the Border Patrol, an

agency within the federal Department of Homeland
Security’s Customs and Border Protection, faced
a peculiar issue. With civil detention facilities at
capacity and voluntary return to Mexico available
only to Mexican citizens, non-Mexican migrants were
given a notice to appear in front of an immigration
judge and released in the United States.”i In 2004,
Border Patrol apprehended approximately 10,000
non-Mexican migrants in the Del Rio sector; just one
year later, the figure spiked to 15,000.ii The solution to
this enforcement issue, Border Patrol decided, was to
circumvent the civil immigration system by turning
non-Mexican migrants over for criminal prosecution,
a practice until then relegated almost exclusively
to cases of violent criminal history or numerous reentries.iii Upon considering the proposition, the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas
responded with one caveat: in order to avoid an
equal protection violation, the courts would have to
criminally prosecute all migrants within a designated
area, not just those from countries other than Mexico.
iv

With the signature of Secretary of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff, it was decided to do just that.
Starting in December of 2005, “Operation Streamline”
required all undocumented border-crossers in the
Eagle Pass area of the Del Rio Border Patrol sector
to be funneled into the criminal justice system and
charged with unlawful entry or re-entry (8 U.S.C. §
1325 or 1326).v Those charged with improper entry
usually face a sentence of up to 180 days, and a judge
may impose a sentence of over ten years dependent
upon criminal history.vi Re-entry offenders also face
tough sentences, including a felony charge that
places up to a ten-year bar on legal immigration.vii
The Department of Homeland Security since has
drastically expanded the criminal referral model
through similar programs in the Yuma sector in 2006,
the Laredo sector in 2007, and the Tucson sector in
2008.viii By 2010, every U.S.-Mexico border sector
except California had implemented a “zero-tolerance”

program of some sort, the whole of which are
commonly referred to by the moniker of the original
program— Operation Streamline.ix
Depending
upon the sector, the degree of implementation may
vary significantly. For example, according to Federal
Public Defenders in the Yuma and Del Rio sectors,
Border Patrol refers nearly 100% of apprehended
immigrants in those areas for criminal prosecution.x
In the Tucson sector, where greater migrant volume
renders such high referral rates logistically unfeasible,
the percentage on immigrants “Streamlined” may
be closer to 10%, or about 70 of the 800 migrants
apprehended each day.xi,xii
The resulting prisoner volume has led the Bureau
of Prisons in the Department of Justice to depend
upon private prison corporations like Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group.
Through increased facility use and contracts for other
services, CCA and GEO have enjoyed a combined
$780 million increase in annual federal revenues
since 2005.xiii In FY2011, the federal government
paid immense sums of taxpayer money to private
prison companies, $744 million and $640 million to
CCA and GEO Group, respectively.xiv Much of this
revenue derives from contracts for Criminal Alien
Requirement (CAR) prisons, where federal immigrant
prisoners are segregated in privately owned, privately
operated prisons contracted by the Bureau of Prisons.
The terms of CAR contracts include incentives
(and sometimes guarantees) to fill facilities near
capacity with immigrant prisoners.xv Each year, these
companies dedicate millions of dollars to lobbying
and campaign contributions.xv
The federal dollars behind immigrant incarceration
come at a significant cost to the taxpayer, climbing
in 2011 to an estimated $1.02 billion annually.xvi
Before the announcement of Operation Streamline
in 2005, the federal government annually committed
about 58% of that total, or $591 million toward
incarcerating immigrants. In 1994, the amount was
about $72 million, 7% of its current level.xvii Recent
budget proposals indicate that federal spending on

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

prosecution and incarceration will likely increase,
as Congress recently stated an ambition to “expand
Operation Streamline to additional Border Patrol
sectors” alongside a record-setting DHS budget
request of $45.2 billion.xix
The sheer volume of immigration cases has also
severely burdened the courts in border districts,
which have been forced to handle a near 350%
increase of petty immigration cases from 12,411 in
2002 to 55,604 in 2010.xix In Tucson, courts may see as
many as 200 immigrants lined up for prosecution in a
single morning.xx To handle the expanded caseload,
the Department of Justice has pursued a combination
of resource-intensive options, including privately
contracting with defense attorneys, deputizing Border
Patrol agents as special Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and
bringing several magistrate judges out of retirement.
xii
Furthermore, Operation Streamline strips Assistant
U.S. Attorneys of the power to prosecute the crimes
they deem pressing. Immigration cases made up
36% of all criminal prosecutions nationwide in 2011,
surpassing drug and fraud prosecutions combined.xiii
Even in Austin—236 miles from the border—Federal
Public Defenders, housed under the Administrative
Office of the U.S. Courts, reported spending 95%
of their time on unauthorized re-entry cases in
November of 2011 as opposed to roughly 50%
in 2006, before the office added two additional
attorneys.xxii The trending development of immigrant
criminalization beyond the border threatens to
create similar predicaments throughout the United
States. According to the Federal Public Defenders,
identification programs like Secure Communities
have made federal criminal immigration prosecutions
increasingly common. From 2008 to 2011, nonSouthwest-border districts have seen more than
double the increase of unauthorized re-entry (8

U.S.C. § 1326) convictions than occurred from 2005
to 2008.xxiii
In addition to draining resources and burdening
the courts system, Operation Streamline imposes a
devastating human cost, especially upon the Latino
community. Latinos now represent more than half
of all individuals sentenced to federal prison despite
making up only 16% of the total U.S. population.xxiv
Increased enforcement measures also drive migrants
to employ the services of professional smugglers and
to attempt crossings in more obscure and dangerous
areas.xxvii As a result, immigrant fatalities along the
border have become increasingly common, reaching
totals more than four times those in 1995.xxvi
Still, considerable support for Operation Streamline
persists behind a belief in the efficacy of a deterrence
mindset. The Senate Appropriations Committee, for
example, points to “a notable reduction in attempted
illegal crossings” in the districts in which Operation
Streamline is “robustly in effect.”xxvii Indeed, border
apprehensions have fallen by a dramatic 725,649
from 2005 through 2010, but decades of research
indicate that economic forces—particularly shifts in
employment and real wages—are the actual drivers
of immigration trends, and the recently weakened
condition of the U.S. economy is no exception.
xxviii
Many within the judicial community agree. U.S.
District Judge Lee Yeakel pointed out in a November
21st sentencing hearing that, “This court has yet to
find an adequate sentence that will act as a deterrent
for those reentering the country illegally.”xxix
Unfortunately, the struggling U.S. economy allows
for the misrepresentation of border enforcement
“success” at a time when shrewd allocation of federal
resources is most crucial.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Key Findings
yy Since the announcement of Operation Streamline in 2005, the federal government has spent
an estimated $5.5 billion incarcerating undocumented immigrants in the criminal justice
system for unauthorized entry and re-entry, above and beyond the civil immigration system.
xxxii
In 2011, the federal government committed to spend an estimated $1.02 billion on the
incarceration costs for simple migration crimes. This is the first time in history that figure has
topped $1 billion.xxxi

yy From 2008 to 2011, unauthorized re-entry convictions (8 U.S.C. § 1326) in court districts not

on the Southwest border increased by the greatest margin of any four-year period in history,
more than double that of the previous four years.xxxii

yy In Laredo, Operation Streamline client volumes are such that a Federal Public Defender must

provide counsel to 20 to 75 clients in a span of just two hours. On Mondays, that number is
regularly at 75, leaving each defendant less than two minutes to meet with an attorney.xxxiii

yy Criminal prosecutions for unauthorized re-entry have spread from border districts to the

internal United States. The number of unauthorized re-entry cases brought before Texas nonborder district courthouses increased by 26% between 2004 and 2011.xxvi In Austin—236
miles from the border—the Office of the Federal Public Defender has added two additional
attorneys since the implementation of Operation Streamline and reports spending 95% of
their time on unauthorized re-entry cases as of November of 2011 as opposed to roughly 50%
in 2006.xxxvii

yy Criminal prosecutions do not serve as a deterrent to unauthorized migration. A range of

academic and policy research indicates that prosecutions have not significantly contributed to
decreased unauthorized migration. At a November 21st sentencing hearing, The Honorable
Judge Lee Yeakel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas declared,
“This court has yet to find an adequate sentence that will act as a deterrent for those reentering
the country illegally.”xxxviii

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Recommendations
1. End the practice of prosecuting immigration offenses in criminal court. The

administration should end the widespread practice of prosecuting the immigration offenses
of unauthorized entry and re-entry in the criminal justice system. Instead, officials should
rely on the civil immigration system to process those apprehended on immigration charges,
whether at the border or in the nation’s interior

2. Balance criminal prosecutions for immigration with priorities for reducing nonviolent incarcerated population. The Obama administration has identified a goal of

reducing the federal prison population, particularly people convicted of non-violent offenses,
by expanding re-entry programs and through a “smarter allocation of resources for crime
prevention and public safety.”xxxix The increasing numbers of immigrants incarcerated solely
for entering the country without documentation directly counters that stated goal.

3. Use discretion to mitigate impact of immigration prosecutions. Short of ending

prosecutions for unauthorized entry and re-entry entirely, the administration can reduce
criminal immigration prosecutions by restoring prosecutorial discretion along the border.

