Thread: Entrants may get own U.S. prison

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/118230

Entrants may get own U.S. prison
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

PHOENIX — Gov. Janet Napolitano wants Congress to fund a federal regional prison where Arizona and other Western states can send inmates who are in this country illegally.
The governor said Wednesday that she has asked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to build and operate a facility to house people convicted of state crimes but who also are illegal immigrants.
She said existing law already makes the U.S. Justice Department legally responsible when people here illegally commit state crimes. So far the response has been to leave them in state prisons — and promise reimbursement.
But the governor noted Congress has never approved enough funding to cover all the obligations under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.
In fact, as of last fall — the last time Arizona computed its bill — the state was owed $217 million for the prior 2 1/2 years of housing these inmates.
That leaves one other option under federal law: Have the Justice Department take custody of these criminals. Napolitano said that could be accomplished by having a federal prison built somewhere in the region specifically to house those people. "I think it's a great idea," she said.
Besides relieving the state of a federal obligation, the governor said it ensures that once inmates have completed their sentences they are promptly deported, something that doesn't always happen now.
The Department of Corrections reports 4,243 people — more than 12 percent of the 33,646 people in Arizona prisons — were in this country illegally when they were arrested. The agency figures it costs an average of $56 a day to house each prisoner.
Last year there was $305 million in the federal budget to reimburse all the states, a figure Napolitano put at less than half what actually was owed.

Heck, they could use all the camps KBR is building.

We already built a zillion new schools to educate their kids. Now we have to build prisons to house the deportees? How much more are the taxpayers going to be expected to fund?