Posted on 11/02/2002 10:44:05 AM PST by Sweet_Sunflower29
Arizona taxpayers may be stuck next year with paying the full tab of jailing thousands of illegal immigrants convicted of crimes.
Members of Congress left town last month to campaign for Tuesday's elections without reaching an agreement with the Bush administration on funding a Justice Department program that provided $546 million last year to states.
All 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, including Guam, have shared in the federal dollars distributed through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program since 1995.
Arizona, California, New York, Texas and New Jersey got the bulk of the federal money.
California received $220 million, about 40 percent of the total. Arizona got more than $24 million.
Congress and the administration are far apart on a compromise. The administration wants to kill the program. Lawmakers want the funding increased to $750 million for fiscal 2003, which began Oct. 1.
Lawmakers, especially those from border states, have long argued that it is the federal government's responsibility to reimburse states because it is charged with securing the nation's borders.
"When the federal government falls short in its efforts to control illegal immigration, it must bear the responsibility for the financial and human consequences of this failure," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
But Bush administration officials argue that the program is not directly related to fighting crime and doesn't "advance the core mission of the Justice Department."
Kyl and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who are leading the Senate fight to increase funding, said states are spending $1.6 billion to keep criminal illegal immigrants behind bars.
What frustrates lawmakers most is that state and local governments are not being reimbursed enough to cover the full cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants.
Justice officials estimate localities receive an average of 40 cents for every dollar spent.
In border communities such as El Paso and in Arizona, the disparity is worse. El Paso gets back an average of 10 cents on the dollar, while Arizona averages about 33 cents, according to local officials.
The sharp rise in illegal immigrants nationwide who are jailed for committing crimes has prompted more states and localities to ask for federal money.
More than 400 state or local governments nationwide filed claims last year, up from 10 in 1995, according to the Justice Department.
A recent report by the Justice Department's inspector general's office won't help either side in the debate.
It found that 30 percent of those jailed in county facilities in southern Florida and Fresno, Calif., were legal, not illegal, immigrants.
The same report, however, faulted Immigration and Naturalization Service officials for failing to keep track of foreign-born inmates.
"As a result, many foreign-born inmates who are deportable aliens pass through county facilities virtually undetected," the report concluded.
Earlier this month, the program got a strong endorsement from Congress when lawmakers approved legislation to keep the illegal immigrant assistance program operating through the next two years. But the legislation did not allocate funding, which must be approved in a separate spending bill.
That won't happen until next month when Congress returns for a lame duck session to finish work on 11 of 13 remaining spending bills that keep the government in business.
Much of the government has been operating under a stopgap spending bill, which expires Nov. 22.
I see you understand the problem. You said it much better than I did, and in less words! :-)
Why shouldn't states pay these bills?
With half the aliens in the U.S. in just six states, federal subsidies would just be forcing citizens in 44 other states to pay unending welfare to six states. After all, Washington doesn't get it's money magically; it gets it from the American middle class all over. And these six states have made many of their own problems in this regard; has Kalifornia done a damn thing to make the LAPD start cooperating with the INS? Many states have local police chiefs openly unwilling to refer to INS any illegal they run across.
Don't give California a dime. The California Assembly is an arm of the Mexican government. They don't coordinate with INS to deport criminals, and they probably don't want criminals deported -- it goes against their agenda of filling the state with Mexicans.
Now, most Sheriffs are political minded folks and would require the backing of some of the officials in the County and preferably some in most of the towns and cities.
In Nevada they are up for a four year term, but I think in four years they could prove that this idea will work, especially to the taxpayers.
The reason I choose a lesser populated County is that way you have less people to convince and less people against you, also there is a smaller amount of taxpayers who currently are paying for these illegals.
That's probably true. They should clean up the worst problems first and those would be the easiest. They should end the practice of anchor babies and family reunification which lets people easily get onto welfare programs and very often lets in people who never intended to work. They should clean up the Social Security databases and start ridding this country of conterfeiters and those dealing in stolen and fraudulent documents. People coming to use our hospitals for free should be sent back, stabilized first if needed but they have hospitals in Mexico.
The only reason for this is because the Democrats know that the Sheriff is the LEO who can start enforcing immigration laws in his/her County anytime they wish and tottaly screw up their diversity plans.
The local officials who support him would say that they are not going to demand that the citizens of the County pay for laws that are not being enforced in the rest of the nation.
The County Treasurer would say that there will be no need to raise taxes because the Sheriff has removed the illegal aliens from the County. By doing so he has cut the costs of schools, jail detentions, court costs, medical care, welfare and crime. (Neat, huh?)
It wouldn't take long before the cities would follow along because they would be getting phone calls asking why they are not supporting the Sheriff in reducing costs. The city police would be told to follow the sheriffs example. Then the surrounding counties would start to see the benefits to this cleaning of illegals.
Legal immigrants would be encouraged to come to the County to fill in the empty employment spaces. Just make sure to have their green cards or other documents showing that they are in the US legally.
At least the very worst kinds would quit coming if they can't get on welfare of any kind. Immigration can be reformed in many ways easily that shouldn't cost the Republicans a single vote. 90% of the problem could be solved that way. If a handful who work and pay their own way for everything ended up somehow staying, they aren't the worst ones.
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