"How many in this country are arrested daily for serious crimes and have been convicted of serious crimes before, and nobody has bothered to check on their immigration status? It's obscene," says Sheriff Jim Pendergraph of Mecklenburg County, N.C.

Crime & illegals
Monday, September 10, 2007

Here's an idea for state and county governments whose jail budgets are being stretched by the rising tide of illegal alien criminals: Bill the federal government.

Is that any more outlandish than the amnesty legislation that imploded this year?

Contrary to the claims of some illegal-alien coddlers, who say illegals commit proportionately fewer crimes than native-born whites -- criminal aliens constitute a fourth of federal prison inmates, according to one estimate. But before they reach federal jurisdiction they land in county and state lockups.

This year more than 300,000 criminal aliens are expected to do time in state and local jails, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Then, still in violation of federal law, they go free because the government says it hasn't the resources to detain and deport them.

"How many in this country are arrested daily for serious crimes and have been convicted of serious crimes before, and nobody has bothered to check on their immigration status? It's obscene," says Sheriff Jim Pendergraph of Mecklenburg County, N.C.

Renewed attention has focused on the problem since the arrest of an illegal -- out on bond on a child-rape charge -- in the execution-style murders of three college students in Newark, N.J.

But will anything change?

Aside from the cost to taxpayers, how else will the nation pay for its flagrant disregard?

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