Beebe: Arkansas Lacks Jail Space For Illegal Immigrants

By John Lyon
The Morning News
LITTLE ROCK -- If Arkansas authorities tried to arrest all the illegal immigrants in the state, there would be no place to hold them, Gov. Mike Beebe said Friday.

"What our police officers are faced with (is), what are going to do with them?" Beebe said on his monthly call-in program on the Arkansas Radio Network. "You don't have enough room in the Pulaski County Jail for violent criminals right now.

"The murderers and the rapists and the robbers need to be locked up first, in my opinion," Beebe continued. "People that will hurt you need to be locked up first. So, if our cities and our counties and our state are bulging right now with regard to jails and prisons trying to keep the violent criminals locked up, where in the world would you put thousands of illegal aliens?"

Beebe made the remarks in response to a caller who asked if he would be willing to suspend funding for the state's preschool program to tackle the problem of illegal immigration.

"It's the federal government's primary responsibility," Beebe said. "We will help and we will follow the law, but I'm not going to raise your taxes to create more police forces and I'm not going to take education dollars and cut them for that purpose."

Another caller to the hourlong program asked why Beebe did not push for an immigration enforcement law similar to one that recently took effect in Oklahoma. The law seeks to bar illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses, state services, employment, housing or transportation in that state.

Beebe said Arkansas did pass legislation this year targeting employers who hire illegal immigrants, but "I am not going to raise your taxes to do what you're supposedly paying taxes right now to the federal government to (do) -- enforce the law."

One caller said he believes prejudice and ignorance are behind much of the public outcry against illegal immigrants. Arkansas seems to have a lot of problems in the area of race relations, the caller said.

"Understanding and tolerance obviously ... (are things) that all of us need more of and to practice more of, and it's not exclusive to Arkansas," Beebe said. "It's a human nature trait. It exists across the country."

Better communication is key to improving race relations, Beebe said.

"But we still all need to follow the law, too," he added.

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