Immigration
Aug. 3, 2002
U.S. Attorney Disputes Poor Conviction Rates
LOS ANGELES - Disputing a highly publicized university study, San Diego federal prosecutors said their conviction rate for illegal border crossers and alien smugglers is at an all-time high.
John Kraemer, executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said his office had a 94 percent conviction rate for immigration-related cases in 2001 - winning a record 1,977 convictions of 2,112 cases referred by immigration officials.
Moreover, Kraemer said, the conviction rate for these types of cases over the past five years has remained in the mid- to high-90 percent range, while the number of convictions has soared.
In sharp contrast, the study, released July 29 by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, shows a steady decline in the Southern District's conviction rate in immigration cases over the same period.
According to the study, the conviction rate dipped from 90 percent in 1997 to 77 percent in 2001.
The discrepancy appears to stem from the different ways the study and the U.S. attorney count referrals for prosecution. The study cited 2,570 referrals, while the San Diego federal prosecutors cited only 2,112.
Kraemer said his referral figure is based on the number of cases for which an indictment was returned or the defendant pleaded guilty. It does not include cases that prosecutors rejected because the case could be dealt with more easily in other ways. Many first-time or less-serious offenders can be dealt with administratively by the immigration service through deportation proceedings.
Susan Long, a statistician and professor in the university's School of Management, who compiled the study with David Burnham, a former New York Times reporter, said that the clearinghouse obtained its statistics through a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of Justice. The figures included those submitted by the U.S. attorney's offices, Long added.
Kraemer said the true measure of his office's success in immigration cases lies in the numbers, not percentage rates. And those numbers have tripled over the past 10 years.
"Bottom line is, as far as immigration cases are concerned, more defendants were convicted of immigration offenses in San Diego in 2001 than in 1997, or at any time since 1992," Kraemer said.
Susan Mc Rae
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