http://www.kcpw.org/article/1003

Hundreds of Illegal Aliens Fill Prison Beds in Utah
Jun 21, 2006 by Julie Rose

Each year 6 million Utah taxpayer dollars are spent housing undocumented workers at the state prison. Utah Department of Corrections Deputy Director Christine Mitchell says five percent of the prison population is illegal and most come from Mexico.

Most of the time, Mitchell says the illegal alien inmates are handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after they've finished their prison time. She says the Utah Court system tends to imprison the most serious offenders rather than hand them over for deportation.

"The child sex offenders, murderers, rapists, robbers," says Mitchell. "The first degree offenders, the long-sentence offenses, are the ones we see illegal aliens in prison for."

Mitchell says the federal government has recently acknowledged the financial impact to states of keeping illegal aliens in state correctional systems. However, federal reimbursement for Utah's alien prison population has now declined from over two million dollars in the year 2000 to just $360,000 in 2006.