KLTV Investigates: East Texas taxpayer dollars spent on undocumented inmates

Posted: Jan 12, 2015 6:14 PM PST Updated: Jan 12, 2015 6:14 PM PST By Holly Gonzalez



  • According to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, East Texas counties collectively spent more than $795,000 housing undocumented inmates last year.


GREGG COUNTY, TX (KLTV) -Texas county jails spent more than $77 million housing undocumented immigrants last year, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Starting at book-in, an inmate that's determined to be undocumented is carefully tracked.

“Local counties can call immigration when they arrest somebody that they believe is not here legally,” says immigration attorney and advocate Jose Sanchez.

“Then, there's another interview process and [ICE] determines whether or not to place a hold on that individual,” says Gregg County Sheriff Maxey Cerliano.

Sheriff Cerliano says inmates under a detainer stay in jail until federal officials can take them into custody.

“Your local tax dollars are footing the bill for that,” he says.

Sheriff Cerliano says housing inmates at the Gregg County jail costs roughly $30.94 per inmate per day, whether they're citizens or not.

“There is no reimbursement under the [ICE] detainer program,” he says.

According to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, East Texas counties collectively spent more than $795,000 housing undocumented inmates last year.

“The only reimbursement program that we can apply for, and we do participate in that, is the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program,” says Sheriff Cerliano.

He says the program provides a small reimbursement, but it's only a fraction of the more than $40,000 spent by Gregg County last year.

“As an attorney doing immigration and doing criminal law, on a daily basis I get phone calls from people getting ICE detainers in East Texas,” says Jose Sanchez.

But Sanchez says that's just too much.

“Close to 70% of the ICE detainers that have been performed by the counties around the United States have been on petty offenses like no driver license, no insurance, no seatbelt, [and] failure to ID. To me, it's a waste of money of the tax dollars that we're spending on these petty offenses compared to just going after the felonies,” says Sanchez.

http://www.kltv.com/story/27832624/k...mented-inmates