Posted on 04/10/2008 7:43:48 AM PDT by mdittmar
The U.S. Homeland Security department has launched an ambitious nationwide effort that would cost $2 billion to $3 billion a year to identify and deport the estimated 300,000 to 450,000 illegal immigrants locked up each year in jails and prisons.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation was denounced by immigrant rights groups and received cautiously by those favoring tighter enforcement.
''We can do something few law enforcement agencies can do: Not only ensure criminals are off the streets, but ensure they are removed from the country," said ICE spokesman Tim Counts. ''Removing hundreds of thousands of criminals from the country is sure to have a positive impact on community safety."
ICE has a presence in only 10 percent of the nation's 3,100 local lockups. Last year, it filed deportation charges against 164,000 illegal immigrants in jail, and removed 95,000, Counts said.
''It's a broad-stroke outline for a plan to locate more of the illegal aliens located in jails and prisons throughout the country," Counts said.
The recently announced ICE effort, known as "Secure Communities," will upgrade computer technology in jails and allow local jailers to access ICE's fingerprint database to quickly identify prisoners with immigration violations as they are booked. The $200 million in funding already allocated for the program this year would also add an unspecified number of ICE detention and removal officers, Counts confirmed.
The program would also:
• Prioritize removal of criminal immigrants based on their danger to the community.
• Expand an early parole program for non-violent immigrants who agree to deportation.
• Add staff in field offices so ICE detention officers are available around-the-clock to assist local jailers in deportation.
• Increase the 287 (g) program, which trains state and local law enforcement officers to perform immigration duties.
Counts said the first priority would be removing "level one" immigrants, those convicted of major drug offenses and violent crimes including murder, manslaughter, rape and armed robbery. Removing those offenders would cost around $1 billion a year. ICE estimates the cost to remove all convicted criminal immigrants in custody would be $2 billion to $3 billion annually.
"We estimate it will take approximately three and a half years to remove all level one criminal aliens, and to test the program's effectiveness," Counts said.
''I would assume that as the nature of our relationship with ICE expands, it would be made available to us," said Maj. Don McWilliams, commander of the department's public services bureau. ''As we get our people trained to assist ICE, we certainly would like access to any and all databases ICE has access to."
The Secure Communities initiative expands ICE's Criminal Alien Program, which focuses on identifying deportable immigrants incarcerated in federal, state and local facilities.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office participates in the program by asking county jail inmates if they are in the country legally. Jail officials then refer illegal immigrants to ICE, which can place detainers on them to prevent their release and subject them to deportation.
The same program ignited protests last year in Irving, the Dallas suburb where ICE agents worked closely with city jailers to deport hundreds of illegal immigrants. Activists there complained Irving police were targeting immigrants in raids.
Curtis Collier, president of the U.S. Border Watch in Houston, said illegal immigrants should only be deported after completing their sentences.
''Deportation is not punishment. We are adamantly opposed to removing people prior to their serving their sentence, because it's basically early release," Collier said. ''And once they deport them, they'll be right back in this country."
Arnoldo Garcia, program coordinator for the National Network of Immigrant Refugee Rights, said the ICE effort could result in profiling of immigrants.
''They're wasting resources," said Garcia, whose group is based in California. ''And how are they going to verify the rights of those individuals who are jailed?"
I hope this is not coming too late.
Let’s just deport them back to Mexico ASAP. Don’t let them serve out their sentences, just kick ‘em across the border. Let Mexico deal with them since they don’t seem to like our death penalty, soverignty, and our Court System.
It’s 43 years too late - 1965 was the turning point, not 1986. The poison pill was ingested and we’re seeing the results - demographics is destiny.
Why go to the expense of deporting them? They will all be back in 30 days to get arrested again for crimes.
If any are deported early they should face jail if they return as terms of their parole.
But this is just a no brainer. The fact that this has not been done is an impeachable offense by all involved.
I often wonder why we shouldn’t have a special prosecutor appointed to investigate public officials who ignored laws and allowed the illegal situation to get out of hand.
