I’ve reported on the absconder problem extensively in Invasion and in my columns. This is nothing new:

Teams assigned to make sure foreigners ordered out of the United States actually leave have a backlog of more than 600,000 cases and can’t accurately account for the fugitives’ whereabouts, the government reported Monday.

The report by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the effectiveness of teams assigned to find the fugitives was hampered by “insufficient detention capacity, limitations of an immigration database and inadequate working space.”

Even though more than $204 million was allocated for 52 fugitive operations teams since 2003, a backlog of 623,292 cases existed as of August of 2006, the report said.

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has been estimated at between 11.5 million and 12 million. About 5.4 percent of them are believed to be “fugitive aliens,” those who have failed to leave the country after being ordered out.

The inspector general found there is not enough bed space available to detain such fugitives and that agents are hampered by an inaccurate database. Other factors that limit the teams’ effectiveness are insufficient staffing, the report said.

What is new–this fun fact:

Despite the creation of the absconder apprehension initiative and the allocation of more than $204 million since 2003, the backlog of fugitive alien cases has increased each fiscal year since the program was established in February 2002.

And to this fire President Bush, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, and the bipartisan open-borders lobby want to add another amnesty fuel.

Homeland security? What homeland security?

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