4. Stop expansion of private prisons and federal detention centers. The Bureau of
Prisons (BOP) should immediately halt plans to expand Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR)
contracted prison facilities. The Department of Justice should institute a review of all BOP and
U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) - contracted private prisons.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

A Lucrative Deal for the Private
Prison Industry
PROFITS: GEO GROUP AND CCA

Operation Streamline has been hugely profitable to

the private prison industry. Since the announcement
of Operation Streamline, the United States federal
government has spent an estimated $5.5 billion
incarcerating undocumented immigrants outside
the civil immigration system, exceeding an annual
commitment of more than $1 billion for the first time
in history this past year.xl According to 2011 perdiem profit margins, incarcerated immigrants (not
including those in civil detention) provide prison
companies with an estimated $246,561 in daily profits,
or roughly $90 million per year.xli Revenues provided
by the federal government to just two private prison
companies in 2011 exceeded $1.4 billion, more than
double the corresponding figure from 2005.xlii

also increased rapidly over this period, skyrocketing
from $138.8 million in 2005 to $640 million in 2011,
an increase of about 364%.xliv
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has seen
similarly dramatic rises in its bottom line. In 2011,
CCA recorded annual revenue of $1.74 billion, 43%
of which came from the federal government.xlv Using
2005 figures as the benchmark, annual revenue has
increased 46% (from $1.19 billion) and funds from
federal contracting have increased by 60% (from $465
million).xlvi CCA also provides investors a per-diem
margin on its prisoners. The figures show that with
each passing year, CCA finds a way to squeeze more
profits out of each prisoner. Since 2005, the payout
for each prisoner’s day in a CCA facility has climbed
50% (from $12.80) to its current level at $18.23.xlvii

Figure 1. Private prison industry annual revenues, 2001-2011.

Two major prison companies— the GEO Group Inc.
and Corrections Corporation of America—dominate
the private corrections market, and in each year since
the implementation of Operation Streamline, both
have enjoyed record profits. In 2011, GEO Group
made $1.61 billion in revenue, a figure that has grown
at an average rate of 18% over the past six years.xliii
GEO Group revenue derived from federal contracts

Figure 2. Revenues provided by the federal government, 2001-2011.

Federal facilities incarcerating non-citizens do not
match a prisoner’s security levels nor attend to family
and medical considerations, forcing immigrants into
conditions more severe than could be expected
of citizens with a similar-level offense. Whereas
U.S. citizens committing low-level offenses may
be considered for minimum-security facilities, the

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Bureau of Prisons denies non-citizens the possibility
of minimum-security incarceration as a matter of
general policy.xlviii Non-citizens are also excluded
from drug rehabilitation programming offered to US
citizens.xlix Due to the high volume of apprehended
immigrants funneled through this system, many
must wait for a hearing in pretrial detention centers
that lack social services.l
Immigrants entering the criminal justice system
through Operation Streamline proceedings are
generally housed in the custody of either U.S.
Marshals or Bureau of Prisons (BOP), both of which
rely heavily on private prisons for contract bed space.
In the case of U.S. Marshals, which holds immigrants
in pre-trial detention, privately contracted facilities
account for 18,464 (29.3%) of its total 63,112 detained
population.li Since 2005, the number of private
facilities contracted by U.S. Marshals has nearly
tripled, in large part due to Operation Streamline. As
explained by Tucson defense attorney Richard Bacal,

“Typically, if [the sentence] is less than six months,
they stay at a privately run prison.”lii
For longer sentences, many immigrants convicted
of unauthorized re-entry are sent to BOP-operated
Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) facilities, which
currently hold approximately 25,000 incarcerated.
liii
Without exception, the contracts that fund these
facilities include terms that either incentivize or
guarantee that the prison be filled near maximum
capacity. A CAR Contract granted to CCA in October
of 2011, for example, stipulates that the “Government
will be required to order and the contractor required
to furnish at least the established minimum quantity
of 90% of the accepted number of contract beds for
each contract year.”liv That contract, the twelfth of
its kind, commits to pay CCA $400.9 million over the
next ten years. Previous CAR contracts opt instead
for incentive structures, providing an additional fixed
incremental unit price paid to the contractor when
prison capacity exceeds 90%.lv

INCREASED DEMAND FOR PRISON BEDS

GEO

Group, CCA, and other private prison
companies supply management and buildings for
correctional purposes, and because of the current
policy there is increasing demand for their services.
Ultimately, these corporations will not profit from
true immigration reform but stand to gain a great
deal from harsher immigration laws and stronger
sentencing, even at the expense of tax dollars and
immigrant health and safety. For private prison
companies like CCA and GEO Group, policies like
Operation Streamline brought the increased demand
needed to fill overbuilt speculative prisons, and the
threat of a 100% criminal referral rate at the border
presents an enormous opportunity to expand.lvi By
one estimate in 2009, federal prisons in Arizona
would need to add 51,000 prison beds (over four
times the current bed-count) in order to handle the
criminal conviction of every immigrant apprehended
at the border.lvii

“The main driver for the growth of new beds at
the federal level continues to be the detention and
incarceration of criminal aliens.”
-George Zoley, Chairman, Founder and CEO of GEO Group, Inc.

According to the BOP, the federal prisoner population
currently exceeds the combined capacities of
the 116 BOP facilities.lviii It is expected that the
prisoner population will continue to grow as a
result of programs and policies implemented by
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the
U.S. Department of Justice regarding the criminal
prosecution of immigrants, both sentenced and
unsentenced. As stated by George Zoley, Chairman,
CEO and founder of GEO Group, “The main driver for
the growth of new beds at the federal level continues
to be the detention and incarceration of criminal
aliens.”lix In May of 2011, then-BOP Director Harley
Lappin—a former CCA executive who returned to the
company in June 2011lx —hinted at a continuation
of the lucrative deal for private prison companies.
As a potential remedy for overcrowding, Lappin
suggested to “contract with private prisons for
additional bedspace for low-security criminal aliens.”
lxi
Until limitations are put in place with regard to
the millions of dollars prison companies dedicate to
lobbying each year, politicians will likely continue to
respond in kind, supporting policies that benefit the
private prison industry’s bottom line.lxii

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

A “Mind Boggling” Waste of
Taxpayer Dollars
OVERVIEW

The criminalization of undocumented immigrants

requires a vast amount of federal resources, spread
across numerous government agencies. Grassroots
Leadership determined that the United States
government currently commits over $1.02 billion
per year towards the criminal incarceration of
undocumented immigrants, an amount nearly $430
million larger than when Operation Streamline was
first announced.lxiii
As the initial step in the process, the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border
Protection, devotes manpower and other resources
towards apprehending migrants and referring
them for prosecution, and holding them in pretrial detention. The pre-detention housing and trial
of each defendant then passes the costs over to
the Department of Justice, which includes the U.S.
Marshals, and pays for prosecuting attorneys, federal
district and magistrate judges, courtroom staff, the
courthouse, and other incidental expenses. After
sentencing, those immigrants who have not fulfilled
their sentence in pre-trial detention move on to
become federal prisoners, making up the policy’s
largest budgetary burden and a hefty profit for
private prison companies.
In February of 2011, these astronomical expenses
elicited a written rebuke from Federal District Judge
Sam Sparks, who regularly presides over a Texas

“The expenses of prosecuting illegal entry and re-entry
cases (rather than deportation) on aliens without any
significant criminal record is simply mind boggling. The
U.S. Attorney’s policy of prosecuting all aliens presents a
cost to the American taxpayer that is neither meritorious
nor reasonable.”

-Judge Sam Sparks of the United States District Court for
the Western District of Texas

courtroom full of non-violent immigrant offenders.
“The expenses of prosecuting illegal entry and reentry cases (rather than deportation) on aliens
without any significant criminal record is simply mind
boggling,” wrote Judge Sparks, “The U.S. Attorney’s
policy of prosecuting all aliens presents a cost to
the American taxpayer that is neither meritorious
nor reasonable.”lxiv The sentiment mirrors that of
policy analysts like Joanna Lydgate from The Chief
Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy,
who writes, “Operation Streamline’s questionable
effectiveness, the strain it has put on border district
courts, and its constitutional problems add up to
a wasteful expenditure of our law enforcement
resources along the border.”lxv Indeed, the policy’s
costs exhibit frustrating challenges, not only by
pouring funds into a questionable deterrence effect,
but also by creating a web of wasted resources nearly
impossible to pinpoint with a single dollar amount.

