Between 2003 and 2008, the misdemeanor immigration caseloads of
magistrate judges along the U.S.-Mexico border increased by nearly 250
percent, from 15,633 cases to 53,697. Those caseloads continue to rise.
And nationwide, federal prosecutions of immigration crimes nearly
doubled in 2008 over the previous year.
These striking numbers are the result not of a flood of immigrants
entering the United States, but of a set of zero tolerance immigration
enforcement programs along the border. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) introduced the first of these programs, Operation
Streamline, in Del Rio, Texas, in 2005, and has implemented similar
programs in five more border sectors since then. Though zero tolerance
programs take slightly different forms in the various jurisdictions
where they exist, they share the same mandate: the criminal prosecution
of all migrants caught attempting to enter the United States in
designated border areas. And though they are known by different names,
the programs are generally referred to in the aggregate as “Operation
Streamline.”
Operation Streamline has been lauded by its designers but criticized
by many others, including judges, prosecutors, and border enforcement
officials. This paper contextualizes Streamline among other immigration
enforcement programs and explores some of the constitutional and policy
issues that have made the program so contentious.