Thread: CA-Santa Ana jail will house more immigrant detainees

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Santa Ana jail will house more immigrant detainees

Santa Ana Police Department is using federal payment to avoid making more budget cuts.

By DENISSE SALAZAR

The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA – The Santa Ana City Jail, which receives the most federal revenue of any city jail in the Greater Los Angeles area for housing immigration detainees – is planning to boost its revenue by housing additional detainees and negotiating a rate increase.

Unfilled job vacancies, budget cuts and the lack of new revenue have motivated the Santa Ana Police Department to increase its revenue through immigration detention. The department plans to add 32 additional beds to bring its population capacity to 512 beds by May, said Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters.

The department is negotiating an increase in the daily rate it receives per detainee from $82 to $87, which if approved, would go into effect in October, Walters said.

The move – which is expected to bring in $1 million in annual revenue – reflects the need many local law enforcement agencies are facing to find new sources of revenue.

"If we didn't bring in the additional $1 million in revenue, we would have to take an additional $1 million cut," Walters said.

The department expects a 10 percent budget cut and has had a hiring freeze since October that has prevented it from hiring 40 new officers and filling 23 civilian positions.

"There is no one in the academy," Walters said. "We are trying to get by with what we have right now."

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency contracts with local jails to house immigration detainees and that need is growing.

"We have increased needs for detention space because we are targeting criminal aliens who are being released by local agencies … and are now facing deportation from the United States," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "That has increased the demand for beds locally and nationally."

To benefit from the demand of more local detention space, the Police Department is converting two multipurpose rooms into dormitory rooms, which will each hold 16 immigration detainees, said Christina Holland, the jail correctional manager.

Showers and bunk beds will be added to transform the multipurpose rooms, she said.

The jail, which receives immigrant detainees almost daily, has contracts with county, state and federal agencies. Russell Davis, the jail administrator, said that earlier this week, the jail housed 167 immigration detainees, 21 Santa Ana police arrestees, 275 U.S. Marshals' inmates and eight parole inmates.

Davis said the Police Department is able to bring in an additional $1 million in revenue because its overhead costs will stay the same and it will not need to hire additional staff.

The contract with ICE generated more than $3.7 million in 2007 and $4.8 million last year, according to ICE.

"With the rate increase and the addition of the 32 beds, we project to bring in over $14.7 million next fiscal year," Davis said, adding that the cost to run the jail is about $15 million a year.

Kice said the Santa Ana City Jail is an important facility for ICE in the Greater Los Angeles area because it's one of just two facilities – the other is the Mira Loma Detention Center – used to house immigrant detainees longer than 72 hours. It is also the second in terms of the volume of cases it handles.

Immigrant detainees spent an average of 30 days in detention during fiscal year 2008, compared with an average time of nearly 37 days the previous year, according to agency statistics. But at the Santa Ana City Jail, they are held anywhere from a few hours to several months.

Jose Ramirez, 25, of Corona, has been at the Santa Ana City Jail for about a month following his release from Riverside County Jail. He said he served an eight-month sentence on an involuntary manslaughter charge after his best friend, who was a passenger in his vehicle, was killed during a car accident.

An immigration hold was also placed on him.

"I feel I shouldn't be in custody," said Ramirez, whose parents moved here from Mexico when he was 2 years old. "I want to fight my case from outside jail and I could probably do a lot more than in here."

"I've never been in trouble," he said during a phone interview. "What happened was an accident."

Edwin Ventura, 42, has been in immigrant detention for eight months after he said he was unfairly convicted of a felony drug-related charge that put him behind bars for three months.

Ventura said he became a legal resident in 2003. He said he came to this country 20 years ago from Guatemala through political asylum.

"I don't have the economic means to appeal and my circumstances don't allow me to do that," Ventura said in Spanish during a telephone interview. "I'm worried because they want to deport me and I have two children here."

Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants' rights and national security litigation for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said taxpayers are paying for immigration detention and it doesn't make economic sense.

Arulanantham said it's very common for immigrant detainees to spend more time in immigration detention then serving their criminal sentence.

The immigration detention system, Arulanantham said, incarcerates more than 30,000 people daily, most of whom are never given a hearing about whether they should be locked up.

"We would be better served if these people were returned to society than being detained during their immigration process," he said.

Kice said the majority of immigration detainees in the Greater Los Angeles area have criminal records and must be detained by law while awaiting completion of their immigration proceedings or deportation.

Kice said Ventura's criminal history includes battery, narcotics and inflicting corporal injury on a spouse. Ramirez was convicted of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and had previous criminal convictions, she said.

"We've determined not to set bond in either case because both have serious criminal histories including crimes of violence and we consider them both to be a flight risk," Kice said.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3709 or desalazar@ocregister.com

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/immi ... slComments

Unfilled job vacancies, budget cuts and the lack of new revenue have motivated the Santa Ana Police Department to increase its revenue through immigration detention. The department plans to add 32 additional beds to bring its population capacity to 512 beds by May, said Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters.

And I can assure you they will have absolutely no problems filling those 512 beds, 365 days a year!!

"I feel I shouldn't be in custody," said Ramirez, whose parents moved here from Mexico when he was 2 years old. "I want to fight my case from outside jail and I could probably do a lot more than in here."

Well...I feel you shouldn't be in this country! How do you like them apples??