J
JCesar
Guest
Illegal immigrants with prior records get a deal: shorter sentence, no trial
Thursday, September 9, 1999
By Mark Larabee of The Oregonian staff
Flabio Gaxiola-Plaza listened intently,
occasionally nodding as an interpreter
repeated a plea bargain read by U.S.
District Judge James A. Redden in
Portland.
Convicted on drug charges and deported to
Mexico in 1997, Gaxiola, 37, was in court
last week to plead guilty to once again
being in the United States illegally. He was
sentenced to serve two years and six
months in federal prison.
In exchange for the guilty plea, federal
prosecutors dropped a felony charge of
illegal re-entry, which has a maximum
sentence of 20 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine, though most who are
convicted serve five to seven years. After
about 15 minutes in court, Gaxiola was
handcuffed and led off through a side door,
where he began his journey into the federal
prison system.
The agreement was a good deal for Gaxiola
because it saved him lots of prison time,
said his attorney, Helen L. Cooper of
Salem. It was a good deal for the
government, too: It saved the expense of a
trial and sped the case through the court.
Arrangements such as this are called
"fast-tracking." Federal prosecutors in the
West and Southwest are fast-tracking
illegal immigrants aggressively as part of a
crackdown by the Clinton administration.
But whether fast-tracking is effective is up
for debate. Most prosecutors like it
because it dispenses with a lot of cases and
sends a message to repeat offenders that the
United States is no longer going to turn a
blind eye to convicts who have treated the
United States borders like a revolving
door.
But some defense attorneys see that as a
problem because, historically, such cases
haven't been prosecuted; the defendant has
simply been deported. Suddenly, the
penalties are severe.
And they say the law penalizes their clients
more harshly for the immigration crime on
the basis of their past offenses, for which
they have already served time. Steven Wax,
an attorney with the federal public
defender's office in Portland, said a
majority of the defendants in U.S. District
Court in Portland are charged with illegal
re-entry while they still are serving their
state prison sentences for drugs or other
felonies.
"It's a questionable use of scarce resources
of the criminal justice system to incarcerate
people for long periods of time in a federal
prison after they've completed their
sentence in a state prison," Wax said. "The
total cost to the country is in the millions of
dollars per year."
Although some defenders begrudge the law,
they say the program, as it plays out in
Oregon, works well for many defendants
who would otherwise be saddled with
tough sentences. They also realize that a
conviction, in most cases, is all but
guaranteed.
"What would your defense be?" said
Cooper, Gaxiola's lawyer. " 'I've been
deported once and here I am'? It's pretty
hard to defend."
Here's how it works in Oregon. Most
illegal re-entry defendants are offered a
standard deal -- 30 months -- to plead
guilty, and they usually do. More than 98
percent plead guilty before ever getting to
trial, according to the Department of
Justice. No litigation, no motions and no
appeals.
Nationally, convictions of previously
deported illegal immigrants with criminal
pasts jumped nearly sixfold between 1992
and 1997 -- to 2,859 from 477-- in part
because of spending increases for
immigration, customs and border patrol
agents, according to the federal Bureau of
Justice Statistics.
And there is another reason. "The INS has
been told: You generate these cases and
we'll do them. We've encouraged them by
creating the program," said Michael
Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney in
Portland.His office saw a 36 percent
increase in such cases filed between 1995
and 1998, and as of last week, it had filed
194 cases this year.
Gaxiola, a Mexican national, was arrested
in April by immigration agents at Portland
International Airport during an undercover
drug operation. He wasn't supposed to be
here. He was deported in 1997 after being
convicted in California for importing 92
kilograms of cocaine, his attorney said. No
drug charges were filed in his most recent
arrest.
He's the kind of criminal the government
wants to deter. "We're not after migrant
farm workers," Brown said. "This is about
drug trafficking at the heart of it. We're
after people with felony convictions."
But the practice has prompted debate in the
Justice Department. There is concern that
the department is treating the defendants as
a group rather than as individuals.
Some U.S. attorneys in the busiest districts
have decided not to offer any deals and
instead prosecute only the most egregious
cases to the full extent of the law. That
practice in Los Angeles resulted in a
lawsuit to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals by a man who said he should have
gotten the same deal as a defendant in San
Diego. A three-judge panel ruled in his
favor in April, and the Justice Department
has asked the full court to reconsider.
The practice of making standardized deals
is widely used for many types of crimes
depending on the region, said Jay
McCloskey, U.S. attorney for Maine and
chairman of Attorney General Janet Reno's
subcommittee on sentencing guidelines.
With the West and Southwest overloaded
with re-entry cases, the deals are a logical
way to handle them, he said. "Without some
sort of program for them to handle the cases
in the West, you'll have a lot of people
running around that you don't want in the
country."
McCloskey's committee will meet later this
month in Seattle to discuss the issue,
including whether a more standardized way
of handling the cases is needed.
