In San Diego, federal immigration prosecutions have soared to more than 3,200 cases between October and June, putting the area on the threshold of exceeding the count of the previous year in the Trump border hardening plan. This enormous influx is an 800 percent rise in the number of illegal entry cases and a concurrent crash in the cases involving drugs, weapons, and white-collar crimes, which questioned the priorities of public safety and allocation of resources in one of the busiest federal court districts in America.
Immigration cases flood federal courts with an explosive surge
According to inewsource, federal prosecutions in San Diego and Imperial counties of immigration crimes have exceeded 3,200 in the three-quarters of October through June, the first half-year of this fiscal year. It has already more than doubled the prior fiscal year’s number, as federal statistics in the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) show.
The increased prosecutions are a component of the Trump administration’s response to the high number of illegal border crossings during the period of the Biden administration, which Trump stated was an invasion and posed a danger to the security of the people. Instead, they line up in a courtroom, wearing tan jumpsuits, and chained at the feet, they sit up with keen eyes as judges read out their accusations via headphones in Spanish.
The rates of prosecution of illegal entry are projected to rise more than 800 percent this year, whereas the rates of prosecution of white collar crimes, weapons, and drug crimes are projected to decline considerably. By far, the work of the office is led by immigration prosecutions, which form about three-quarters of all new cases to date in this fiscal year, with most prosecutions being illegal entry and illegal reentry.
Crippling defeat strikes severe crime prosecutions in a variety of categories
Critical areas are subject to dramatic cuts that endanger public safety, as Jackson et al. observed in the inewsource analysis of TRAC data points to immigration prosecutions. The largest anticipated person-to-person decrease compared to the prior year is in those prosecutions pursuant to the provisions of Section 922 of Title 18 of the United States Code, the law on unlawful firearms possession and transportation.
Such cases are already almost half of what they were last year. TRAC data show that the number of narcotics and drug prosecutions is projected to drop approximately 12% and white-collar crime approximately 17%. The move has attracted the stern disapproval of the ex-U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath, who was dismissed a month after Trump assumed power.
The effect on public safety is the issue I believe is mostly felt in this area because of the change in direction toward some agencies becoming re-oriented to immigration enforcement, McGrath pointed out to KBPS in February. It is a waste of money, said Nate Crowley, who is a private defense lawyer, and has two illegal reentry cases in federal court, and observes that he is receiving more immigration cases than drug cases.
Radical change is changing the face of federal prosecution like never before
The diversion of resources into low-level immigration crime is provoking the questions of the crimes that are not prosecuted and the ensuing impact on the security of the population. During the Biden administration and the previous one, migrants who entered the country illegally were increasingly treated administratively by immigration processing and not by criminal prosecution.
The explosion in immigration prosecution in San Diego is an example of how Trump has radically shifted the priorities of federal law enforcement, in which border security is prioritized over traditional crime fighting. With immigration cases taking up three-quarters of federal prosecutions, and prosecutions of drugs, weapons, and white-collar crime declining, this trend raises huge questions of public safety and the effectiveness of the justice system.