INCARCERATION COSTS

Incarceration

is perhaps the easiest part of the
cost web to decipher. Since the announcement of
Operation Streamline in 2005, the U.S. government
has spent or committed to spend approximately
$5.5 billion turning undocumented immigrants
into federal prison inmates.lxvi Each year since 2005,
Figure 3. Annual immigrant incarceration costs, 1994-2011.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

that annual outlay has risen by an average of nearly
10%, breaking the billion-dollar mark for the first
time in history last year.lxvii It is important to note
that these figures represent conservative estimates,
considering that the actual Bureau of Prison perdiem costs likely lie somewhere between those
utilized in these calculations (U.S. Marshals perdiem paid ranging from $54.08 in 1994 to $77.28 in
2011) and those paid by Department of Homeland
Security (at roughly $122 per-diemlxviii). Regardless of
the cost-multiplier ambiguity, the fact remains that
a 159% increase in immigration convictions since
2005 translates to a concurrently alarming increase
in federal expenditures.lxix
Zero-tolerance border prosecution programs,
however, did not initiate this trend, nor do they

account for 100% of its recent persistence. Convictions
for unlawful entry jumped by an unprecedented
margin from 2003 to 2004, spiking approximately
386% from 3,580 to 17,386.lxx A staggering 97.7%
of this conviction increase occurred in the Texas
Southern District, amounting to a 4,424% expansion
of its caseload for 8 U.S.C. § 1325 (See Table 1).
Year

1325 Convictions by District
All

TX-Southern

2003

3,580

305

2004

17,386

13,797

Table 1. 1325 Convictions by District, 2003 and 2004.
*Data from TRAC at Syracuse University

COURT COSTS

Court costs, while likely of considerable magnitude,
are much more difficult to calculate. Part of this
difficulty derives from a rather unapologetic lack of
transparency in the court system requiring formal
request letters to obtain dockets and billable hours
for attorneys and staff. Grassroots Leadership
sent several such requests for the purposes of this
publication and did not receive a single approval.
However, even if these requests had been granted,
another obstacle lies in determining the differential
costs specifically attributable to the expanded
immigrant docket. Each district court handles the
defense of its immigrant caseload with a different
attorney-client ratio and proportion of privately
contracted attorneys to Assistant Federal Public
Defenders (AFPDs), making for an extremely complex
cost calculation formula.
Still, a few data points hint at the big picture. According
to Heather Williams, an AFPD in Tucson, a total of
sixty-three Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel attorneys

and seven AFPDs split up the Tucson undocumented
immigrant caseload. With each privately contracted
CJA panel attorney receiving $125/hour for six billable
hours per day, Williams estimates a FY2011 expense
of $2.4 million in Tucson on these attorneys alone.
lxxi
In other courts, the CJA panel shoulders an even
larger portion of the Streamline burden. In El Paso, for
example, CJA attorneys represent 100% of the 8 U.S.C.
§ 1325 cases and are paid at the same $125/hour rate.
lxxii
In addition to wages, travel compensation tacks
on an extra expense, which represents an estimated
$1.2 million per year for court-appointed counsel
traveling between Tucson and Florence alone.
lxxiii
Where more cost effective measures are taken,
due process issues abound. Though due process
problems will be addressed in greater depth later in
this report, it suffices to say here that the assignment
of one attorney to represent up to eighty clients per
day in Laredo and Del Rio comes at the cost of proper
justice.lxxiv,lxxv

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

IMMIGRANT CRIMINALIZATION AS A NATIONWIDE TREND

In addition, the steadily rising tide of unauthorized

re-entry (8 U.S.C. § 1326) convictions in U.S. court
districts not bordering Mexico has contributed
a significant portion to nationwide immigrant
criminalization costs. Since 1995, over 18% of the
increase in unauthorized re-entry convictions
has come from non-Southwest-border districts.
lxxvi
As a result of recently implemented immigrantcrackdown programs like Secure Communities,

referral for unauthorized re-entry prosecution in
interior districts is becoming increasingly common.
From 2008 to 2011, non-Southwest-border districts
have seen more than double the increase of §1326
convictions than occurred from 2005 to 2008.lxxvii If
this trend persists and lengthy re-entry sentences
continue to be the norm, immigrant incarceration
costs in interior states could soon rival those on the
border.

FUNDING

with any expenditure of federal money, the
financial spigot can be turned on or off by Congress.
After his retirement in December of 2010, Federal
District Judge Ruben Castillo rhetorically posed the
political rationale which keeps the money flowing:
“Are we just running numbers so it appears we’re
doing more on immigration […] offenses or are we
doing anything worthwhile? My question would be
are we spending the money the right way, and there
I would have a lot of concerns.”lxxviii As Judge Castillo
suggests, the immigrant criminalization effort allows
presidential administrations, from Clinton to Bush
to Obama, to point to a specific and concerted
response. As an added advantage, the policy’s fiscally
crosscutting nature allows politicians to escape
budgetary scrutiny.
Although no single piece of legislation encompasses
the full cost of Operation Streamline, references to
the program may be found embedded in recent,
major budget increases for both Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice
(DOJ). The record-setting $45.1 billion FY2011 Senate
Appropriations Bill for Homeland Security, for example,
includes the following statement: “The Committee
supports Operation Streamline, a program in which
individuals apprehended crossing the Southwest
border are sentenced by a judge to serve a period
of time in jail.”lxxix DHS received an extra $1.8 billion
budget bump the following year to $46.9 billion, and
the fact that Secretary of Homeland Security Janet

Napolitano publicly declared Operation Streamline
to be “a very expensive program” points to the role of
immigrant criminalization in this increase. lxxx,lxxxi
The Department of Justice has secured Streamline
funding through various mechanisms. In the
DOJ budget for FY2008, Congress commended
“Operation Streamline [as] a highly effective law
enforcement operation,” provided an extra $7 million
for U.S. Attorneys due to “increased immigration
enforcement actions,” and requested that DOJ report
back with the costs of implementing programs
“identical to Operation Streamline in all districts
along the U.S.-Mexico border.”lxxxii Two years later in
August of 2010, a border security bill passed awarding
$196 million to pay for Assistant U.S. Attorneys, legal
expenses, and immigrant prison facilities.lxxxiii In
2011, Judge Julia Gibbons of the United States Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently thanked the
House Appropriations Committee for “$20 million in
emergency funding […] provided over the last two
years,” as necessary for “address[ing], in the shortterm, our most urgent workload needs, particularly
along the Southwest Border.” lxxxiv

“Are we just running numbers so it appears we’re doing
more on immigration […] offenses or are we doing
anything worthwhile? My question would be are we
spending the money the right way, and there I would
have a lot of concerns.”
-Retired Federal District Judge Ruben Castillo

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

THE FUTURE OF IMMIGRANT CRIMINALIZATION

If tough-on-immigration politicians have their way,

the cost of criminalizing people convicted of largely
non-violent immigration offenses could soon reach
even more alarming levels. In April of last year, Arizona
Senators McCain and Kyl introduced the “Border
Enforcement Act of 2011,” which lays out a fiveyear plan to spend a total of $250 million to expand
Operation Streamline and another $20 million to
construct new federal courthouses to handle an
increased caseload driven by more immigrant
prosecutions the immigrant caseload.lxxxv A similar
but more ambitious bill in 2008 proposed to allocate
$5 billion for full implementation of Operation
Streamline along the Southwest border through
2018.lxxxvi In 2010, Senators McCain and Kyl also
attempted to include $200 million for the expansion
of Streamline in an emergency appropriations bill,
but the Senate rejected the amendment.lxxxvii

“[If Operation Streamline were fully implemented], you
would take the resources now, for the entire country, and
just double it, and put that in Arizona.”

-Judge John Roll of the United States District Court for
the District of Arizona (1947-2011)

The stated objective of zero-tolerance immigrant
criminalization policies, to achieve a 100% criminal
referral rate of undocumented immigrants, comes at
an excessive and unsustainable cost to the American
taxpayer. Before the tragic death of Arizona Federal
Judge John Roll, he explained that such a development
would lead to an outrageous reallocation of
resources such that, “You would take the resources
now, for the entire country, and just double it, and
put that in Arizona.”lxxxviii With annual immigrant
incarceration costs climbing by over fourteen
times their 1994 levels to in excess of $1 billion, the
current trend already depletes federal resources at
an astounding rate.lxxxix Further measures in support
of immigrant criminalization, whether aimed at the
border or at nation’s interior, would exacerbate these
expenses and thereby deepen the federal deficit.
Given the illusory nature of the deterrence effect
used to justify policies like Operation Streamline (an
aspect that will be explored later in this report), any
immigrant criminalization effort in fact represents
a waste of resources, especially at the colossal and
unprecedented levels that the U.S. government is
pursuing today.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Overwhelming the Courts
OVERVIEW
2004 and 2010, federal magistrate judges presiding
over border district courts in both these states
witnessed their misdemeanor immigration caseloads
swell to more than double their size, from 26,092 to
55,604.xcv

Figure 3. Criminal immigration convictions, 1994-2010.

