Feds will pay Elko sheriff’s office $27,000 for housing criminal aliens in jail

By Jared DuBach
Thursday, October 15, 2009 8:48 AM PDT


ELKO — The Elko County Sheriff’s Office will be reimbursed more than $27,000 for incarcerating more than 100 criminal aliens over the past year.

A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice states the sheriff’s office is only one of 900 eligible entities that successfully applied for the program. A total of 3,140 agencies applied. Through documentation the sheriff’s office provided, the office will be reimbursed $27,016.

Lt. Carl Cox said while the reimbursement wouldn’t cover all costs associated with housing the more than 100 aliens, it does help. Because of the number of those incarcerated and the variance of days in the jail per person, he did not know exactly how much it cost the county to house them.

Cox said he supplied Justice Benefits Inc. with a copy machine paper box full of 1,698 pages of print-outs documenting each person who was in the jail for the past year. Justice Benefits Inc. is a public entity that works directly with the Department of Justice.

Cox said the computer system does not highlight undocumented aliens, so that task went to Justice Benefits, Inc. by reviewing all the data. The dollar amount awarded is calculated by Justice Benefits Inc. and is not determined by any specific amount requested by an agency.

Cox listed some of the foreign nationalities kept in the jail included Mexican, Guatemalan, German and Sudanese, to name a few.

http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2009/ ... 896342.txt