I thought these opening paragraphs from a recent 5th Circuit opinion sort of summarized the effectiveness of our immigration policy. For those that heard such great talk during the last Leg session about the deportation of parolees, you know what I'm talking about:

United States v. Arbizu
Published opinion

Before DAVIS, SMITH, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

In 2001, Wilbert Arbizu pleaded guilty of illegally reentering the United States and was sentenced to a prison term followed by a three-year term of supervised release. As a condition of the supervised release, Arbizu was not again to re-enter the country illegally. In 2004, while still under supervised release, Arbizu was convicted of another illegal re-entry and sentenced to a two-year prison term. Because he had violated the terms of his existing supervised release by illegally reentering, the district court revoked Arbizu's supervised release and imposed an additional one-year sentence for the 2001 illegal re-entry.

Arbizu asserts that he cannot be held liable for violating the terms of his supervised release because he did not receive written notice of the conditions of the release as required by 18 U.S.C. �� 3583(f) and 3603(1). The government concedes that it cannot prove compliance with the statutory notice requirements, but it argues that Arbizu had actual notice of his supervised release conditions despite its non-compliance and that such notice is sufficient to hold him liable for violating those conditions.

When I was on the border we had one defendant in district on a burglary charge. Numerous AKA's, he was also claiming to be 16. This despite a previous conviction several years earlier where he gave his age to officers as 17. He was illegal and had several (that we could find) illegal entries) convictions.

I see a growing number of inmates who are being considered for parole under the idea that they will be deported. We see those inmates being re-arrested after illegal re-entry. What the heck kind of parole policy is that?