The standard banal canard of xenophobes is that illegal immigration is a crime, but it's not, at least not at the present time. Illegal immigration is not a felony (like murder), nor is it a misdemeanor (like drunk driving usually is). Rather, "Improper Entry By Alien" is covered by Title 8, Section 1325 of the United States Code and "Civil Penalties for Failure to Depart" are covered by Section 1324d. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/caseco...1325.htmlWhile these code sections provide for penalties such as fines and incarceration, the maximum jail time for a first offense is six months, which would make these offenses comparable to a speeding ticket, what is commonly known in the law as "an infraction."

Under federal law, an infraction is not a crime; it is a civil offense. And in practice, very few people who are arrested for illegal immigration are ever convicted. They are usually booked and released. If and when they show up for their court proceedings, they are almost always able to choose to remove themselves from the United States voluntarily rather than being convicted of improper entry or failure to depart. A rough equivalent would be the choice to attend traffic school rather than have a traffic ticket appear on your driving record.

There are probably some 11 million people in the United States who are subject to arrest for improper entry or failure to depart. As a practical matter, it would be nigh on impossible to apprehend these people, so the federal government spends very little time doing so. Rather, there are token and selective enforcement efforts by the federal government that give the illusion that something is being done, much like the War on Drugs. And then there's the misguided enforcement efforts of towns like Hazleton. To wit, the penalties for improper entry and/or failure to depart the United States are the sole province of the federal government. As such, Hazleton will almost certainly find itself on the wrong end of a lawsuit in federal court any day now.

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