Posted on 06/10/2011 6:49:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
The General Accounting Office estimates that as of 2009 there were currently about 350,000 criminal aliens in U.S. prisons, “the majority from Mexico.” At $30,000 per year, per inmate, that’s $11 billion annually, with most of the costs born by the states.
While not all of the criminal aliens are here illegally, criminal illegals are putting a strain on budgets, especially in the states with large illegal immigration populations such as Arizona, Colorado, California, Florida, New York, and Texas.
Not coincidentally, many of those same states are facing the largest budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2011 and 2012, including New York and California. Some estimate state budget shortfalls of over $100 billion in 2012 across state governments in the U.S.
In California, it’s estimated that prisoners who are illegal immigrants cost the state at least $1 billion per year just to keep them in prison.
Across the country, states' governments are shouldering both the growing financial burden of keeping criminal illegal aliens in jail and the growing law enforcement burden of securing the community from the crimes of illegal aliens in the face of hostility from the executive branch of the federal government.
Corrections.com trumpets the problem as “Foreign Inmates Busting Budgets.”
"There's no question illegal immigration continues to be a large and costly problem in California and around the nation," Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from CA-22, told Bakersfield’s Eyewitness News. "The first and most important step to addressing this problem is securing our border. The federal government can and should do more to ensure our border is secure, including more physical barriers, border patrol and electronic surveillance."
The Denver Post reports that foreign-born inmates are the fastest growing segment of the prison population in the Mile High state. The number in U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers in Colorado prisons “have more than doubled in 10 years from 680 to 1,500, said Tom Clements, executive director of the state Department of Corrections,” according to the Post.
"That's huge," Clements emphasized.
As the economy continues to stumble, states are getting pinched hard by the federal government because they refuse to address immigration reform.
In Colorado, Attorney General John Suthers estimates that the cost to house prisoners in the U.S. illegally was $58 million in 2008.
“At the time, the federal government's State Criminal Alien Assistance Program reimbursed Colorado $3.3 million, or about 6 percent of the state's costs,” says the Post. “The amount has since dropped to $2.9 million even as the number of foreign inmates continues to rise.”
These costs have likely grown since 2008 even while federal assistance has dropped.
In California, both Democrats and Republicans are asking President Obama to fund what Colorado’s AG, John Suthers, decries as just another unfunded mandate by the federal government.
"To receive less than full reimbursement for the use of state facilities to house illegal immigrants is an unacceptable, unfunded federal mandate," Suthers said according to the Post.
In California, Democrat Congressman Jim Costa said that "California cannot and should not have to shoulder this burden alone," according to Bakersfield Now. He called upon the federal government to fully fund the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program to help reimburse the costs of detaining illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.
But even fully funded, the program just transfers the burden across the country into the wallets of taxpayers from all of the states rather than addressing the issue in any substantive way.
The costs are not just financial either.
In California, the feds have ordered that 33,000 prisoners be released to relieve over-crowding in state prisons. Bakersfield Now estimates that about 20,000 of the states’ 162,000 prisoners are in the U.S. illegally. In other words, they make up about 60 percent of the overcrowding in California prisons while accounting for 13 percent of the prisons’ population.
While it’s unclear how California will comply with the ruling to release prisoners, it’s clear that they will not be able to deport illegal immigrants discharged from prison under the ruling. Instead, they can either be released on parole or can be turned over to the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.
In Texas, “[l]aw enforcement and prison officials have complained that many of the convicts who are paroled to be deported are never sent home, and they end up committing new crimes and getting rearrested,” says the Statesman.com.
That’s in part because under a Supreme Court ruling Clark v. Martinez, ICE can only hold criminal illegal aliens for six months if the convict can’t be repatriated to another country.
“Because of the way current law is written, recent Supreme Court rulings have required dangerous criminal immigrants to be released into our communities,” says Lamar Smith a Texas Republican who is chair of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the Tea Party Caucus. “All too often these criminal immigrants have gone on to commit more crimes.”
Instead, Smith is proposing that the Department of Homeland Security be authorized to detain criminal illegal immigrants if they can’t be deported, especially if the criminal “either is an aggravated felon or has committed a crime of violence.”
“Just because a criminal immigrant cannot be returned to their home country does not mean they should be allowed back on our streets,” says Smith. “If dangerous criminal immigrants cannot be deported, they should be detained. There is no excuse for placing American lives at risk.”
There is no excuse at all.
The violations of law and trust by King George III in Parliament pales in comparison to the loss of trust as a result of the non-enforcement of immigration laws, especially as it relates to criminal illegal aliens.
If we can't get the government to agree that at a minumum we shouldn't be releasing criminal illegal aliens back into our communities, I have no idea why we have a federal government in the first place.
Ya ya my boo boo State Farm instead of State State, but you knew what I meant since you seemed to know everything else around.
Put down the bottle...
