Thread: TN: "Jailed Illegal Immigrants Cause Financial Burden&q

http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/jail ... /78892.htm

[February 20, 2007, 9:31 pm]

"Jailed Illegal Immigrants Cause Financial Burden"
The financial burden of illegal immigrants committing crimes has other counties looking at their options.

The Maury county sheriff's department says there's a rise in the number of jail inmates who are here illegally.

One seriously ill inmate is costing the department thousands of dollars, but federal authorities won't deport the man.

Over the last two years, Maury county corrections officer Ray Odom has noticed a definite increase in the number of undocumented immigrants in the jail, and sometimes he says they get sick.

In fact, the recent hospitalization of one inmate has Sheriff Enoch George wondering how much of this financial burden the county will have to bear.

The inmate, who does not want to be identified, is facing drug charges.

He's an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has AIDS.

He recently spent five days hospitalized at Vanderbilt, costing the department more than $2500 in medical costs alone.

Plus hundreds more in overtime to guard him around the clock. It's a predicament even the inmate doesn't understand.

He says they spend more money than they have and in the end you get deported anyway.

He's been in the jail for over a yearand doesn't know why he hasn't been picked up by immigration officials.

Officer Craig D'Apolito has been tracking the impact of illegal immigrants in the jail.

He says being here illegally isn't always enough to get a deportation.

Immigration officials say if the charges were dropped against the inmate, they could step in and deport him.

But the Maury county sheriff's department says the judge will not drop the charges and intends to hear this case.

The inmate, who does not want to be identified, is facing drug charges.

He's an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has AIDS.

Since when do lawfully arrested inmates have the right not to be identified?

The whole thing is a Catch-22. Interesting how the judicial bureaucracy punishes legal and law abiding U.S. Citizens by holding their tax dollars ransom to judicial whim!

If we would just deport illegals, we wouldn't be paying their bills. Just another cost that bush and the democrats believe Americans should pay.