Operation Streamline has left an indelible mark and

heavy burden on the U.S. federal court system—
specifically border district courthouses—and the
future promises to bring more of the same. Since its
implementation in 2005, the number of unauthorized
entry and unauthorized re-entry convictions has
jumped a remarkable 159%, an increase that has
significantly impacted and overwhelmed Texas’ and
Arizona’s border district courthouses.xc As the figures
suggest, the ramping up of Operation Streamline
has continued under the Obama administration.
In fact, unauthorized re-entry cases have grown in
number by more than two-thirds since 2008.xci The
U.S. Bureau of Justice announced that immigration
violations were the fastest growing federal offenses,
noting that the number of cases increased an average
rate of 23% annually nationally between 2005 and
2009.xcii Another source estimated that immigration
offenses made up approximately 54% of the total
federal prosecutions nationwide in 2009.xciii

In Arizona, an increasingly popular site for immigrant
crossings within the last decade and half, federal
courthouses have been flooded with these petty
immigration cases. Approximately one out of every
five prosecutions filed nationwide in 2011 were
brought before an Arizona judge; and of these
federal cases 84.5% were immigration related.xcvi
Such drastic changes become all the more evident
when examining Tucson’s U.S. district courthouse.
Before 2008, this particular sector prosecuted 40
unauthorized entry and re-entry cases per day.xcvii
Now the number of immigration cases on the court’s
dockets is almost double. At least 70 individuals
currently line up daily before one of Tucson’s federal
magistrate judges, and there are aspirations to
increase this number to 100 per day.xcviii
The number of unauthorized entry and re-entry cases
presented before Texas’ Western and Southern U.S.
district courts has grown similarly. Re-entry cases
in the two Texas border districts grew from 2,842 in
2004 to a peak of more than 9,000 in 2010.xcix Entry
cases in the two districts similarly rose from 15,463 in
2004 to more than 26,000 in 2011. The peak of entry
prosecutions was in 2009 when the two districts

Ultimately, federal courthouses in two states – Arizona
and Texas - serve as the primary implementers of this
zero-tolerance immigration policy. Since 2009, Texas’
and Arizona’s federal courthouses have singularly
borne the burden of prosecuting more than half of
the nation’s annual federal prosecutions.xciv Between
Figure 4. Convictions for Illegal Reentry, 1995-2011.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

combined to prosecute more than nearly 38,000
migrants for unauthorized entry.c
Recent data also suggests that the Operation
Streamline approach to immigrant prosecution is
creeping beyond the Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico
border districts. From 2008 to 2011, unauthorized reentry convictions (8 U.S.C. § 1326) in court districts
not on the Southwest border increased by the
greatest margin of any four-year period in history.
ci
Non-border district courthouses, such as the one
located in Austin, have reported increased numbers
of immigration cases since 2006. The number of
unauthorized re-entry cases brought before Texas
non-border district courthouses increased by 26%
between 2004 and 2011.cii Programs like Secure

Communities that have resulted in more immigration
holds placed on immigrants in county jails have
contributed to this trend.
Although Latinos make up only 16% of the overall
U.S. population, they now represent more than
half of all individuals sentenced to federal prison.ciii
Immigration crimes are now the highest prosecuted
offense in the country, and over the past decade,
felony immigration crimes such as unauthorized
entry or re-entry led to an 87% increase in Latinos
sent to prison.civ The majority of these prisoners are
migrants coming from Mexico or Central America to
look for work or reunite with family, and they have no
prior criminal conviction.cv

THE EXPANSION OF JUDICIAL RESOURCES FAILS TO KEEP UP

For the judges, lawyers, and other staff embroiled

in the implementation of this policy, the sheer
number of cases flooding dockets in border district
courts presents a tremendous challenge. U.S.
district courthouses lack the resources to handle
the prosecution of these immigration offenses. This
is despite the fact that, as explored earlier in this
report, the Department of Homeland Security and
the Department of Justice have been funneling an
impressive amount of money each year into this
policy. Since its inception, Operation Streamline has
led to the creation of new magistrate judge positions
all along the border. The need for judges to preside
over these cases has become so dire that individual
judiciaries have called on formally retired magistrate
judges to become active again.cvi
Yet, in spite of these efforts to obtain more judges, a
shortage persists. As the United States Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals Judge Julia Gibbons explained
in a 2011 statement, “five out of 94 federal judicial
districts nationwide are handling 41 percent of all
federal criminal cases.”cvii The expectation that five
courthouses could handle 41% of all the nation’s
federal criminal cases at an acceptable standard
of justice is unrealistic. The number of Assistant
Federal Public Defenders in U.S. border districts has
also swelled over the years as a result of Operation
Streamline, and still, the unauthorized entry and re-

entry deluge begs a greater devotion of resources. In
November of 2011, the Office of the Federal Public
Defender in Austin estimated spending 95% of its
time working unauthorized re-entry cases, despite
adding two additional federal defenders.cviii Five
years prior, reentry cases represented only 50% of the
Public Defender caseload in Austin. Another Assistant
Federal Public Defender in Laredo determined that
unauthorized reentry cases made up approximately
75% of his total felony suits.cix
The overwhelming numbers of immigration cases
flooding border district courthouses have exhausted
many of the individuals working in these districts.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts echoed
this reality in an official statement in July of 2008.
According to officials, recruitment and retention
of court employees had become increasingly
challenging because “many employees at border
locations are experiencing burnout due to the
nature and sheer volume of the work.”cx In Laredo,
the Federal Public Defenders’ office attempts to
combat burnout by rotating the attorneys assigned
to Operation Streamline cases on a monthly basis.cxi
Prosecuting attorneys also struggle with the tedious
and defeating nature of Streamline. “A lot of the guys
I work with,” explains one federal prosecutor, “did
nothing but the most complex cases — taking down
multi generational crime families, international crime,

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

drug trafficking syndicates — you know, big fish. Now
these folks are dealing with these improper entry and
illegal reentry cases.” He continues, “It’s demoralizing
for them, and us.”cxii Many public defenders, judges,

pretrial and probation officers share these same
sentiments, claiming that Operation Streamline
restricts them to working these relatively banal cases.

DE-PRIORITIZING MORE SERIOUS SECURITY THREATS

Federal

resources have been redirected into
supporting and funding Operation Streamline since
2005. Since that time, the number of serious drug
and gun charges along the border has significantly
declined. Between 2005 and 2009, the rate of
weapons prosecutions declined 15%.cxiii As the
Assistant U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson of Las Cruces
explains, “Because of the [immigration] caseload,
we can’t always be as proactive as we’d like to be
because we’re so busy being reactive. [Drug and
human trafficking] cases do exist. […] Would I like to
spend a lot more time trying to work up the ladder

to [drug and human trafficking] organizations? Most
definitely.”cxiv Unfortunately, Operation Streamline
strips Assistant U.S. Attorneys of the power to
prosecute the crimes they deem pressing. Instead of
targeting drug cartel activity, human smuggling, and
violent crimes, the policies of the U.S. Department
of Justice and Homeland Security oblige the federal
courts to focus on unauthorized entry and reentry
cases.cxv Immigration cases made up 36% of all
criminal prosecutions nationwide in 2011, surpassing
drug and fraud prosecutions combined. cxvi

PUSHING THE LIMITS OF DUE PROCESS

In order to process the thousands of immigration

cases filed on a weekly basis, southwest border
district courts apply an inferior standard of due
process to those charged with immigration offenses.
The enormous case volume and limited resources
yields a deficient system of justice that undermines
the legitimacy of the U.S. court system and fails to
guarantee defendants their fundamental rights.
The expedited procedure combines arraignment,
plea, and sentencing hearings into one court
appearance, churning out groups of ten or more
immigrants at a time.cxvii In Tucson, Magistrate
Judge Bernardo Velasco regularly processes seventy
Operation Streamline defendants in roughly forty
minutes.cxviii Due to the mechanical nature of the
proceedings, several magistrate judges have casually
referred to Streamline hearings as “assembly-line
justice.”cxix
In December of 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals addressed one of the most obvious due
process violations that had been standard Operation

Streamline procedure up until that point. Prior to
the ruling, groups of up to fifty defendants entered
pleas simultaneously by saying the word “guilty” all
at once.cxx In the opinion, Senior Ninth District Judge
John T. Noonan aptly pointed out that “no judge,
however alert, could tell whether every single person
in a group of 47 or 50 affirmatively answered their
questions” and that consequently, en-masse guilty
pleas violated the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
cxxi
In light of the decision, the Tucson court now
requires all defendants to enter pleas individually,
but many important due process concerns remain.
One such concern involves the right to counsel. The
Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees
the assistance of counsel to the accused in all criminal
prosecutions, and Strickland v. Washington (1986)
expounds upon this right by declaring that the
performance of counsel meet an objective standard
of adequacy. Due to the swiftness with which these
cases are moved through courts, legal representation
for defendants often falls short of this standard. In
most cases, Operation Streamline defendants are

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

only privy to brief meetings with attorneys, and
the volume of clients for Assistant Federal Public
Defenders (AFPDs) is such that representation
unfortunately becomes a matter of routine rather
than personalized defense.
Many public defenders recognize this due process
issue but are forced to handle the immense caseload
as adequately as possible with limited staff. For the
Office of the Federal Public Defender in Laredo, that
means meeting with anywhere from 20 to 75 clients
in a span of just two hours.cxxii On Mondays, that
number is regularly at 75, leaving each defendant less
than two minutes to meet with a public defender.cxxiii
In border district courts where privately contracted
Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel attorneys share the
burden alongside AFPDs, the length of time that
attorneys have to meet with clients is only marginally
better. In Del Rio, attorneys usually meet with about
80 clients over eight hours, leaving only ten minutes
to meet with each Streamline defendant.cxxiv At most,
as in El Paso and Tucson, defendants receive about
thirty minutes with an attorney.cxxv

clients individually, resulting in violations of attorneyclient confidentiality.cxxvi In addition, clients that may
have legitimate claims to citizenship or asylum are
easily overlooked because of the time constraints. The
complex process of determining a citizenship claim
can take considerable time, and often defendants
with citizenship are unaware of their status.cxxvii
Despite these and several other viable defenses, 99%
of Operation Streamline defendants plead guilty.cxxviii
Violations of the Fourth Amendment, which guards
against unreasonable searches and seizures and
requires that warrants be sanctioned by judges and
supported by probable cause, also abound. Many
defendants are arrested and held in detention for
longer than 48 hours without a probable cause
determination or initial court appearance. In a
2010 investigation by the Warren Institute, several
defendants in Del Rio waited as many as 12 days
before receiving probable cause determinations and
14 days before appearing in court.cxxix In other cases,
defense attorneys discover clients to be juveniles
after sentencing has already occurred.cxxx

As a result of the remarkable attorney-client
imbalance, lawyers are not always able to counsel

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Addressing the Arguments for
Operation Streamline
Proponents

of Operation Streamline, including
politicians and those representing agencies involved,
have argued that the program deters immigrants
from re-entering the country once they have a
criminal conviction. According to its supporters,
the program serves as an important part amongst a
host of tough-on-immigration provisions that would
create a climate so inhospitable that undocumented
migrants will not attempt to enter the country and
will leave if already here. Secure Communities, an
already implemented program, uses a fingerprint-

sharing database to identify non-citizens with civil
immigration violations or criminal histories. Secure
Communities often leads to the placement of
detainers on immigrants in county jails. Proposed
policies include revoking automatic citizenship for
children of undocumented immigrants and seizing
assets of deported immigrants to reduce incentives
to return. In addition to the deterrence argument,
proponents also argue that Streamline frees up
government resources that may be aimed at more
serious criminal activity.

