Thread: Mr. Fox, Cough Up $300,000

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na ... 2251.story

Mr. Fox, Cough Up $300,000

John Trumbo, a sheriff in northeastern Oregon, sends Mexico's president a letter asking for funds to help pay for jailed illegal immigrants.
By Tomas Alex Tizon, Times Staff Writer
May 12, 2006

PENDLETON, Ore. — Out of ideas and low on cash one cold morning, the man with the biggest badge in town put his meaty fingers on a keyboard and tapped out a letter to the leader of Mexico.

"Dear Precidente [sic] Fox," it began.

"My name is John Trumbo. I am Sheriff of Umatilla County in northeastern Oregon, United States of America." Illegal immigrants "from your country" who committed crimes here, the letter said, cost Americans lots of money.

Last year, more than 360 of "your citizens" spent time in jail "at a cost of $63 a day which equates to a request for payment of $318,843," the letter concluded. "At this time, you will not be billed for medical, dental and transportation costs. Your prompt attention to this request will be very much appreciated."

Three months later, Trumbo reports, Vicente Fox still has not paid up. The Mexican president has issued no response, no installment payment, nada.

The silence has reverberated at the Umatilla County Justice Center, a complex of modular beige buildings set among rolling hills of wheat. Here, the influx of Mexican immigrants — many of them illegal and a portion criminal — has become an increasingly prickly issue. Trumbo's letter voiced the growing frustration of a region that has been compared to the California farmlands of the 1950s and 1960s — a place going through a transition in racial demographics.

Between 1990 and 2000, Umatilla County's Latino population, including legal and illegal immigrants, jumped 114% to 11,400 people, according to the Census Bureau. This doesn't include thousands of seasonal workers who live here part of the year and many others who choose not to be counted.

About 70,000 people live in the county.

In towns such as Hermiston, Umatilla and Milton-Freewater, Latinos occupy entire neighborhoods, and the beginnings of "Little Mexico" commercial areas have taken hold. The neighborhoods tend to be poorer, and many residents blame Latino immigrants for the region's gang and drug problems.

Public schools have become increasingly populated by Latinos. In Milton-Freewater and Umatilla, with a combined enrollment of about 3,300, Latinos make up half of the student body. No one knows how many are children of illegal immigrants because federal law prohibits schools from asking about parents' immigration status.

Undocumented residents also have access to state and county services for drug and alcohol treatment, mental health, domestic violence and nutrition. While there's grousing about taxpayer money being used for these services, nothing ignites more anger than illegal residents who end up in the criminal justice system.

"They already broke the law once coming over here," says Pendleton resident Elaina Solomon, 49, an emigre from Honduras who works as a legal assistant. "Then they commit murders and robberies while they're here. Why should we pay for their room and board at the jail? Why should we foot the bill?"

Trumbo's letter to Fox resonated with Solomon and many other county residents even as some in the Latino community privately grumbled.

To anyone who asked, Trumbo explained:

The county has a daily jail capacity of 252 inmates but can afford staff and services for only 135. The sheriff's office should have a minimum of 27 patrol officers but can fund only nine. Between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. each day, no patrol officer is on duty.

"When people call the police, they expect to see the police," Trumbo says. "They see it on TV all the time. But there are times when I can't send anybody because I don't have anybody because I don't have the money."

One reason, he says, is because the department spends so much of its $6.5-million annual budget on apprehending and jailing illegal immigrants. He understands that the immigration debate is complex and he hopes the people in Washington, D.C., are working to solve the problem soon.

He has no problem with Latinos personally, he says. "Some of my best friends," Trumbo says, "are Hispanic." He just wanted to tell someone, anyone, about the situation here. Sometimes a sheriff in rural eastern Oregon can feel like his words dissolve in the wind, like a coyote's howl.

Is anyone out there listening?

President Bush?

he should garnish the funds appropriated to Mexico through Congress

Good for John Trumbo, a sheriff in the State of Oregon, for sending a bill for incarcerations of Mexican illegal aliens to Vinnie Fox. Good for him not that he will ever likely see a penny.

Several months ago, I also read where a Idaho politician also sent Fox a bill for costs incurred by illegal aliens in his county I believe. Good for these local sheriffs and politicians to take a stand not that it will probably do any good. But, if more of them and especially massive numbers would do the same, it might make congress critters in Wash DC as well as the White House take more notice.