U.S. to Speed Up Immigrant Deportations.

The day before President Bush was to campaign in Arizona and New Mexico, the Homeland Security Department announced it would hasten deportations of illegal immigrants who are not Mexican or Canadian citizens. The department also said it would grant legal Mexican visitors up to one month, rather than just three days, to visit or do business in U.S. communities close to the southern border. Gordon Hanson, economics professorsaid, "You are not doing anything to affect the legal status of the roughly 5 million Mexicans in the United States without a green card. I don't think this is for Mexico. I think this is for Hispanic voters of the United States. I think this is for Arizona and New Mexico." "These immigrants will lose the right to have an immigration judge decide whether they should be deported," said Eleanor Acer, director of the Refugee Protection Program at Human Right First in New York. "Instead, the power to issue this kind of order, which can have life and death consequences, will be entrusted to Border Patrol officers without any independent review." Under the "expedited removal" plan, illegal immigrants who have been in country less than 14 days and are arrested no more than 100 miles from the border will be returned to their home countries as soon as possible, after about eight days on average. [more]