http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=35549

Jail costs add up for illegal immigrants
Federal reimbursement comes up short for state and county
By JIM REDDEN Issue date: Fri, Jun 9, 2006
The Tribune
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Oregon taxpayers are paying millions of dollars every year to incarcerate undocumented immigrants.

During the last fiscal year alone, Oregon Department of Corrections officials estimate they spent more than $32.5 million to house 1,722 undocumented immigrants.

Closer to home, Multnomah County corrections officials estimate they spent $1.3 million to incarcerate 422 undocumented immigrants last year.

Border control advocates say the costs are a compelling reason to crack down on people entering the country illegally, especially from Mexico.

Immigration rights advocates respond that most undocumented immigrants are hard workers who come to this country looking for a better life. They say it’s unfair to characterize an entire community by the minority who break the law.

Complicating the debate is the fact that corrections officials may be undercounting the number of undocumented immigrants in their custody. A spokesman for the Multnomah County sheriff’s office admits that many undocumented immigrants are released before being fully identified, in large part because of jail overcrowding.

“If people understood what illegal-alien inmates actually cost them, they’d be amazed,” said Dave Burright, executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, which represents the 36 sheriffs who operate the state’s county jails.

Count’s hard to determine

No one knows for certain how many undocumented immigrants are in Oregon prisons and county jails. Unlike the federal government, state and county corrections officials do not have access to immigration records. Immigration is a federal issue, not a state or local one.

The main reason state and county corrections officials try to determine immigration status is to qualify for federal reimbursement under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Created by Congress in 1994, the program is intended to compensate state and county governments for part of their costs in incarcerating illegal aliens.

But the program relies on the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to identify which inmates are undocumented immigrants. According to ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice, state and county corrections officials try to determine which inmates are foreign-born, then submit a “vetted list” to ICE, which makes the final determination.

Damon believes ICE identifies virtually all undocumented immigrants in state custody. She says the 1,722 identified by ICE last year was close to the total number of undocumented immigrants.

“The number we miss is very small — within the margin of error,” she said.

Multnomah County sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Bruce McCain said, however, that his agency misses many undocumented immigrants in large part because so many are released before they can be processed. He believes the 422 identified by ICE last year were just a fraction of all the undocumented inmates that passed through the jails.

According to McCain, the most serious offenders are usually held until they can be fully identified. Inmates booked on lesser charges, such as small-scale drug dealing, are usually released before they can be checked because of jail space limitations.

“We know we’re missing a lot, but we can’t even begin to guess how many,” McCain said.

Even for those identified as undocumented immigrants by ICE, the federal reimbursement does not even come close to paying the actual costs of their incarceration. Congress appropriates only a flat amount for the program each year that must be spread among all 50 states. Last year the total was $300 million. The year before that, it was $250 million.

In fiscal year 2003-04, state corrections officials said they incarcerated 1,716 undocumented immigrants, for which the federal reimbursement came to around $3.4 million.

The reimbursement rate was only a little higher at the county level. In fiscal year 2005, Multnomah County estimates that it spent approximately $1.3 million to incarcerate 422 undocumented immigrants. But the federal government paid the county just $290,987.

And Burright says state and county officials aren’t even counting such nondetention costs as medical care for the undocumented immigrant inmates.

“Medical costs these days are staggering,” Burright said.

Wayward or working?

Jim Ludwick, executive director of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said the financial costs do not tell the entire story. According to Ludwick, the human cost to the victims of criminal activity by undocumented immigrants is even greater.

Corrections officials have released a list of 909 undocumented immigrants currently in state prisons, 725 of whom are Mexican citizens. Some of them are serving time for such serious crimes as murder, rape and sodomy.

“How do you place a price tag on someone who is murdered or raped by an illegal alien? What’s the real cost of all the drugs smuggled into the country?” he asked.

But Aeryca Steinbauer said terrible crimes are committed by citizens and noncitizens alike.

“As with any population, there are those who commit crimes. To paint the entire population by the acts of those who break the law is not fair,” said Steinbauer, a coordinator for Causa, an immigrant-rights organization whose name means “cause” in Spanish.

A recent study by the Oregon Center for Public Policy supports Steinbauer’s position that most undocumented immigrants are hard workers. Titled “Undocumented Workers Are Taxpayers, Too,” it estimates that up to 150,000 undocumented immigrants live in Oregon and earn between $1.9 billion and $2.2 billion in income annually. According to the report, the workers pay between $66 million and $77 million in state and local taxes.