911 TRIBUTE
AMY GRANT with PRESIDENT GW BUSH on 911
      |
Posted on 05/16/2006 6:08:35 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy
During President George W. Bush's televised speech on the issue of illegal immigration, not once did he mention the hordes of criminals entering the United States and preying upon American citizens.
How often we hear the news media lamenting the fact that the US incarcerates more and more convicts each year. Want to reduce the incarceration rate? Then reduce criminals to enter the country illegally or enter legally but remain here illegally.
Some may accuse me of gross hyperbole when I say that the government of Mexico uses the US as their penal system, but truth be told, tens of thousands of criminal aliens who come into the US are from Mexico and our federal and state prisons, and local jails warehouse these lawbreakers at the expense of US taxpayers. Not only that, but the US provides an abundance of crime victims for these killers, robbers, rapists and child molesters.
When the United States incarcerates criminal aliens--noncitizens convicted of crimes while in this country legally or illegally--in federal and state prisons and local jails, the federal government bears much of the costs. It pays to incarcerate criminal aliens in federal prisons and reimburses state and local governments for a portion of their costs of incarcerating some, but not all, criminal aliens illegally in the country through the Department of Justice's State Criminal Alien Assistance Program managed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Some state and local governments have expressed concerns about the impact that criminal aliens have on already overcrowded prisons and jails and that the federal government reimburses them for only a portion of their costs of incarcerating criminal aliens. Congress requested that the General Accounting Office provide information concerning criminal aliens incarcerated at the federal, state, and local level. For the criminal aliens incarcerated, the state and local governments that received reimbursement through SCAAP, only received about 25 percent of the costs .
At the federal level, the number of criminal aliens incarcerated increased from about 42,000 at the end of calendar year 2001 to about 49,000 at the end of calendar year 2004--a 15 percent increase. The percentage of all federal prisoners who are criminal aliens has remained the same over the last 3 years--about 27 percent. The majority of criminal aliens incarcerated at the end of calendar year 2004 were identified as citizens of Mexico.
It is estimated the federal cost of incarcerating criminal aliens -- Bureau of Prison's cost to incarcerate criminals and reimbursements to state and local governments under SCAAP --totaled approximately $5.8 billion for calendar years 2001 through 2004. BOP's cost to incarcerate criminal aliens rose from about $950 million in 2001 to about $1.2 billion in 2004--a 14 percent increase.
Federal reimbursements for incarcerating criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails declined from $550 million in 2001 to $280 million in 2004, in a large part due to a reduction in congressional appropriations. At the state level, the 50 states received reimbursement for incarcerating about 77,000 criminal aliens in fiscal year 2002 and 47 states received reimbursement for incarcerating about 74,000 in fiscal year 2003.
For the 5 states incarcerating about 80 percent of these criminal aliens in fiscal year 2003, about 68 percent incarcerated in mid-year 2004 reported that the country of citizenship or country of birth as Mexico, the Dominican Republic, or Cuba. Four of these 5 states spent about $1.6 billion to incarcerate criminal aliens reimbursed through SCAAP during fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Estimates are that the federal government reimbursed these four states about 25 percent or less of the estimated cost to incarcerate these criminal aliens in fiscal years 2002 and 2003.
At the local level, in fiscal year 2002, SCAAP reimbursed about 750 local governments for incarcerating about 138,000 criminal aliens. In fiscal year 2003, SCAAP reimbursed about 700 local governments for about 147,000 criminal aliens, with 5 local jail systems accounting for about 30 percent of these criminal aliens. The 147,000 criminal aliens incarcerated during fiscal year 2003 spent a total of about 8.5 million days in jail. Mexico leads as the country of birth for foreign-born arrestees at these 5 local jails in fiscal year 2003.
It's estimated that 4 of these 5 local jails spent $390 million in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 to incarcerate criminal aliens and were reimbursed about $73 million through SCAAP. It's believed that the federal government reimbursed these localities about 25 percent or less of the criminal alien incarceration cost in fiscal years 2002 and 2003.
(Sources: US Justice Department, US Bureau of Prisons, General Accounting Office, American Federation of Police, National Association of Chiefs of Police)
Durbin loved the speach as did Kennedy and Reid. I think they post here under various screen names.
You do? I thought he was spending like a drunken sailor. Now his budget proposal is "austere"? What are the "real" priorities?
Unfortunately, yours in an excellent synopsis of last night's hollow speech. With Teddy Kennedy behind something, you just know you don't want to be in front or under it!
"I didn't hear a word from Bush about sending Mexico the bill for the damage."
I read here on FR that he did sue the U.S. Government for expenses doled out to house and feed (medical, ER visits, etc.) illegals by the state of Texas when he was Governor.
I say clear out the jails and ship every one back to Mexico ASAP.
Just wanted to know what you thought the "real priorities" were.
It was not the most important issue in 1978, 1985, 1994, 1997 or 2003 but it's suddenly the only thing we should focus on.
Yes it was. We just weren't paying attention. The traitors in Washington were busy selling our country out from underneath us and we were too complacent to notice.
Borked got "borked"...I lifted the term from the movie "40 year old Virgin."
Nevertheless, this POTUS has dealt with real issues with character and class, perhaps not to the extent some would have wanted...but he is working, as opposed to his predecessor.
Clinton had the immigration problem as well...what did he do; not a darn thing.
Just tired of people beating up this POTUS...some shoud remember what a bad POTUS really is.
OK, thanks. I just wanted you to state it, instead of imply it.
It's probably that everyone is hoping and praying he does it right and redeems himself , 'cuz he's screwed up almost everything else.
The dems and socialists orchestrated the demonstrations to split the base. Hotheads are taking the bait just like they did on the port issue.
So many have howled about their #1 priority being the control of the borders, then worrying about illegals already here, but they always find room to jump on the Dim/MSM bandwagon when it comes to carping about what's not happening to their liking. It reminds me of the folks that got mad at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and mad at the cripple that Jesus healed and told to, "pick up his mat and walk" for working on the Sabbath by actually picking up his mat and walking. They were so full of their self-righteousness that they failed to see the real miracle.
It seems that many folks here suffer the same malady - the President finally tries to do something about the borders and people howl that it's not enough, or too little too late (even though we haven't had an attack due to the borders being so "open"), or that it will cost money (I guess they want it all to happen magically). All you who want "all or nothing" should remember that the Dims will accept "just enough" in order to wrest power from the repub majority and the Whie House and then we'll be out of the pan and back into the fire as they cut and run from Iraq, kiss Iran's nuclear butt, cancel all tax cuts and start raising taxes on everything, and show us what real out-of-control spending looks like. Try to remember that the Dims make noises about balancing the budget, but despite the Prez spending far too much on many social programs, their biggest howls are about the "draconian cuts and underfunding" of these same projects.
I hope for my sake you don't all get what you seem to be asking for.
Many, like me, believe that absolute control of the borders and the weeding out of the aliens among us is part and parcel of the war against terror.
Countries not in control of their borders and their alien population won't be in business very long.
No, I do not but many do.
"Cracking down" on the illegal workforce will probably hurt "small business" the most which is something I'm sure Bush didn't want to do back when the economy was in a post 9/11 recession (or whatever we call it). Sure there are huge companies taking advantage too but many companies usually sub-contract out a lot of the work that is staffed by illegals to the smaller companies (and don't ask questions). Finding a way to put the responsibility of guaranteeing citizenship on the business community (especially the small business community) is going to be challenging and expensive. Don't get me wrong. I believe it should be done but there are always unintended consequences and costs.
Wonderful display devolve!
Thanks for the ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.