Illegal Video Games or Illegal Immigrants?

Which is a greater threat to America’s national security, pirated video games or criminal illegal aliens? While the answer to that question may seem obvious, apparently the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has funding for spending its time and resources to conduct raids and seize illegally modified Wii and PlayStation video game console chips but insufficient funds to dedicate its full resources to the highest priority job that Americans expect of it: locating and deporting criminal illegal aliens. When it comes to prioritizing between video game piracy or illegal immigration investigations, ICE must face the decision, paraphrasing Shakespeare, to Wii or not to Wii.

In fairness to ICE, many federal law enforcement agencies are mandated to enforce multiple federal criminal statutes, some of which have conflicting priorities that often force those agencies to choose investigations based on dollar-loss amounts, likelihood of prosecution by U.S. Attorneys, and positive media attention that generates increased budgets from a media-influenced Congress. Enforcement of immigration statutes and subsequent deportations, as important as they are to national security, do not meet these criteria. As a result, ICE is vilified in the media for tearing apart families, “unfairly” targeting day laborers, or ruining American businesses by disrupting their workforces when it actually enforces existing illegal immigration statutes.

The uproar over ICE enforcement of immigration statutes tends to remind ICE officials that it has multiple missions to perform, and not surprisingly those officials logically conclude that the best way to garner positive media coverage and subsequent Congressional gratitude is to actively enforce other criminal statutes that are less controversial than illegal immigration. One such statute involves the smuggling and distribution of illegal devices that allow pirated video games to play on video game consoles.

This crime may not have any impact on national security, but it does cost businesses like Sony and Nintendo approximately $3 billion in video game sales annually. Of course Sony and Nintendo have effective lobbyists who bring these losses to Congress’ attention, and when ICE conducts raids and executes search warrants to curb this $3 billion per year loss, the media praises it, congress basks in the positive coverage given to its well-spent law enforcement funding, and ICE’s decision to actively enforce non-controversial crimes unrelated to national security is reinforced.

After raids and search warrants were conducted yesterday on 32 businesses and homes in 16 states, the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE made the following statement:

Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections. These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering.

The same is true of illegal immigration, which costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually and involves smuggling, human exploitation, money laundering, and a host of other criminal activities. Yet ICE officials recently made it clear to Virginia’s state legislature that it cannot scrape together sufficient funds to train and work with state and local law enforcement officers in Virginia’s jails to deport criminal illegal aliens already in custody. That is worth repeating. Virginia was merely asking ICE to train its deputies to deport illegal alien criminals already in custody and sitting in the state’s jails. Virginia had previously enacted a law allowing its law enforcement agencies that staff state jails to attend official ICE training programs designed to help local agencies check the immigration status of prisoners and begin the deportation status on behalf of ICE. However, earlier this week ICE officials informed Virginia’s legislature that it simply did not have adequate funding to extend the immigration enforcement training to agencies throughout the state. ICE has received similar requests from many law enforcement agencies throughout the nation and its budget to provide the training that would help locals enforce existing illegal immigration laws cannot keep pace with the current demand. Meanwhile, ICE continues to use a portion of its funds to investigate video game piracy.

Virginia’s response was predictable and poignant:

Delegate Robert G. Marshall, Prince William Republican, declined to say whether he would support using state funds for immigration enforcement, but said the federal government should pay to enforce its own laws.

"If we're doing the job of the federal government, they should be humiliated that they wouldn't offer to pay for all of this," said Mr. Marshall, who sits on a separate commission studying the effects of illegal aliens on the state. "I'm not going to start putting the state's cards on the table until the federal government is going to openly say, 'We don't have the interest. The state of Virginia can [forget] their efforts to enforce immigration law.' "

There are an estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States. More than 250,000 of them lived in Virginia in 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Virginia’s counties have been so impacted by illegal immigration that two, Loudoun and Prince William counties, recently voted to deny county services to illegal immigrants, a move that was widely applauded by residents who already pay some of the highest taxes in the nation.

The question this budget shortfall for ICE training for local agencies raises is an important one: in a War on Terror, should Homeland Security agencies like ICE continue dividing their manpower, equipment, energy, and budget resources between financial crimes like video game piracy and national security responsibilities like illegal immigration? Like many other agencies, ICE has conducted many successful high-profile criminal investigations of smuggling, counterfeit merchandise, and child pornography materials, among others. They are good at what they do. However, as the recent national uproar over the “comprehensive immigration reform bill” demonstrated, Americans do not want amnesty or new laws; what they want is enforcement of existing illegal immigration laws, and the issue is considered to be directly related to national security. In war, priorities are paramount.

While it is unfortunate that Sony and Nintendo lose money annually due to video game piracy, there are many agencies in departments other than Homeland Security that could enforce piracy and intellectual property statutes. It would make sense if the agencies grouped into the behemoth Department of Homeland Security actually performed duties that directly protect some aspect of the homeland. Agencies that do not perform national security functions should be relocated to other departments, so that the remaining agencies would all reflect what the Department of Homeland Security’s name implies. ICE clearly belongs in Homeland Security, but some of its investigative case load includes enforcement of statutes that are completely devoid of any national security nexus.

If ICE could dedicate its funds, manpower, and other resources exclusively to criminal investigations related to national security rather than to a year-long investigation of video game piracy, it would find funds to help Virginia’s jails start criminal illegal aliens on the path to deportation. ICE did good work in its raids and seizures of 61,000 illegal game console chips, but there is more important work to be done to secure the homeland and our resources must be dedicated to priorities that improve national security. Illegal immigration is such a priority; illegal video games are not.

Americans care far less that their neighbor’s Wii or PlayStation games are legal than they do that their neighbors themselves are here legally.

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