Gavel Grab

Federal Judge Sam Sparks  (photo below) has already created a stir in Texas by urging federal prosecutors to keep illegal-entry cases out of his courtroom (see Gavel Grab.) Now the National Law Journal is looking at his plea in a national context and reporting that extensive criticism is building over the prosecution in federal courts of illegal immigrants with no significant criminal records.

That policy is “a huge waste of resources,” Denise Gilman, head of the University of Texas School of Law’s immigration clinic, told the journal. “Law enforcement and our courts must have more serious activities to be pursuing.”

More and more judges, defense lawyers, academics and even some prosecutors are agreeing publicly, according to the article, which said Judge Sparks’ concern appears targeted at Operation Streamline, a “zero-tolerance” program started in the Bush administration and continued under President Obama.

The Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law has released a study about Operation Streamline. It called for a return to leaving illegal border crossings to the civil immigration system and restoring prosecutors’ discretion to initiate those prosecutions that they consider most important.