Fernando Pascal, right, of Oaxaca, in Nogales, Mexico, after his deportation hearing. (Daniel Woolfolk/NYTI)
The day before, his hands were restrained, handcuffed and chained to his waist and feet as he sat in a large courtroom 60 miles north in the U.S. Surrounding him were 69 other immigrants charged with illegal entry or re-entry into the country and other misdemeanors.
Federal Magistrate Hector C. Estrada called the migrants up in groups of seven, their chains clinking as they walked to join their lawyers at the front of the Tucson courtroom. Estrada asked a series of questions about whether they understood the charges, their rights and possible penalties.
“Si, señor,” they answered in unison.
Estrada then asked each of them for a plea.
“Culpable,” each person responded in Spanish, one at a time. Guilty.
The defendants are being prosecuted through Operation Streamline, a zero-tolerance program the Border Patrol started to quickly convict and deport all illegal border crossers detained in a designated zone. In Arizona, this includes the Yuma and Tucson sectors, which cover more than 350 miles along the border.
Those who are caught — even first-time offenders — go through federal criminal court proceedings instead of civil deportation proceedings. This reduces their time in the court system from months to less than a day.
The Tucson sector prosecutes more immigrants than any other Streamline participant, and federal officials say they aim to increase the Tucson program’s prosecutions by 30 percent in the next year, to 100 cases per day from the current 70. About 26,000 people are expected to be prosecuted through the program in Tucson this year.
Operation Streamline began in December 2005 in Del Rio, Texas, and Yuma, Ariz., and expanded to include Laredo, Texas, a year later. Tucson joined the operation in January 2008.
The Laredo sector aims to “show prosecution” for every single border crosser, said Jason Darling, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Laredo. He would not comment on what the selection criteria are for Streamline defendants.
In the 2008 fiscal year, federal prosecutors handled 70,000 immigration cases, nearly double those in the previous year, according to a report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an independent research organization at Syracuse University. The exact number of Streamline cases was unavailable, and the Border Patrol did not provide statistics as of press time.
Raymond Kondo, assistant chief of the U.S. Marshal Service in Tucson, said a typical Marshal’s Office turns in 30 to 45 people a day. His office processes anywhere from 220 to 330 per day, a number boosted by the amount of Streamline cases, he said.
The Streamline process took about three hours to adjudicate all 70 defendants from initial appearance to sentencing, Kondo said. “That process typically takes two to three months in a regular felony prosecution,” he said.
Defendants in the Streamline process fall into two categories: Those charged for the first time with illegal entry and those who are facing charges of illegal entry for at least the second time, what court officers informally refer to as “a flip-flop.” Both charges are misdemeanors. The misdemeanor flip-flop charge is also commonly used in plea bargains in which the defendant has outstanding felony charges.
Under federal law, a flip-flop violation is punishable by up to six months in prison; felony convictions can carry much longer terms.
Miguel Alberto Lopez was charged with a flip-flop on Jan. 5. His wife and family, all U.S. citizens, sat in the audience as he was sentenced to 35 days at the Corrections Corporation of America detention center in Florence, Ariz. The conviction will bar him for applying for legal entry into the United States for five years.
“It’s very hard to watch,” said his wife, Maria Jesus Lopez, wiping away tears. “Just because they’re not born in the U.S., we have to suffer.”
She was born in Phoenix. When she and Miguel got married five years ago, they planned to get him a permanent resident card, or green card, but she said they never got around to it. The green card’s filing fee is $355 filing, but as she had no job, Maria Lopez was stuck spending on essentials.
This wasn’t Miguel Lopez’s first encounter with deportation proceedings. In 2008 he was sent back to Mexico under the Border Patrol’s “catch and release” program, in which illegal immigrants are caught, fingerprinted and deported.
“He tried coming back on Monday,” she said, “but now he’s gone again.”
The quick turnaround that characterizes Streamline makes it difficult for defense lawyers, said Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender for Arizona.
“We have no more than 30 minutes to get to know our client,” Williams said. For some, the 15 to 30 minutes is enough to understand the process, she said. But not everyone understands so quickly.
The American Civil Liberties Union put out a fact sheet in July that said the number of illegal immigration prosecutions more than quadrupled during the Bush administration, while prosecution for other federal crimes decreased.
Buck Rocker, a federal prosecutor in Tucson, did not respond to an interview request.
“It’s a travesty and a parody of what we consider to be due process,” said Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, coordinator of the Binational Migration Institute of the Department of Mexican American and Raza Studies at the University of Arizona. If Streamline continues, “What are we to think?” she said. “That they won’t do it for other crimes?”
In the courtroom last week, each defendant wore a wireless headset to listen to the translated proceedings. Up to two interpreters and 17 lawyers were available to represent the 70 illegal immigrants.
Juveniles, those who don’t understand Spanish or English, and those with serious medical or mental problems are not prosecuted through Streamline. It’s up to the judge to identify such detainees in their courtrooms.
In Nogales, Mexico, the day after his hearing, Pascal, who was deported that morning, was sitting outside a shelter. He described his experience with the U.S. court as “confuso.”
“They caught us hours after we crossed,” he said in Spanish. “We then sat in court with those things in our ears, and now I’m here.”
He dusted himself off and rose to join a pickup basketball game at a court near the shelter. As he walked away, he was asked if he would try again to cross the border. He nodded yes.
A version of this article appeared in print on page 2 of the Tucson 2010 edition of The New York Times Student Journalism Institute.