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Benoit: Time for feds to pay up
Assemblyman's bill seeks funds for jailing of illegal immigrants

Jake Henshaw
Desert Sun Sacramento Bureau
August 5, 2006

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SACRAMENTO - Riverside County spent more than $12 million in 2005 to house undocumented immigrants in its jails, costs that are supposed to be covered by the federal government, state and local officials say.
The federal government in 2005 reimbursed the county only $1.25 million of this cost, leaving the rest of the cost on the tab of local taxpayers.

The state is in a similar position - receiving federal reimbursement to cover only about 16 percent of its $662 million cost in 2005 for housing undocumented immigrants.

Now with state prisons becoming so overcrowded that the governor has called a special legislative session on the issue, Assemblyman John Benoit, R-Palm Desert, has a bill to increase pressure on the federal government to pay its share for undocumented immigrant inmates.

Benoit's bill would require the state to ask federal officials to take these inmates or formally bill the federal government for incarcerating them.

Failing that, the bill would direct the state attorney general to sue the federal government for full reimbursement.

"They need to take the prisoners or pay their freight," Benoit said.

The bill still is being finalized for introduction in the special session that begins next week.

But it likely won't cover the federal shortfall in payments to the counties since they deal directly with the federal government, Benoit's staff said.


Clout for county

Still, Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson said Benoit's bill would help underfunded counties.
"It gives us clout to at least go after the federal government for their fair share of the jail costs of illegal immigrants," Wilson said.

The illegal immigrants are in county jails and state prison for violations of state and local laws, not federal immigration laws.

State officials said federal law clearly requires the federal government to take these prisoners or pay the cost of incarcerating them at the average cost of housing them in each state.

But Congress perennially fails to appropriate enough money to cover this cost fully, and the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement the payments are subject to the availability of appropriations.

"As the annual appropriation does not fully reimburse all costs submitted by eligible jurisdictions, the total costs for all eligible inmates is prorated," the DOJ statement said.

Jim Specht, a spokesman for Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said both Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush have proposed reduced funding for this purpose - Bush has proposed no funding for at least four years, he said.

The issue also is becoming acute for the state now that prisons are at 190 percent of occupancy at 171,725 inmates.

This population includes 16,000 illegal immigrants, a Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman said.

There are three state prisons in Riverside County with two in Blythe and one in Norco.

State officials don't have a breakdown of how many illegal immigrants are in each state prison.

The overcrowding is becoming so serious that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is asking a special session of the Legislature to approve nearly $6 billion in bonds to expand prison facilities.

Schwarzenegger has proposed contracting with other states to house up to 5,000 of the illegal immigrant inmates as a way to free up beds here, but they still would be the responsibility of California.

Accelerate deportation

When they finish serving their sentence, illegal immigrants are transferred to federal authorities for deportation proceedings.
Specht said this group also includes convicted legal immigrants.

Wilson said Riverside County is training staff to try to speed up this transfer.

Benoit said, "If we could turn over (the illegal immigrant inmates) that we should have no responsibility for to the federal government (as soon as they're convicted), we would make a huge dent in our prisoner overcrowding."

California got 50.5 percent of the total national federal funding for illegal immigrant inmates in 1996 and that share generally has drifted downward ever since to 28 percent last year.

During this period, federal funding dropped from a high of $585 million in each year between 1998 and 2000 to $300 in 2004 and 2005 but this year returned to $405 million.

In 2005, states and local governments requested a total of $856 million in reimbursements to offset the cost of housing illegal immigrants.