The two are not mutually exclusive. But reconciling the two is sometimes difficult. as we find in this debate. Currently. we have. we think. somewhere around 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. The number is growing. In 1987. there were roughly 4 million undocumented immigrants in our country. in 1997. there were roughly 7 million. and today. in 2007. there are somewhere around 12 million. In addition. according to the Pew Hispanic Center. annual arrivals of illegal immigrants have exceeded the arrival of legal immigrants since 1985. That is not the trend we want. The reality is our immigration system is seriously broken and needs to be fixed. Some people think the solution is to grant undocumented immigrants amnesty as we did in 1986. but that wont work. Others think the solution to the problem is to simply enforce the laws we have and kick everyone out. We have taken a serious look at this option. and although our enforcement efforts over the last year have dramatically increased. I do not believe this answer alone will work either. The office responsible for detaining and removing illegal immigrants is the Office of Detention and Removal. DRO. It is a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. the largest investigative agency in the Department of Homeland Security. You may be surprised to know that the DRO is actually quite large. despite the relatively small impact they are able to have. DRO includes 6.700 authorized employees. including nearly 5.300 law enforcement officers and 1.400 support personnel.
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