Thursday, September 9, 1999
By Mark Larabee of The Oregonian staff
Flabio Gaxiola-Plaza listened intently,
occasionally nodding as an interpreter
repeated a plea bargain read by U.S.
District Judge James A. Redden in
Portland.
Convicted on drug charges and deported to
Mexico in 1997, Gaxiola, 37, was in court
last week to plead guilty to once again
being in the United States illegally. He was
sentenced to serve two years and six
months in federal prison.
In exchange for the guilty plea, federal
prosecutors dropped a felony charge of
illegal re-entry, which has a maximum
sentence of 20 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine, though most who are
convicted serve five to seven years. After
about 15 minutes in court, Gaxiola was
handcuffed and led off through a side door,
where he began his journey into the federal
prison system.
The agreement was a good deal for Gaxiola
because it saved him lots of prison time,
said his attorney, Helen L. Cooper of
Salem. It was a good deal for the
government, too: It saved the expense of a
trial and sped the case through the court.
Arrangements such as this are called
"fast-tracking." Federal prosecutors in the
West and Southwest are fast-tracking
illegal immigrants aggressively as part of a
crackdown by the Clinton administration.
But whether fast-tracking is effective is up
for debate. Most prosecutors like it
because it dispenses with a lot of cases and
sends a message to repeat offenders that the
United States is no longer going to turn a
blind eye to convicts who have treated the
United States borders like a revolving
door.
But some defense attorneys see that as a
problem because, historically, such cases
haven't been prosecuted; the defendant has
simply been deported. Suddenly, the
penalties are severe.
And they say the law penalizes their clients
more harshly for the immigration crime on
the basis of their past offenses, for which
they have already served time. Steven Wax,
an attorney with the federal public
defender's office in Portland, said a
majority of the defendants in U.S. District
Court in Portland are charged with illegal
re-entry while they still are serving their
state prison sentences for drugs or other
felonies.
"It's a questionable use of scarce resources
of the criminal justice system to incarcerate
people for long periods of time in a federal
prison after they've completed their
sentence in a state prison," Wax said. "The
total cost to the country is in the millions of
dollars per year."
Although some defenders begrudge the law,
they say the program, as it plays out in
Oregon, works well for many defendants
who would otherwise be saddled with
tough sentences. They also realize that a
conviction, in most cases, is all but
guaranteed.
"What would your defense be?" said
Cooper, Gaxiola's lawyer. " 'I've been
deported once and here I am'? It's pretty
hard to defend."
Here's how it works in Oregon. Most
illegal re-entry defendants are offered a
standard deal -- 30 months -- to plead
guilty, and they usually do. More than 98
percent plead guilty before ever getting to
trial, according to the Department of
Justice. No litigation, no motions and no
appeals.
Nationally, convictions of previously
deported illegal immigrants with criminal
pasts jumped nearly sixfold between 1992
and 1997 -- to 2,859 from 477-- in part
because of spending increases for
immigration, customs and border patrol
agents, according to the federal Bureau of
Justice Statistics.
And there is another reason. "The INS has
been told: You generate these cases and
we'll do them. We've encouraged them by
creating the program," said Michael
Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney in
Portland.His office saw a 36 percent
increase in such cases filed between 1995
and 1998, and as of last week, it had filed
194 cases this year.
Gaxiola, a Mexican national, was arrested
in April by immigration agents at Portland
International Airport during an undercover
drug operation. He wasn't supposed to be
here. He was deported in 1997 after being
convicted in California for importing 92
kilograms of cocaine, his attorney said. No
drug charges were filed in his most recent
arrest.
He's the kind of criminal the government
wants to deter. "We're not after migrant
farm workers," Brown said. "This is about
drug trafficking at the heart of it. We're
after people with felony convictions."
But the practice has prompted debate in the
Justice Department. There is concern that
the department is treating the defendants as
a group rather than as individuals.
Some U.S. attorneys in the busiest districts
have decided not to offer any deals and
instead prosecute only the most egregious
cases to the full extent of the law. That
practice in Los Angeles resulted in a
lawsuit to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals by a man who said he should have
gotten the same deal as a defendant in San
Diego. A three-judge panel ruled in his
favor in April, and the Justice Department
has asked the full court to reconsider.
The practice of making standardized deals
is widely used for many types of crimes
depending on the region, said Jay
McCloskey, U.S. attorney for Maine and
chairman of Attorney General Janet Reno's
subcommittee on sentencing guidelines.
With the West and Southwest overloaded
with re-entry cases, the deals are a logical
way to handle them, he said. "Without some
sort of program for them to handle the cases
in the West, you'll have a lot of people
running around that you don't want in the
country."
McCloskey's committee will meet later this
month in Seattle to discuss the issue,
including whether a more standardized way
of handling the cases is needed.