Violent Illegal Alien Convicted Criminals are Mishandled by the Federal Government
There has been much attention lately to tragedies involving criminal illegal aliens who have been convicted of a crime and yet still remain in the United States. Many critics have pointed fingers at state and local governments rather than the Federal government. Who is to blame?
In 2004, the Inspector General’s Office Report of January 2007 reported that 262,105 illegal aliens were incarcerated in the United States. Out of that group nearly 73 percent would be arrested again with a six time average rate of re-arrest. There is a program called SCAAP (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program) from the Federal government to assist state and local governments which was spending about 287 million dollars a year as recently as 2004. SCAAP provides federal payments to states and localities that incurred correctional officer salary costs for incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens who have at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions for violations of state or local law, and who are incarcerated for at least 4 consecutive days during the reporting period.
The report mentioned above found that between 2001 and 2004 about 8 percent of criminal illegal aliens were released by local authorities who should have been put in federal custody. Most importantly the report noted that the majority of those released from local jails or state prisons was not because the local agency had a lack of resources. The DHS Inspector General went on to state, “additionally, DRO’s (DRO stands for detention and removal operations) ability to detain and remove illegal aliens with final orders of removal is impacted by: (1) the propensity of illegal aliens to disobey orders to appear in immigration court; (2) the penchant of released illegal aliens with final orders to abscond; (3) the practice of some countries to block or inhibit the repatriation of its citizens; and (4) two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions which mandate the release of criminal and other high-risk aliens 180 days after the issuance of the final removal order except in ‘Special Circumstances.’ Collectively, the bed space, personnel and funding shortages coupled with the other factors, has created an unofficial ‘mini-amnesty’ program for criminal and other high-risk aliens.It is estimated that DRO would need an additional 34,653 detention beds, at an estimated cost of $1.1 billion, to detain and remove [them]”
Thus the real problem to this issue is not that local and state communities are not enforcing the law but that the Federal government has no place to put them. This is the same issue that was brought up by a guest writer for Contempo Magazine, Daryl Rambo, a retired Border Patrolman of 20 years service, who said the real issue with illegal aliens was housing. Local jails and prisons may not like to house Federal prisoners because this makes them come under another more stricter sets of rules and regulations. In addition most correction facilities receive a fixed per diem funding from the state for their population which does not include Federal prisoners who have completed their local or state sentences. Clearly these criminals need to go to Federal detentions facilities before they are released back into society after completing their sentence.
Repatriation of criminal aliens is not a speedy process. False identity and false claims of country of origin are very common and hard to verify. Most countries are not anxious to have a criminal returned. There is no international database available for identifying many of these individuals.
There is no easy answer to this problem. Certainly illegal aliens who commit heinous crimes should receive the full punishment available under the law. Many fear that too rapid a deportation without full investigation of illegal aliens will allow them to escape prosecution for other offences they may have committed . At the same time, illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes should not be allowed to be released back into the general population upon fulfillment of their sentence. Unfortunately, due to difficulties in identifying their true country of origin or in getting that country to accept them they will have to be put in a detention facility until they can be deported. This will require significant funding and cost the American taxpayer.
However once they are detained after already having served time for their criminal sentence many ethical questions naturally arise. How long should a criminal be detained who cannot be deported? Should all criminals be detained for life if no deportation is possible or should there be a review process or rehabilitation process? Should the United States use forcible repatriation? Some will question if it is really ethical to detain a criminal who has served his/her time? Should repeat criminal alien offenders be labeled as habitual criminals and be given special life sentences?
This group represents a small group of the overall immigrant population but it has the worst effect on our country. This is the area where major Federal dollars and manpower should be spent. Building fences or penalizing employers of legitimate businesses will not stop drug gangs or thugs. The Latino community needs to visibly back full enforcement and funding of programs involving the detention of illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes not only because its the right thing to do but also because they are usually the victims of these criminals.
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