IMMIGRATION RAIDS SURGE AFTER SEPT. 11

Anti-Terror Sweeps Surpass Drug Busts

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutions for immigration violations more
than doubled in the past four years, surpassing drugs as the most
frequently pursued federal crime, according to new data released
Wednesday by a private research group. The change reflects a major
shift in priorities since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Immigration prosecutions surged to 38,000 last year from 16,300 in
2001, as federal authorities mounted a crackdown on illegal
immigration as a way of deterring terrorism, according to the
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group
connected to Syracuse University that compiled the data.

Prosecutions for drug crimes have begun to decline, dropping to
30,988 last year from 32,753 in 2001, the new data showed. The
Syracuse group's data showed that immigration prosecutions passed
drug crimes last year as the crime most frequently prosecuted by
federal officials.

The study, analyzing half a million federal prosecutions, offers
perhaps the firmest evidence to date of the refocusing of federal law
enforcement priorities since the Sept. 11 attacks toward illegal
immigration, terrorism-related offenses and gun crimes and away from
drugs and white-collar crime. Prosecutions for white-collar crime
dropped to 7,000 cases last year from 9,500 in 2001, the study found.

"This is a substantial shift any way you measure it," said David
Burnham, co-director of the research group, which collects and
analyzes federal data on law enforcement and financial issues. "We're
seeing choices being made by United States attorneys and by the
president about what's important and what's not, and clearly, the
administration has changed the priorities of the federal law
enforcement machine."

The Justice Department has often tangled with the Syracuse research
group over its methodology and access to law enforcement data. Paul
Bresson, a department official, said the group's numbers were
"misleading" because a significant number of misdemeanor immigration
prosecutions in Texas that had not previously been counted were included.