The percentage of all federal prisoners who are criminal aliens has remained the same over the last 3 years — about 27 percent.
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 the number of criminals who 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 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.
Send the bill to Presidente Fox at the end of each year.
Tell him to pay up in oil, if necessary.
If the senate gets their way we will have to employee more illegals to build more prisons to accomodate approximately 500,000 felons and that is not even taking into consideration of local petty crime that will increase substantially. Is this a great country or not?
This is a bit off-topic, but I’m tired of these little side-issues coming up and clouding the debate.
I don’t care if they are good or bad for the economy or the country. Yes, some of them are criminals. We have our own criminals too, so I don’t understand why this is being treated as a revelation. The point is, they are here illegally.
Yes, they take from the economy (and send a good deal back to Mexico), and yes, they contribute too. If it winds up as a net plus or minus, who knows? (everyone seems to have a theory) I don’t care. As a matter of fact, the best real way to find out for sure is to send them back home. Then we can settle the debate one way or another.
Will our markets collapse? I don’t think so. Will it affect us negatively? Possibly, but the market will adjust. We always have.
For any who still don’t understand, illegal is not legal. They are not citizens and don’t have rights here. Not political rights, economic rights, or criminal rights. Repeat after me I-L-L-E-G-A-L. And all the “but-but-buts” don’t change it.
Good article. I am a County Commissioner in Butler County Ohio and we spend over $500,000 annually to house illegal inmates. This does not include the ancillary costs of providing them free defense attorney’s etc. The feds have created this mess—they should be required to pay to clean it up. Imagine if we adopted the same restrictive border and internal security policies that Mexico uses. Is it “racists,” “bigoted” or “xenophobic” to have immigration control parity with Mexico? See Below.
Received the following from a man who was a Director with SW BELL in Mexico City:
You remember I spent five years working in Mexico.I worked under a tourist Visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working Illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval.
During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to secure a permanent work visa called a FM3. It was in addition to my US passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country. Barbara’s was the same except hers did not permit her to work.
To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following “notarized” originals
(not copies) of my:
1. Birth certificate for Barbara and I.
2. Marriage certificate.
3. High school transcripts and proof of graduation.
4. College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of graduation.
5. Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at least one year.
6. A letter from The ST. Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was “a citizen in good standing.”
7. Finally, I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican Citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our “I am the greatest person on Earth” letter. (It was fun to write.)
All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized. It produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side and Spanish on the right.
Once they were completed Barbara and I spent about five hours accompanied by a Mexican Attorney touring Mexican Government office locations and being photographed and fingerprinted at least three times. At each location and we remember at least four locations we instructed on Mexican tax, labor, housing, and criminal law and that we were required to obey their laws or face the consequences. We could not protest any of the Governments actions or we would be committing a felony. We paid out four thousand dollars in fees and bribes to complete the process. When this was done we could legally bring in our household goods that were held by US customs in Loredo Texas. This meant we had rented furniture in Mexico while awaiting our goods. There were extensive fees involved here that the company paid.
We could not buy a home and were required to rent at very high rates and under contract and compliance with Mexican law.
We were required to get a Mexican drivers license. This was an amazing process. The company arranged for the Licensing agency to come to our Headquarters location with their photography and finger print equipment and the laminating machine. We showed our US license, were photographed and fingerprinted again and issued the license instantly after paying out a six dollar fee. We did not take a written or driving test and never received instructions on the rules of the road. Our only instruction was never give a policeman your license if stopped and asked. We were instructed to hold it against the inside window away from his grasp. If he got his hands on it you would have to pay ransom to get it back.
We then had to pay and file Mexican income tax annually using the number of our FM3 as our ID number. The companies Mexican accountants did this for us and we just signed what they prepared. I was about twenty legal size pages annually.
The FM3 was good for three years and renewable for two more after paying more fees.
Leaving the country meant turning in the FM3 and certifying we were leaving no debts behind and no outstanding legal affairs (warrants, tickets or liens) before our household goods were released to customs.
It was a real adventure and If any of our Senators or Congressman went through it once they would have a different attitude toward Mexico.
The Mexican Government uses its vast military and police forces to keep its citizens intimidated and compliant. They never protest at their White house or government offices but do protest daily in front of the United States Embassy. The US embassy looks like a strongly reinforced fortress and during most protests the Mexican Military surround the block with their men standing shoulder to shoulder in full riot gear to protect the Embassy. These protests are never shown on US or Mexican TV. There is a large public park across the street where they do their protesting. Anything can cause a protest such as proposed law changes in California or Texas.