STREAMLINE AS DETERRENT TO UNAUTHORIZED MIGRATION

In Congress, proponents on both sides of the political

aisle have backed Streamline. Congressman Henry
Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas and a veteran member
of the House Committee on Homeland Security,
recently expressed his approval for the policy, saying,
“I think people coming across should understand that
there are some repercussions rather than just getting
slapped on the hand and sent back right away.”cxxxi
Andrew Wilder, Communications Director for Senator
Jon Kyl, has even gone as far as leading an initiative
to achieve 100% criminal referral rates, which he has
stated “would have drastic and immediate effects for
decreasing the flow of traffic in the Tucson sector.”cxxxii
Officials within the Department of Homeland Security
have made similar claims. In the words of Deputy
Chief Border Patrol Agent Dean Sinclair, “Operation

Streamline was developed [...] using existing laws,
policies and procedures — to put a deterrence effect
into the mindset of the economic aliens coming
across, hoping to deter those crossings.”cxxxiii
Despite the aforementioned claims, decades of
research and testimony from immigrants indicate
that enforcement measures play a minimal role
in deterring future crossings. Instead, data and
testimony suggest that 1) flow of migration is largely
dictated by economic climate in the United States, 2)
enforcement measures including incarceration do not
act as a deterrent, and 3) immigration enforcement
programs like Streamline often become their own
end and can be counter-productive.

MIGRATION DICTATED BY ECONOMICS

Most data and qualitative research demonstrates

that migration is largely dictated by economic
climate, not enforcement mechanisms. Even the
Department of Homeland Security admits, “the
decrease in apprehensions between 2005 and 2010

may be due to a number of factors including changes
in U.S. economic conditions.”cxxxiv
Economists
recognize that the strongest correlation with flows
of Mexican migration is demand from the U.S. labor
market. They point to the slowing of migration that

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

began in 2006, at the beginning of the housing
downturn, which particularly affected the availability
of construction jobs.cxxv Economist Scott Borger
found that the disparity in economic health between
Mexico and the United States was the primary driver
of migration. Previous studies found immigration
flows to be largely responsive to the real wage in
the United States.cxxxvi Quantitative researchers find
similar results. When researchers at the University of
California, San Diego interviewed Mexican migrants
between 2005 and 2009, they found the primary
factors deterring border crossings were the increased
cost of crossing the border along with the current
state of the U.S. economy.cxxxvii

Figure 4. Annual immigration flows and U.S. unemployment rate, 1994-2011.

CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS AND INCARCERATION NOT A DETERRENT

Government proponents of Streamline argue that

the program serves as a deterrent to unauthorized
entry, claiming that few of those convicted try to
cross the border again and pointing to the decrease
in the total number of people being apprehended
crossing without authorization.cxxxviii Yet a majority
of immigrants point to factors other than criminal
prosecution or serving time in prison as factors
in determining whether to cross. In one study,
immigrants reported that “extreme climate,” “border
patrol,”“gangs,” and “not find(ing) work” were far more
likely than “being incarcerated” as a concern about
clandestine entry.cxxxix
In fact, many migrants caught in Streamline
proceedings may not understand the impact of
criminal proceedings versus civil immigration
proceedings. According to Federal Public Defenders,
many unauthorized migrants “cannot begin to grasp
how it will affect them in the longer term because
they do not …. understand the concept of bars
to reentry or what it means to be charged with a
misdemeanor or a felony in the United States.”cxl
Furthermore, incarceration does not seem to deter
migrants from attempting re-entry. In one empirical
study conducted by National Public Radio for its series
on Streamline, 85% of prosecuted migrants said they
would cross again. This is a much higher percentage

than the government’s claim of 20% recidivism.cxli
Legal professionals agree, arguing that if migrants are
prepared to risk death crossing remote desert regions,
federal prison time is probably little deterrent.cxlii At
a sentencing hearing in November 2011, U.S. Federal
District Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District
of Texas proclaimed, “This court has yet to find an
adequate sentence that will act as a deterrent for
those reentering the country illegally.”cxliii El Paso’s
U.S. Magistrate Judge Norbert Garney expressed
this notion with even stronger language: “Does it
(Streamline) discourage people from crossing the
border? Of course it doesn’t. Ten to 14 days [in jail]
is a small price to pay for the opportunity to double,
triple or even quadruple your income and start a
better life for your family.”cxliv

“This court has yet to find an adequate sentence that
will act as a deterrent for those reentering the country
illegally.”
-Judge Lee Yeakel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

STREAMLINE DETRACTS FROM MORE SERIOUS CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS

Operation

Streamline supporters also argued
that the program allows government agents to
concentrate on more serious crime. Homeland
Security spokesperson Matt Chandler made the case
that, “Streamline frees up our officers and agents
at the border to focus on interdicting transnational
criminal operations [that] are attempting to smuggle
illicit goods across the southwest border.”cxlv
However, evidence shows that Operation Streamline
may actually achieve the opposite effect, draining
resources from programs dedicated to detecting and
prosecuting more serious crimes. As demonstrated
in a previous section of this report, prosecutions of
more serious drug and gun crimes have declined
in border regions where immigration prosecutions
have surged.cxlvi The National Immigration Forum
found that between 2003 and 2008 prosecutions of
white-collar crime, weapons, organized crime, public
corruption, and drug prosecutions all fell between
14% and 20% as federal immigration charges
surged.cxlvii In Arizona, per capita prosecutions
for unauthorized entry skyrocketed from 2005 to
2010 while drug trafficking and alien smuggling

prosecutions declined.cxlviii In contrast the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California
has retained a discretionary approach to immigration
offenses and the opposite trend is occurring. There,
low-level immigration convictions have fallen since
2008 alongside increases in drug trafficking and alien
smuggling cases.cxlix
Many within the judicial community publicly have
called into question the policy’s effectiveness.
Among them is Arizona’s Federal Defender Heather
Williams who has called the program “one of the
least successful, but most costly and time consuming
ways of discouraging [illegal] entries and reentries.”cl
In fact, several federal public defenders went so
far as to argue that Border Patrol has boosted its
apprehension numbers by arresting departing
immigrants heading back to Mexico.cli Former U.S.
Attorney for the Southern California District, Carol
Lam argued that Streamline prosecutions “drove the
statistics” but that diverting prosecutorial resources
away from more serious crimes involving wiretaps
and money laundering statutes was “not good law
enforcement.”clii

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Recommendations
Operation Streamline and related programs have

dramatically expanded the criminal prosecutions
of immigrants charged with unlawful entry or
reentry into the United States, offenses generally
handled within the civil immigration system before
the program’s inception. The program has swelled
federal prisons and been devastating on immigrant
communities. Latinos now represent more than half
of all individuals sentenced to federal prison despite
making up only 16% of the total U.S. population.

The result has greatly benefited private prison
corporations including Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA) and GEO Group. Despite its human
and financial cost considerable support for Operation
Streamline persists behind a belief in the efficacy of a
deterrence mindset. However, decades of research
indicate that economic conditions, not harsher
criminal penalties, have led to recent declines in
migration.

The following are recommendations derived from the findings of this report:
1) End the practice of prosecuting immigration offenses in criminal court.
The administration should end the widespread practice of prosecuting the immigration offenses of unauthorized
entry and re-entry in the criminal justice system. Instead, officials should rely on the civil immigration system to
process those apprehended on immigration charges, whether at the border or in the nation’s interior.

2) Balance criminal prosecutions for immigration with priorities for reducing non-violent incarcerated
population.
The Obama administration has identified a goal of reducing the federal prison population, particularly nonviolent offenders, by expanding re-entry programs and through a “smarter allocation of resources for crime
prevention and public safety.”cliii The increasing numbers of immigrants incarcerated solely for entering the
country without documentation directly counters that stated goal.

