Arizona taxpayers are paying more than $28,000 a day to incarcerate hundreds of illegal immigrants because the federal government hasn't filed the
paperwork to deport them to Mexico, state prison officials say.
Arizona Department of Corrections Director Dora Schriro said deporting such criminals should be a "no-brainer" given the money that could be saved
and the beds that could be freed in the state's overcrowded prison system.
Formal deportation orders for 46 of the 526 eligible inmates have been on file for several months, but state prison officials can't get Immigration
and Customs Enforcement to pick them up, Schriro said.
"I don't know why it's not getting done anymore, but it's not getting done," she said.
At the same time, ICE officials held a news conference Wednesday to tout a record number of deportations in January - 766 - from a federal prison in
Eloy, further angering state officials who say taxpayers are unfairly getting the bill for the criminals that remain in state custody.
ICE officials said they knew of no such problem.
The drain on the state's prison system prompted Gov. Janet Napolitano to send an invoice to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, requesting
compensation for more than $118 million over the past 18 months. Napolitano demanded that the federal government pay up or take custody of the
thousands of criminal illegal immigrants housed in Arizona prisons.
Each inmate costs the state $53.44 per day to house. The state recoups $17.12 of that through the federal government's State Criminal Alien
Assistance Program, or SCAAP.
At the ICE news conference, Phillip Crawford, Phoenix director of detention and removal operations for ICE, said the record-setting number shows the
agency's "continued commitment to removing criminal aliens from the United States." The deportations include illegal immigrants convicted of crimes
ranging from sexual assault to drug trafficking.
He wouldn't comment on the inmates still in state custody.
Russ Knocke, an ICE spokesman in Washington, D.C., said immigration officials would have to review the cases individually to see if there is a delay
in processing criminal immigrants for deportation.
He said ICE officials in Arizona have not received complaints or questions from state prison officials and have a system in place that rapidly and
efficiently deports immigrants as they finish their sentences.
"If they have any instance where they have an alien who is eligible for removal and not being removed, I would encourage them to communicate with
us," Knocke said.
Cam Hunter, a state prisons spokeswoman, said ICE officials were notified about a month ago about 400 inmates eligible for deportation but have not
yet responded. The other, more than 100 inmates have been identified within the last month, she said. By the end of the year, the state expects to
have 590 additional inmates who could be deported to Mexico, where ICE drops them at the Nogales border crossing."
www.tucsoncitizen.com...
Why can't the states 'deport" these people? Why can only the feds drop these crimminals off in mexico. Too much federal control is complicating a
simple issue.
I still think robotic 50 cal machine guns along the border would be effective.
Bush has been trying to fix this issue since 2001 but the congress won't let him. Who has the agenda here?