Thread: Nation's jails want federal payment for housing aliens

As Arizona law takes effect, nation's jails line up for federal payment for housing aliens
By Isaac Wolf of Scripps Howard News Service
Posted July 28, 2010 at 7:59 p.m. WASHINGTON — It seems like unchartered territory: A new Arizona law targeting illegal immigrants is scheduled to take effect today and other states seem poised to follow. The Obama administration is striking back by filing a lawsuit against Arizona that claims the border state’s foray into immigration policing overreaches into federal turf.

But communities across the country for years have focused on identifying illegal immigrants and alerting federal authorities. In fact, the practice is induced by federal programs, which marry local law enforcement’s knowledge of its community with federal know _ how and hundreds of millions of dollars in training and reimbursement dollars, according to immigration experts.

Under one program, communities compete for hundreds of millions of federal dollars by identifying illegal immigrant convicts they’ve jailed. Problem is, some 20 percent of people identified turn out to not be illegal immigrants — and many are actually citizens, according to a White House report.

The program, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, pays municipalities for identifying and reporting convicted illegal immigrants jailed in their communities. Dating back to 1994, the Justice Department-run initiative has become a major source of revenue for struggling communities.

It’s also a textbook case of pork barrel spending: The Bush and Obama administrations tried for 10 years to ax the program, pointing out its ineffectiveness, but strenuous congressional support keeps the money flowing. This year President Obama’s budget called for $330 million for SCAAP, and senators quickly introduced a bill to provide almost 1 billion a year for the program.

The program also leads communities to identify illegal immigrants to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement division (ICE) that they otherwise wouldn’t, according to experts.

“It creates a strong incentive for a jail or prison to try to determine if someone’s an illegal immigrant because if they can, they can get this money from the federal government,â€

Originally Posted by "topsecret10

Under one program, communities compete for hundreds of millions of federal dollars by identifying illegal immigrant convicts they’ve jailed. Problem is, some 20 percent of people identified turn out to not be illegal immigrants — and many are actually citizens, according to a White House report.

Shows the bias--another way is to say some 80% are shown to be illegal aliens.