Lessons in open-border math

The New York Times is always ready and willing to serve as lead public relations staffers for the open-borders movement. On May Day, the day of mass illegal alien protests across the country, the paper saw fit to print a Page One sob story decrying rising illegal alien deportations.

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, facing intense political pressure to toughen enforcement [read: do their jobs], removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the country over the last year," the Times reported ominously. That's "an increase of more than 37,000 -- about 20 percent -- over the year before, according to the agency's tally."

So: 221,664. Big number. It certainly sounds like we're getting serious about immigration enforcement, if you believe what the Times tells you.

But you know better. It's what the paper didn't tell you on the day of the pro-amnesty demonstrations that provides the truly alarming news. Far from a nation that takes its immigration laws seriously, we remain in a shoddy, dangerous state of immigration nonenforcement nearly six years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This chaos will only worsen if Congress and the White House join hands on a "comprehensive" illegal alien amnesty plan.

In March, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general disclosed that the feds have lost track of 623,292 fugitive illegal aliens. These "absconders" were apprehended by immigration officers, placed in the immigration court system, ordered out of the country and released, never to be seen again.

That's 221,664 "removed" illegal aliens vs. 623,292 released illegal alien fugitives. In other words, there are nearly 3 times as many officially designated illegal alien fugitives freed by the feds as illegal aliens removed over the last year. This inconvenient truth was glossed over by the Times.

So was this: Despite more than $204 million earmarked since 2003 for 52 special fugitive operations teams across the country, the "backlog of fugitive alien cases has increased each fiscal year since the [fugitive apprehension] program was established in February 2002."

While pro-amnesty marchers stressed this week that they are "law-abiding" (except for those pesky immigration rules), more and more of the illegal aliens caught by immigration authorities and ordered to appear for deportation hearings are skipping out. The DHS inspector general's office explains that thousands of illegal aliens ignore orders to appear at their immigration hearings. Of the 460,000-plus immigration judge decisions and administrative closures issued by the Executive Office of Immigration and Review (EOIR) between 2001 and 2004, about 39 percent (181,807) were issued to illegal aliens who were released but later failed to appear at their respective immigration hearings.

And the total number of aliens failing to appear is increasing. In fact, DHS' Detention and Removal Office says 85 percent of the illegal aliens released who were issued final orders of removal will abscond. That goes not just for illegal aliens from Mexico, but for illegal aliens from terror-friendly and terror-sponsoring nations. Homeland security? What homeland security?

Compounding the danger: The federal Detention and Removal Office estimates that in 2007, "There will be 605,000 foreign-born individuals admitted to state correctional facilities and local jails during the year for committing crimes in the U.S. Of this number, DRO estimates half (302,500) will be removable aliens. Currently, most of these incarcerated aliens are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences due to the lack of DRO resources." That's upward of 300,000 convicted criminal aliens who will walk out of their cells and onto the streets. Never to be seen again.

Just doing the context-setting and number-crunching the rest of the mainstream media won't do. Now, back to your regularly scheduled, emotion-driven, one-sided coverage of America the Oppressor. Over to you, New York Times.

Michelle Malkin is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild."