NYT: Immigration Targets The Low Hanging Fruit

Target of Immigrant Raids Shifted
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: February 4, 2009
A program meant to capture immigrants with criminal records instead pursued easier targets, a report says.

Right on to Nina Bernstein and the Cardozo Law school for reporting this story.

One of my pet peeves about law enforcement...buckets of money are procured post 9/11, in this case to pursue known violent criminals who are in the US illegally. Instead, ICE/INS slacks off, targeting a bunch of non-criminal low wage laborers instead, who provide the baseline to our economy -- kitchen workers, fruit pickers, cleaners.

The parallel in NYC is the NYPD pursuit of Critical Mass bike riders and a host of other non-threatening activities in this city. It's sooooo much easier to rake in the overtime on a non-dangerous detail, but I want the police to be working on real crime.