There were decisions to cut enforcement, their were decisions to not deport,,we need to know who made those decisions and if they can be prosecuted.
I challenge Homeland Security to create an account allowing Americans to donate $$$ to pay for the deportation. I guarantee they will have so much money, they won’t know what to do with it all.
With no border control, they will be back next week with a new name, how does that help?
I still like a variation of the Sheriff Joe approach.
Put them in work camps on the border, building the fence and cleaning up the mountains of trash and feces. With complete freedom to walk off the job in a southerly direction any time they please.
Give ‘em felony convictions with a suspended sentence. Then, if they come back in, it will be as a convicted felon. Then give ‘em 10 years, no parole! If they come back a third time, 20 years, no parole.
Otherwise, impose THEIR country’s laws for illegal immigration on them.
Unless we BUILD THE WALL they’ll just walk back in.
There was a posting here on FR the other day that said Mexico was complaining at the numbers returning or being returned !
How do you keep them down on the farm once thay have seen gay Pa-ree been on Welfare for 20 years?
I’m aware...but obviously that needs to be fixed too...thought that was implied.
“They will all be back in 30 days “
It would make more sense to patch the holes, rather than keep bailing the basement with a colander, while hoping it doesn’t rain again . . . but all the frenzied activity allows the sheep-critters and trail boss to say early next year: “Hey, we tried. Really hard: We told you we need comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty).”
Problemo solved. Sort of. Except the costs, of course, in absorbing 20 million new citizens.
Oh, and the half-dozen or so new “undocumented immigrants” who will replace each current `immigrant’. And they will then also begin patiently waiting, at first, for their chance at the citizenship brass ring.
I suspect that it is way cheaper to deport them than it is to support them while incarcerated. And securing the borders will fix the "return" problem, and is a good and sufficient reasot TO secure the border.
The U.S. border state leading the battle against illegal immigration with unprecedented tough laws has received complaints from Mexico’s government that too many Mexicans have been repatriated and the country is overwhelmed with demands for housing, jobs and schools.
Fed up with the devastating effect of illegal immigration, Arizona has enacted the nation’s toughest laws to curb the problem and evidently its working. State legislators have passed laws barring illegal immigrants from receiving government services, posting bail for serious crimes and winning punitive damages in lawsuits. This year a new law makes it illegal for businesses to hire undocumented workers and those that do can be shut down.
The state legislator who sponsored the work bill, Representative Russell Pearce, says the law’s undeniably positive effects include smaller class sizes, shorter emergency room waits and an overall huge savings to taxpayers. The Republican congressman drafted the bill because studies revealed that illegal immigration cost Arizona taxpayers over $2 billion annually, not including the toll of crime and destruction.
It turns out that enough illegal immigrants have either fled the U.S. or been deported that officials in the Mexican state of Sonora, which shares an extensive border with Arizona, have complained that too many of their fellow countrymen have returned. They miss the remittances sent from the U.S. as well as smaller class sizes in local schools.
Mexican government officials knew Arizona’s tough employment verification law would become their worst nightmare, which explains why they tried blocking it. Earlier this year a delegation of nine legislators from Sonora toured Tucson and held a news conference to say that their beloved state cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools resulting from illegal Mexican workers returning home.
One baffled Mexican legislator, Leticia Amparano Gamez, asked in Spanish “how can they pass a law like this?” She went on to explain that Mexico is not prepared for the “tremendous problems” it will face as more and more Mexicans working in Arizona and sending money to their families return to hometowns in Sonora without jobs. Another member of the Mexican delegation, Representative Florencio Diaz Armenta, asked “what do we do with the repatriated?”
Notice the first thing they bring up is the supposed "huge" price tag for the program.
Pinkerton, you idiot, how much is it currently costing us to incarcerate these felons? My calculations are under $6700 per inmate deported, using the top figures quoted. I know we spend more than that to incarcerate people.
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