A Charlotte-area sheriff has seen a tremendous success rate after implementing an illegal immigration enforcement program in cooperation with the federal government:

    More than 900 illegal immigrants have been identified and placed in deportation proceedings since April, when the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office launched a federal program to check the status of those arrested.

    Now sheriff's officials want to hire more deputies to keep up with the caseload.

    Of the 930 illegal immigrants identified in Mecklenburg County, 450 would have been released were it not for the program. At least 128 already have been deported. They were arrested most commonly on driving while impaired or traffic violations.

    "That success, frankly, has triggered interest throughout the country," Julie Myers, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said Monday. She was joined by Sheriff Jim Pendergraph and Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., of Charlotte, who provided updates on the program.


But it looks like that tremendous success isn't enough to get Congress and the president to increase their (financial) support for these local immigration enforcement programs.

    Trouble is, as Pendergraph explained, even though this tremendously effective program exists already, it carries the same problems that overall failed illegal immigration enforcement suffers: Lack of resources.

    “The Removal and Detention Division of ICE is overwhelmed by the numbers we are generating for removal in Mecklenburg County alone,” Pendergraph said in August.

    Unfortunately, little can be done without the financing to make 287(g) work on a broad basis. President Bush has shown to have a weak stomach for the enforcement issue, and now has a Congress coming in January that is balking at funding for 700 miles of border fence that was authorized earlier this year.

    That adds to the problem, as Pendergraph says he regularly sees repeat offenders who have been deported in the past. Suspects can return easily because they agree to voluntary removal in exchange for law enforcement dropping charges against them.

    “This, in effect, wipes the slate clean for a criminal, gives him/her a free ride home at taxpayer expense to visit family, and then begin the journey back to the United States to victimize other U.S. citizens,” Pendergraph said.

    The sheriff’s experience clearly points to a multi-pronged problem that only a comprehensive, determined approach will resolve. Naysayers claim a border fence won’t work, you can’t round up all those illegals, etc. They basically are changing the subject by ignoring the need for a broad solution.


Too bad. As noted in the above article there are a lot of interested local police who want to be part of it. Unfortuantely the leaders of both parties seem to want to sell us out to the illegals.