Thread: Sheriff pushes regional jail system to house, then deport, i

Sheriff pushes regional jail system to house, then deport, illegal immigrants

By MICHAEL WELLES SHAPIRO
Friday, February 29, 2008

Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner unveiled a proposal Thursday that would move illegal immigrants out of county jails and into a new regional jail system. It would also authorize state Department of Corrections staffers to process them for deportation.

The plan was put together by Tanner as head of a panel of South Carolina sheriffs, with input from Gov. Mark Sanford's staff.

It breaks the state into three regions with tentative locations for the jails in Colleton, Lee and Laurens counties.

Under the proposal, inmates with sentences of a year or less who are determined to be illegal immigrants would be moved from crowded county facilities to the three regional facilities.

Tanner said the genesis for the regional approach, which he hopes would be copied by other states, grew out of the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials don't have the resources to train individual counties to process illegal immigrants for removal. That training program is called 287 (g).

At a January meeting with ICE officials, Tanner said, "we were told that 287 (g) ... would not and could not be established in county jails in the future."

"They're understaffed and under-funded," he said, and "the only thing that they would consider in the future was a regional approach."

Host counties would donate at least 25 acres of land for each regional jail, which Tanner said would ideally hold 400 inmates each.

The cost of building all three facilities would be $12 million to $15 million. The next step is finding that money.

"We're going to lean on the governor for his support," Tanner said. ".... He can initiate a relationship between Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Jim DeMint to look at this proposal and to also look at maybe some earmark funding through the federal budget."

DeMint has gone on the record as a strong opponent of funding local projects through federal earmarks.

Iffederal dollars don't come through, Tanner said counties would have to come up with the money for jail construction. Either way the state would shoulder the burden of staffing and operating the jails.

Devoting regional jails purely to housing illegal immigrants could cut overcrowding at county jails almost in half, according to Tanner. A survey included in the proposal showed county jails across the state currently hold roughly 13,000 inmates on an average day. County jails are about 2,600 inmates over capacity on average. In Beaufort County, the jail was more than 100 inmates over capacity in January.

He said Department of Homeland Security officials had estimated that 9 percent of county jail inmates are in the country illegally, which comes to about 1,200 such inmates statewide.

While a workable 287 (g) plan would ease crowding, it wouldn't solve the problem, according to Beaufort County jail director Phil Foot.

Beaufort County Council members are looking at a potentially costly jail expansion.

Foot said that of the 376 inmates in the county jail on Wednesday, ICE officials were looking into the immigration status of 43.

"If you take 43 away from my number, I'm still overpopulated," Foot said.

He said he would still need some sort of jail expansion "even if you somehow magically make them disappear."

http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/ ... 40337.html

That is incredible!! I hope they are 100% succesful and many other states follor their lead.

The cost to build will more than be returned when illegal aliens are kept and processed for return to their own countries, and are no longer a financial burden to the United States. The long term effects will be less illegals, clogging up the county and state prisons, and taking less tax dollars from citizens.

We need to send emails in suport of this sheriff to let him know he is on the right path and has our support.

http://www.bcgov.net/Feedback/feedback. ... mit=Submit

Follow this link and thank him!!

Originally Posted by AE

http://www.bcgov.net/Feedback/feedback.php?SID=37&Submit=Submit

Follow this link and thank him!!

Will do!