3) Use discretion to mitigate impact of immigration prosecutions.
Short of ending prosecutions for unauthorized entry and re-entry entirely, the Obama administration can use
discretion to reduce the number of migrants criminally prosecuted for immigration offenses. The administration
could restore the U.S. Attorney’s discretion in border districts to initiate prosecutions for entry cases as they see
fit, rather than the current policy of across-the-board prosecutions. In the Southern District of California for
example, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has retained discretion and does not prosecute every border crosser, leading
to dramatically fewer prosecutions than in Streamline-districts.cliv Furthermore, the administration should stop
the increasingly widespread practice of referring those apprehended internally for re-entry prosecutions.

4) Stop expansion of private prisons and federal detention centers.
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) should immediately halt plans to expand Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR)
contracted prison facilities. The Department of Justice should institute a review of all BOP and U.S. Marshals
Service (USMS) - contracted private prisons.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

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ii.

iii.

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“Aarti Kohli – Operation Streamline: Assembly-Line Justice at the Border.”
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Lemons, Stephen. Phoenix New Times: “Grinding Justice: Operation
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See Appendix D.

xv.

Criminal Alien Requirement 12. Federal Business Opportunities, Solicitation
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xviii.

Appendix A.

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Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Border Convictions: High Stakes, Unknown Price.”
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U.S. Courts. “Statement of the Honorable Julia S. Gibbons, Chair
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xxiv.

Aldridge, Horatio, David Peterson, and José Gonzalez-Falla. Personal
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xxv.

Appendix B.

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Associated Press. “More Hispanics go to federal prison.” June 4, 2011.
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xxvii.

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& Diversity: “Assembly-Line Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline.”
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xxviii.

Hicken, Jonathan, Mollie Cohen, and Jorge Narvaez. “Double Jeopardy:
How U.S. Enforcement Policies Shape Tunkaseño Migration.” In Mexican
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“U.S. Border Patrol Fiscal Year Apprehension Statistics.” December, 2011.
<http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/
usbp_statistics/25_10_app_stats.ctt/25_11_app_stats.pdf>.

xxix.

Ibid.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

xxx.

Borger, Scott. Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD:
“Estimates of the Cyclical Inflow of Undocumented Migrants to the
United States.” August 2009. <http://ccis.ucsd.edu/2009/10/estimatesof-the-cyclical-inflow-of-undocumented-migrants-to-the-united-statesworking-paper-181/>. See also: Passel, Jeffrey and Roberto Suro. “Rise,
Peak, and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration: 1992—2004.” Washington,
DC: Pew Hispanic Research Center, 2005. <http://www.ilw.com/
articles/2005,1205-passel.pdf>.

xxxi.

Federal Sentencing Hearing. November 21, 2011. Austin U.S. Courthouse,
Austin, TX.

xxxii.

Appendix A.

xxxiii.

Appendix A.

xxxiv.

Appendix B

xxxv.

Paul, John. Assistant Federal Public Defender. Personal Interview. January
30, 2012.

xxxvi.

Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

xxxvii.

Aldridge, Horatio, David Peterson, and José Gonzalez-Falla. Personal
Interview. November 17, 2011.

liii.

BOP Weekly Population Report. <http://www.bop.gov/locations/weekly_
report.jsp>.

liv.

lv.

Raher v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 09-CV-536-ST (D. Or., filed May 13,
2009). Page 227-28.

lvi.

Tom Barry, A Death in Texas: Profits, Poverty, and Immigration Converge,
THE BOSTON REVIEW, Nov.-Dec.

lvii.

2009, available at http://bostonreview.net/BR34.6/barry.php.

lviii.

Gambino, Lauren. News21: “Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before
Deporting Them.” <http://asu.news21.com/2010/prosecuting-illegalimmigrants/>.

lix.

Federal Register. Notice of Intent To Prepare a Draft Environmental Impact
Statement. December 29, 2010. < http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR2010-12-29/html/2010-32317.htm>/

lx.

GEO Group, 2009 Q2 Conference Call (2009), transcript available at
<http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?Fetch
FilingHtmlSection1?SectionID=6739202-51403-101292&SessionID=YBcHjnBP1BPPs7>.

lxi.

Corrections Corporation of America Press Release, June 1, 2011. <http://
www.cca.com/newsroom/news-releases/256/>

lxii.

Lappin, Harely G., Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
Statement before the U.S. Sentencing Comm. (Mar. 17, 2011)
<http://www.ussc.gov/Legislative_and_Public_Affairs/Public_
Hearings_and_Meetings/20110317/Testimony_BOP_Lappin.pdf
>.
See also: Gaming the System: How the Political Strategies of Private Prison
Companies Promote Ineffective Incarceration Policies. Justice Policy
Institute. June 2011. <http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/
documents/gaming_the_system.pdf>.

lxiii.

See Appendix A. This figure and other incarceration costs mentioned in
this publication were obtained using the Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Annual costs were calculated by
multiplying unlawful entry and re-entry convictions by average sentence
lengths for each of those offenses by lead charge, then multiplying that
figure by the U.S. Marshals per-diem paid, available at <http://www.
justice.gov/ofdt/perdiem-paid.htm>. It is assumed that the U.S. Marshals
per-diem paid closely resembles that of the Bureau of Prisons.

lxiv.

Order, U.S. v. Ordones-Soto, No. A-09-CR-590-SS (W.D. Tex. Feb. 5, 2010).
<http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/statesman/pdf/02/0206sparks.pdf>.

lxv.

Lydgate, Joanna. The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity
& Diversity: “Assembly-Line Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline.”
January 2010. <www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Operation_Streamline_
Policy_Brief.pdf>. Page 16.

lxvi.

Ibid.

lxvii.

Appendix A

lxviii.

National Immigration Forum. “The Math of Immigration Detention.”
August 2011. <http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/
MathofImmigrationDetention.pdf>

lxix.

Appendix A

lxx.

Ibid.

lxxi.

Williams, Heather. “Operation Streamline Estimated Costs - FY 2011.”
Obtained via email on December 26, 2011.

lxxii.

lxxiii.

Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit. In Re: Approval of the Judicial
Emergency Declared in the District of Arizona. March 2, 2011. <http://
caselaw.findlaw.com/9th-circuit-judicial-council/1557944.html>.

xxxviii. Federal Sentencing Hearing. November 21, 2011. Austin U.S. Courthouse,
Austin, TX.
xxxix.

Office of Management and Budget. “Budget of the United States
Government, Fiscal Year 2013: Department of Justice.” February 13, 2012.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/
assets/justice.pdf>.

xl.

Appendix A.

xli.

Taken from CCA per-diem profit margin in 2011 (available at Corrections
Corporation of America. “Form 10-K: Annual report pursuant to section 15
and 13(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.” Filed on February 27,
2012. <http://ir.correctionscorp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=117983&p=irol-SE
CText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2lyLmludC53ZXN0bGF3YnVzaW5lc3MuY29tL2R
vY3VtZW50L3YxLzAwMDExOTMxMjUtMTItMDgxMTIyL3htbA%3d%3d>.)
and current BOP Weekly Population Report (available at <http://www.bop.
gov/locations/weekly_report.jsp>.)

xlii.

Appendix D

xliii.

Ibid.

xliv.

Ibid.

xlv.

Ibid.

xlvi.

Ibid.

xlvii.

Corrections Corporation of America. “2005 Annual Report.”
< h t t p : / / p h x . c o r p o r a t e - i r. n e t / E x t e r n a l . Fi l e ? i t e m = U G Fy Z W 5
0 S U Q 9 M Tg 3 M D V 8 Q 2 h p b G R J R D 0 t M X x U e X B l P T M = & t = 1 > .
And: Corrections Corporation of America. “Form 10-K: Annual report
pursuant to section 15 and 13(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.”
Filed on February 27, 2012. <http://ir.correctionscorp.com/phoenix.
zhtml?c=117983&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2lyLmludC53ZXN0b
GF3YnVzaW5lc3MuY29tL2RvY3VtZW50L3YxLzAwMDExOTMxMjUtMTItM
DgxMTIyL3htbA%3d%3d>.

xlviii.

BOP PS 5100.08, Ch. 5, p. 9 (2006) (“Inmate Security Designation and
Custody Classification”).

xlix.

Nora V. Demleitner, “Terms of Imprisonment: Treating the Noncitizen
Offender Equally,” Fed. Sentencing Reporter Vol. 21 No. 3, 174 (February
2009)

Aldridge, Horatio, David Peterson, and José Gonzalez-Falla. Assistant
Federal Public Defenders. Personal Interview. November 17, 2011.

li.

Average Daily Population. The United States Department of Justice: Office
of the Federal Detention Trustee. <

lii.

“Another Day in Operation Streamline.” The Sonoran Chronicle. September
23, 2011. <http://sonoranchronicle.com/2011/09/23/another-day-inoperation-streamline/>.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

lxxiv.

Visit to United States Federal Courthouse, Fifth District. Federal Magistrate
Judge Diana Song Quiroga, Laredo, Texas. January 30, 2012.

lxxv.

lxxvi.

Appendix B.

lxxvii.

Ibid.

lxxviii.

Associated Press. “More Hispanics go to federal prison.” June 4, 2011.
<http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-06-04-immigrationhispanic-offenders-federal-prison_n.htm>.

lxxix.

Senate Bill S. 3607 (S.Rpt. 111-222): “Department of Homeland Security
Appropriations Bill, 2011.” July 19,2010. <http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/
CRPT-111srpt222/pdf/CRPT-111srpt222.pdf>.

lxxx.

lxxxi.