Sorry pal. I don’t drink. I don’t use drugs. I don’t like liberals. Since you are from one of the most liberal states in the union and is dragging this nation deeper down, go talk to someone that gives a tinker. I don’t. End of conversation. You are not worth the sweat. Go back to DU. You are better suited there with the whining.
You’ve been told repeatedly whats up on this thread, yet you totally evaded all that.
Seem my tag line.
WHAT exactly is it that you keep insisting we voted for? To have a separate nation of Mexican nationals colonize California and solidify political, police, economic, and cultural control over entire cities?
I didn’t vote for that. I don’t know anyone who did. I don’t even remember that election. This catastrophe was done TO us.
Do you also blame Hawaii for Pearl Harbor? New York for 9/11?
You just don’t know what to do about it. Or you’re lazy. Or both.
Whether the situation can be turned around is a separate argument. Actually, it’s not. All the states are responsible for the utter abrogation of America’s Southern border. Only all the states working together can fix it.
Instead of the silly ideas I usually see here, certain states are finally learning to fight smart.
You don’t need to do anything gestapo-esqe. Just get between the illegals and what they need. Like AZ pull the licenses of business that knowingly hire illegals.
Like AL pull the rental licenses of landlords who rent to illegals. FINALLY someone did that.
Like AL check the ID’s of secondary school students.
Make it a criminal offense to harbor or transport illegals.
Station cops at the entrances to courthouses and county social welfare centers simply refusing to admit anyone without proper ID.
Do the same at emergency rooms (let emergency patients get treated) then deport them when they are no longer in emergency status).
AZ and AL have led the way and pried the door of opportunity open, don’t tell me CA can’t step through.
Kali has made a conscious decision to be a sanctuary state. What the hell are they crying about?
I think that you should qualify that statement a bit.
Cali politicians have made the sanctuary state against the wishes of the citizens.
In addition by doing so they have made the citizens pay higher taxes to support the sanctuary of illegal aliens.
I ma not a Cali citizen but I live in a state that also has sanctuary cities.
Against my wishes also, suborning the laws of civilization by politicians is abhorrent. Problem is that both sides rinos and demos support, thinking they are garnering votes.
In reality they are only tearing the fabricate of civilized society apart for momentary political power or re-election.
Arizona’s measures (exactly like California’s that were nullified twenty years ago) are tied up in court. They are NOT being enforced. The Feds have prohibited it.
Alabama is about to be dragged into court by the ACLU. Their measures will be thrown out, just like AZ’s and CA’s were.
No state has successfully enacted any of these measures yet.
Everything you just suggested California has tried. We have been enjoined by the Federal government from doing any of it.
Got anymore ideas?
If they are illegally here , then they are criminals
“Put them on a chain gang and have them pick vegetables and the other jobs Americans don’t want to do. Let them pay for themselves.”
I think this should be done with all prisoners, but it seems the Federal Employees in black robes have issued their “supreme edicts” to the contrary.
As it is all theses Dictators will let us do is offer them the chance to work.
I say we ignore the Federal Employees in black robes and do it anyway. If at some point down the line our 9 “supreme dictators of the Federal Constitution” should decide it does not fancy them that we are doing this we can tell em what we told King George.
“In California, Democrat Congressman Jim Costa said that “California cannot and should not have to shoulder this burden alone,” according to Bakersfield Now. He called upon the federal government to fully fund the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program to help reimburse the costs of detaining illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.”
Uh, I don’t think so. California cities want to declare themselves to be “sanctuary cities.” Let the elites in San Francisco support the cost of housing illegals - they want them so badly. (Most likely for the cheap labor) Yet, they want the nation to fund the cost incurred as a result of the crimes committed by illegals. Sorry, California - you should reap what you sow. We don’t want them in our states and we shouldn’t have to pay for them when they become a burden in yours.
I guarantee you, whatever state/city you live in — if your police arrests someone for being in the country illegally, ICE will turn them loose.
That policy is exactly the same as those of “sanctuary cities.” Your city just isn’t ADVERTISING itself as such.
Every city in America is a sanctuary city, because IT’S THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSIBILITY TO POLICE THE BORDER. IT’S THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSIBILITY DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS. And they’ve utterly abrogated that responsibility. And they won’t let cities and states do it.
This is not on California; this is on YOUR House of Representatives. YOUR Senate. YOUR Federal Immigration Bureaucracy: EPIC FAIL.
If you say your city/state has a different policy — that you’re regularly turning aliens over to ICE and they’re subsequently deported — I’m calling you a liar.
Call me a liar all you want - my city has NOT openly declared itself a sanctuary city.
Are your police checking immigration status of detainees, turning them over to ICE if they’re here illegally, and following up to make sure they’re deported?
Thanksnodidn’tthinkso.
You’re a sanctuary city if your city is anywhere in the United States. It doesn’t matter what you “declare” yourself.
Got an idea.
When you arrest an illegal, stick a chip in him and tell him to go home.
If an illegal WITH a chip is arrested, any crime he commits automatically a felony, and any felony is aggravated. For example, manslaughter becomes murder, murder becomes capital murder, etc.
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