Thread: Feds may deport 1,256 Ga. inmates

Feds may deport 1,256 Ga. inmates

By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Federal immigration authorities are targeting 1,256 state prisoners convicted of murder, rape and other offenses for possible deportation, documents obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act show.

Vino Wong, vwong@ajc.com Federal immigration authorities are targeting over 1,000 Georgia prisoners for possible deportation.

The strain illegal immigrants are placing on Georgia’s prisons and other taxpayer-funded resources is at the center of the debate over the state’s tough new immigration law.

Georgia doesn't track the immigration status of inmates, so the number of illegal immigrants that are in Georgia prisons is not known. State officials, however, do track those who could face deportation once they are released from prison. That number, which includes both legal and illegal immigrants, was 1,256 this month. And they include a wide range of criminals, including robbers, child molesters and drug dealers, state records show.

Federal immigration officials have issued detainers for these inmates. The detainers ask state officials to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before these prisoners are released and to hold them for up to 48 more hours. That will give ICE time to possibly take them into custody and seek to deport them.

On average, it costs $50.17 to hold each inmate per day in a Georgia prison, including state and federal taxpayer dollars, prisoner fees and other funding sources, public records show. Using that figure, it costs $22.9 million to imprison 1,256 people annually in Georgia.

Georgia lawmakers expressed concerns about such costs when they enacted House Bill 87, a tough new immigration enforcement statute partly patterned after the groundbreaking one Arizona enacted last year. The law seeks to deter illegal immigrants from coming to Georgia by punishing people who transport or harbor them and by blocking their access to jobs and public benefits. Parts of the law are now tied up in federal courts amid legal challenges brought by a coalition of civil and immigration rights groups.

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and other supporters of HB 87 have hailed it as a victory for taxpayers who have borne the cost of illegal immigration in Georgia. Critics say the measure is divisive and unconstitutional, arguing it intrudes on the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration.

Parts of the law went into effect this year amid efforts to overhaul the state’s criminal justice system, which spends about $1 billion a year locking up criminals. Georgia’s prison beds are now full, forcing the state to house 2,786 inmates in county jails, according to the Georgia Corrections Department. Georgia’s Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform is expected to offer recommendations to the governor and lawmakers by Nov. 1.

The author of HB 87 – Republican state Rep. Matt Ramsey of Peachtree City – said the number of ICE detainers now pending for Georgia inmates reflects only part of the problem targeted by the law.

“You have more illegal aliens who are committing crimes and who are cycling in and out of our prisons that don’t have detainers and deportation orders issued on them by the federal government,â€

Just make sure they don't return. We need the border secured too.