S. Rept. 112-74 - DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS
BILL, 2012. < http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-112srpt74/html/CRPT112srpt74.htm>.
Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Border Convictions: High Stakes, Unknown Price.”
September 14, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129829950>.

lxxxii.

153 Cong. Rec. H15741 - House of Representatives. <http://www.gpo.gov/
fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-12-17/html/CREC-2007-12-17-pt2-PgH15741.htm>.

lxxxiii.

Huey-Burns, Caitlin. US News & World Report: “Senate Passes $600 million
dollar border security package.” August 12, 2010. <http://www.usnews.
com/news/articles/2010/08/12/senate-passes-600-million-bordersecurity-package>.

lxxxiv.

lxxxv.

H.R. 1507 (ih) - Border Security Enforcement Act of 2011. April 13, 2011.
<http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1507ih/html/BILLS112hr1507ih.htm>

lxxxvi.

S. 2709 (PCS) - Border Crossing Deterrence Act of 2008. March 5, 2008.
<http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110s2709pcs/html/BILLS110s2709pcs.htm>.

lxxxvii. Gambino, Lauren. News21: “Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before
Deporting Them.” <http://asu.news21.com/2010/prosecuting-illegalimmigrants/>.
lxxxviii. Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Border Convictions: High Stakes, Unknown Price.”
September 14, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129829950>.
lxxxix.

Appendix A

xc.

See Appendix A. Since 1994, 8 U.S.C. § 1325 or 1326 convictions have risen
by an astounding 2366%.

xci.

Cave, Damien. New York Times: “Crossing Over and Over.” October 3,
2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/world/americas/mexicanimmigrants-repeatedly-brave-risks-to-resume-lives-in-united-states.
html?_r=1&ref=americas>.

xcii.

“Federal Total Immigration Arrests Increased Between 2005 and 2009”
Bureau of Justice Statistics. December 21, 2011. <http://bjs.gov/content/
pub/press/fjs09pr.cfm>.

xciii.

Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. “FY 2009
Federal Prosecutions Sharply Higher:

xciv.

Surge Driven by Steep Jump in Immigration Filings.” December 21, 2009.
<http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/223/>.

xcv.

xcvi.

Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. “Arizona
Federal Prosecutions Driven to Record Highs.” August 17, 2010. <http://
trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/236/>.

xcvii.

Hsu, Spencer S. “Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High.” Washington
Post. June 2, 2008. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2008/06/01/AR2008060102192.html?referrer=emailarticle&sid=
ST2008060102603>.

xcviii.

Ibid.

xcix.

Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. “Illegal
Reentry Becomes Top Criminal Charge.” <http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/
reports/251/>. The number of re-entry cases in the two Texas border
districts actually declined in 2010 to 8,388.

Ibid.

ci.

Appendix B.

cii.

Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

ciii.

Associated Press. Garance Burke, “Hispanics new majority sentenced to
federal prison,” September 6, 2011

civ.

Syracuse
University:
Transactional
Records
Access
Clearinghouse.
“Illegal
Reentry
Becomes
Top
Criminal
Charge.”
<http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/251/>.
Also: Associated Press. “More Hispanics go to federal prison.” June 4,
2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-06-04-immigrationhispanic-offenders-federal-prison_n.htm>.

cv.

cvi.

cvii.

cviii.

Aldridge, Horatio, David Peterson, and José Gonzalez-Falla. Assistant
Federal Public Defenders. Personal Interview. November 17, 2011.

cix.

Paul, John. Assistant Federal Public Defender. Personal Interview. January
30, 2012.

cx.

cxi.

Paul, John. Assistant Federal Public Defender. Personal Interview. January
30, 2012.

cxii.

Moore, Solomon. New York Times: “Push on Immigration Crimes is Said
to Shift Focus.” January 11, 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/
us/12prosecute.html?pagewanted=all>.

cxiii.

Gambino, Lauren. News21: “Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before
Deporting Them.” <http://asu.news21.com/2010/prosecuting-illegalimmigrants/>.

cxiv.

cxv.

Ibid.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

cxvi.

cxxxv.

Suro, Roberto. PBS: “Obama’s Immigration Conundrum.” October 18,
2011.
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/race-multicultural/
lost-in-detention/roberto-suro-obamas-immigration-conundrum/?utm_
campaign=videoplayer&utm_medium=fullplayer&utm_
source=relatedlink>.

cxvii.

cxxxvi. Borger, Scott. Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD:
“Estimates of the Cyclical Inflow of Undocumented Migrants to the
United States.” August 2009. <http://ccis.ucsd.edu/2009/10/estimatesof-the-cyclical-inflow-of-undocumented-migrants-to-the-united-statesworking-paper-181/>

cxviii.

United States Federal Courthouse, Ninth District. Federal Magistrate Judge
Bernardo P. Velasco. Tucson, Arizona. April 9, 2012.

cxxxvii. UCSD Study (Mexican Migration and the U.S. Economic Crisis: A
Transnational Perspective) in Lydgate, 5

cxix.

cxxxviii. Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Border Patrol Program Raises Due Process Concerns.”
September 13, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129780261>.

cxx.

Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Border Patrol Program Raises Due Process Concerns.”
September 13, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129780261>.

cxxi.

cxxii.

Paul, John. Assistant Federal Public Defender. Personal Interview. January
30, 2012.

cxxiii.

cxxxix. Hicken, Jonathan, Mollie Cohen, and Jorge Narvaez. “Double Jeopardy:
How U.S. Enforcement Policies Shape Tunkaseño Migration.” In Mexican
Migration and the U.S. Economic Crisis: A Transnational Perspective, edited
by Wayne Cornelius et al., p 47-92. San Diego: Center For Comparative
Immigration Studies, 2010.
cxl.

cxli.

Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Claims of Border Program Success are Unproven.”
September 13, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129827870>.

Ibid.

cxlii.

Ibid.

cxxiv.

cxliii.

Federal Sentencing Hearing. November 21, 2011. Austin U.S. Courthouse,
Austin, TX.

cxxv.

Ibid.

cxliv.

cxxvi.

Gambino, Lauren. News21: “Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before
Deporting Them.” <http://asu.news21.com/2010/prosecuting-illegalimmigrants/>.

cxlv.

Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Claims of Border Program Success are Unproven.”
September 13, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129827870>.

cxxvii.

Paul, John. Assistant Federal Public Defender. Personal Interview. January
30, 2012.

cxlvi.

Gambino, Lauren. News21: “Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before
Deporting Them.” <http://asu.news21.com/2010/proseuting-illegalimmigrants/>.

cxlvii.

National Immigration Forum. “The cost of Operation Streamline.” December
2010
<http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/2010/
OperationStreamlineCosts.pdf>.

cxlviii.

cxlix.

Ibid. and Apendix B.

cl.

cli.

Ibid.

clii.

“Push on Immigration Crimes Is Said to Shift Focus”, Solomon Moore, New
York Times, January 11, 2009

cliii.

cliv.

cxxviii. Lydgate, Joanna. The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity
& Diversity: “Assembly-Line Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline.”
January 2010. <www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Operation_Streamline_
Policy_Brief.pdf>. Page 3.
cxxix.

Ibid. Page 15.

cxxx.

cxxxi.

Spagat, Elliot. “Border Patrol to get tough on repeat offenders.” Associated
Press. January 17, 2012. <http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/
border-patrol-to-get-tough-on-repeat-offenders-2108120.html>.

cxxxii.

Gambino, Lauren. News21: “Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before
Deporting Them.” <http://asu.news21.com/2010/prosecuting-illegalimmigrants/>.

cxxxiii. Robbins, Ted. NPR: “Border Patrol Program Raises Due Process Concerns”
September 13, 2010. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=129780261>.
cxxxiv. Sapp, Lesley. “Apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol: 2005-2010,”
Department of Homeland Security: Office of Immigration Statistics. July
2011.
<http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/oisapprehensions-fs-2005-2010.pdf>.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Appendix A: Immigration
Incarceration Costs
Tables 2 and 3 show estimated annual costs for incarceration for unlawful entry (1325) and re-entry (1326)

convictions. The figures were calculated by multiplying the number of convictions by average sentence lengths
for each of those offenses. Those figures were then multiplied by the U.S. Marshals per-diem paid. It is assumed
that the U.S. Marshals per diem paid resembles that of the Bureau of Prisons.
Source: Convictions and sentenced days from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse
University; U.S. Marshals per diem paid available at <http://www.justice.gov/ofdt/perdiem-paid.htm>
1325s

1326s

Convictions

Avg Sentence (Days)

Convictions

Avg Sentence (days)

Marshals Per-Diem
Paid

1994

443

180

2,462

510

$54.08

1995

726

120

3,137

600

$54.51

1996

525

3,581

780

$55.20

1997

755

4,069

810

$56.35

1998

2,574

210

5,339

900

$56.43

1999

4,181

300

5,794

1,110

$55.90

2000

3,464

360

6,618

1,020

$56.53

2001

3,245

300

7,037

990

$59.01

2002

2,940

330

7,775

900

$60.07

2003

3,580

330

10,332

840

$60.87

2004

17,386

9,556

810

$61.92

2005

16,237

11,457

750

$62.09

2006

13,634

15,066

660

$62.74

2007

13,534

14,010

630

$64.40

2008

44,888

19,186

510

$67.38

2009

55,813

25,027

450

$69.01

2010

43,852

31,802

390

$70.56

2011

38,602

33,044

390

$72.88

Year

Table 2. Immigration incarceration costs, 1994-2011.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Year

Incarceration Costs
1325s

1326s

Percent Increase
Total

1325s

1326s

13252+1326s

Cost

1994

$4,312,339.20

$67,903,929.60

$72,216,268.80

1995

$4,748,911.20

$102,598,722.00

$107,347,633.20

63.88%

27.42%

32.98%

48.65%

1996

$1,738,800.00

$154,183,536.00

$155,922,336.00

-27.69%

14.15%

6.29%

45.25%

1997

$2,552,655.00

$185,723,401.50

$188,276,056.50

43.81%

13.63%

17.49%

20.75%

1998

$30,502,672.20

$271,151,793.00

$301,654,465.20

240.93%

31.21%

64.03%

60.22%

1999

$70,115,370.00

$359,511,906.00

$429,627,276.00

62.43%

8.52%

26.06%

42.42%

2000

$70,495,171.20

$381,597,850.80

$452,093,022.00

-17.15%

14.22%

1.07%

5.23%

2001

$57,446,235.00

$411,100,836.30

$468,547,071.30

-6.32%

6.33%

1.98%

3.64%

2002

$58,279,914.00

$420,339,825.00

$478,619,739.00

-9.40%

10.49%

4.21%

2.15%

2003

$71,911,818.00

$528,283,425.60

$600,195,243.60

21.77%

32.89%

29.84%

25.40%

2004

$96,888,700.80

$479,283,091.20

$576,171,792.00

385.64%

-7.51%

93.66%

-4.00%

2005

$60,489,319.80

$533,523,847.50

$594,013,167.30

-6.61%

19.89%

2.79%

3.10%

2006

$51,323,829.60

$623,858,954.40

$675,182,784.00

-16.03%

31.50%

3.63%

13.66%

2007

$52,295,376.00

$568,413,720.00

$620,709,096.00

-0.73%

-7.01%

-4.03%

-8.07%

2008

$90,736,603.20

$659,303,866.80

$750,040,470.00

231.67%

36.95%

132.62%

20.84%

2009

$115,549,653.90

$777,200,971.50

$892,750,625.40

24.34%

30.44%

26.17%

19.03%

2010

$92,825,913.60

$875,140,156.80

$967,966,070.40

-21.43%

27.07%

-6.42%

8.43%

2011

$84,399,412.80

$939,216,220.80

$1,023,615,633.60

-11.97%

3.91%

-5.30%

5.75%

Table 3. Annual immigrant incarceration costs and percent increase, 1994-2011.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Appendix B: 1325 and 1326
Convictions by Court District
1325 Convictions

1326 Convictions

Year

Zero-Tolerance Border
Districts

California
Southern
District

All Other
Districts
(Excluding US
Territories)

Zero-Tolerance Border
Districts

California
Southern
District

All Other
Districts
(Excluding US
Territories)

% Increase
of Non-SWBorder 1326
Convictions

% Increase
of SW-Border
District 1326
Convictions

2011

37,429

639

464

24,561

1,948

6,479

13.57%

2.04%

2010

42,378

921

472

24,272

1,708

5,705

6.80%

33.61%

2009

54,141

1,089

245

18,101

1,344

5,342

22.61%

31.45%

2008

42,068

2,150

642

14,232

561

4,357

17.00%

45.23%

2007

11,420

1,570

477

9,687

499

3,724

5.83%

-11.23%

2006

12,488

388

733

11,229

246

3,519

1.73%

44.94%

2005

14,801

487

902

7,527

390

3,459

2.76%

29.53%

2004

15,517

867

852

5,509

603

3,366

5.15%

-13.13%

2003

1,761

751

869

6,430

606

3,201

17.34%

41.12%

2002

1348

560

772

4,508

478

2,728

5.49%

14.20%

2001

1,496

490

803

3,764

602

2,586

11.75%

3.04%

2000

1,485

777

753

3,703

534

2,314

3.72%

20.68%

1999

2,062

857

870

3,115

396

2,231

18.86%

2.45%

1998

1414

303

552

2389

1,038

1,877

16.66%

40.97%

1997

396

191

946

1,485

1,609

23.01%

13.76%

1996

230

889

1,248

1,308

20.66%

6.00%

1995

265

112

428

1,588

1,084

Table 4. 1325 (unlawful entry) and 1326 convictions (re-entry) convictions in zero-tolerance districts vs California Southern District vs nonborder districts, 1995-2011
* Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Appendix C: Border Patrol
Apprehensions and
Unemployment Rate
U.S. Unemployment Rate
Year

CBP
Annual Apprehensions
Avg

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

1994

6.6

6.5

6.4

6.1

6.0

5.9

5.8

5.6

5.5

6.1

1,031,668

1995

5.6

5.4

5.8

5.6

5.7

5.6

5.5

5.6

1,324,202

1996

5.6

5.5

5.6

5.3

5.5

5.1

5.2

5.4

1,549,876

1997

5.3

5.2

5.1

4.9

5.0

4.9

4.8

4.9

4.7

4.6

4.7

4.9

1,412,953

1998

4.6

4.7

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.5

4.4

4.5

1,555,776

1999

4.3

4.4

4.2

4.3

4.2

4.3

4.2

4.1

4.0

4.2

1,579,010

2000

4.0

4.1

4.0

3.8

4.0

4.1

3.9

4.0

1,676,438

2001

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.3

4.5

4.6

4.9

5.0

5.3

5.5

5.7

4.7

1,266,214

2002

5.7

5.9

5.8

5.7

5.9

6.0

5.8

955,310

2003

5.8

5.9

6.0

6.1

6.3

6.2

6.1

6.0

5.8

5.7

6.0

931,557

2004

5.7

5.6

5.8

5.6

5.5

5.4

5.5

5.4

5.5

1,160,395

2005

5.3

5.4

5.2

5.1

5.0

4.9

5.0

4.9

5.1

1,189,075

2006

4.7

4.8

4.7

4.6

4.7

4.5

4.4

4.5

4.4

4.6

1,089,092

2007

4.6

4.5

4.4

4.5

4.4

4.6

4.7

4.6

4.7

5.0

4.6

876,704

2008

5.0

4.9

5.1

5.0

5.4

5.6

5.8

6.1

6.5

6.8

7.3

5.8

723,825

2009

7.8

8.3

8.7

8.9

9.4

9.5

9.6

9.8

10.0

9.9

9.3

556,041

2010

9.7

9.8

9.9

9.6

9.4

9.5

9.6

9.5

9.8

9.4

9.6

463,382

2011

9.1

9.0

8.9

9.0

9.1

9.0

8.9

8.7

8.5

9.0

340,252

Table 5. U.S. unemployment rate vs. Border Patrol apprehensions, 1994-2011
*Source: Border Patrol apprehensions from “United States Border Patrol Nationwide Illegal Alien Apprehensions Fiscal Years 1925 -2011” available
at <http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/usbp_statistics/25_10_app_stats.ctt/25_11_app_stats.pdf>;
Unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics available at <http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000>

Operation Streamline: Costs and Consquences

Appendix D: CCA and GEO Group
Revenues
The GEO Group, Inc.
Annual Federal Revenues

% Increase Federal
Revenues

$101,173,140

1.16%

$108,036,280

6.78%

$617,490,000

8.60%

$166,722,300

54.32%

2004

$593,994,000

-3.81%

$160,378,380

-3.81%

2005

$612,900,000

3.18%

$165,483,000

3.18%

2006

$860,882,000

40.46%

$266,873,420

61.27%

2007

$976,299,000

13.41%

$263,600,730

-1.23%

2008

$1,043,006,000

6.83%

$292,041,680

10.79%

2009

$1,141,090,000

9.40%

$353,737,900

21.13%

2010

$1,269,968,000

11.29%

$444,488,800

25.65%

2011

$1,612,899,000

27.00%

$645,159,600

45.15%

Annual Federal Revenues

% Increase Federal
Revenues

Year

Annual Revenue

2001

$562,073,000

2002

$568,612,000

2003

% Increase of Annual
Revenue

Table 6. The GEO Group, Inc revenues, 2001-2011
*Source: The GEO Group 10-K Reports, 2001-2001

Corrections Corporation of America
% Increase of Annual
Revenue

Year

Annual Revenue

2001

$936,353,000

$271,542,370

2002

$962,838,000

2.83%

$317,736,540

17.01%

2003

$1,007,607,000

4.65%

$382,890,660

20.51%

2004

$1,126,387,000

11.79%

$428,027,060

11.79%

2005

$1,192,640,000

5.88%

$465,129,600

8.67%

2006

$1,331,088,000

11.61%

$526,000,000

13.09%

2007

$1,403,252,000

5.42%

$593,600,000

12.85%

2008

$1,541,194,000

9.83%

$628,900,000

5.95%

2009

$1,628,893,000

5.69%

$656,200,000

4.34%

2010

$1,675,031,000

2.83%

$717,800,000

9.39%

2011

$1,735,613,000

3.62%

$749,300,000

4.39%

Table 6. Corrections Corporation of America revenues, 2001-2011
*Source: Corrections Corporation of America10-K Reports, 2001-2001

For more information, please contact Grassroots Leadership at:
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