Thread: President cuts federal reimbursement for illegal immigrants

President cuts federal reimbursement for illegal immigrants in local jails
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May 11, 2009 - 5:21 PM

The federal government will be shirking its responsibility if it ends its partial reimbursement to Yuma County for jailing illegal immigrants for crimes committed in the Yuma area, county officials said.

President Obama made a cut to the federal budget by eliminating the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP, a $400 million dollar program started in 1995 to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for incarcerating illegal immigrants. The budget cut is one of 121 totaling $17 billion from the $3.4 trillion budget Congress approved for next year.

The aliens were jailed for violating state or local laws, but county officials said the federal government should share the cost of housing them because the aliens first had to enter the country in violation of federal law.

As it is, the county doesn't get much in terms of SCAAP reimbursements - 10 cents on the dollar, said Major Leon Wilmot with the Yuma County Sheriff's Office. That amounted to $158,900 in fiscal 2007, when the county cost of incarcerating the aliens was $2.4 million.
Still, every dollar counts at a time when a sour economy already is forcing the county to tighten its belt.

As it is, the partial reimbursement has "already put a significant impact on us already," Wilmot said.

"They don't seem to care, which is an unfortunate situation," he said.

"And we are tasked with footing the bill when it is the federal government's responsibility."

"The federal government is setting forth this expectation, but they're not coming through with the funding source to help fund that program," County Administrator Robert Pickels said.

But, he added that even with this unfunded mandate, the county does receive a lot of other federal support for federal programs, and that this is isolated.

Without SCAAP, the county will take on more of a financial responsibility of incarcerating illegal immigrants.

And that means the additional strain on the budget will be passed on the taxpayer.

"We as taxpayers have to bear that burden no matter where you're at," Wilmot said.

Pickels said the loss of revenue will put more of a strain on the local jail district budget.

"Any time we lose an additional revenue source, it's going to impact what our available resources are for our overall jail operations," Pickels said.

Last year, there were 815 illegal immigrants in custody, and only 411 of them met eligibility requirements for reimbursement, said Wilmot.

Some did not meet the SCAAP criteria, which according to the Bureau of Justice Assistance guidelines, states the person have at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions for violations of state or local law, and who are incarcerated for at least 4 consecutive days.

In 2006, Wilmot said the expenses spiked to $10 million, and the county was reimbursed $244,000, but he said it went down when the U.S. Border Patrol increased its presence in the area around the same time. And now, he said it seems to be going up again.

Wilmot said he just filed the county's $2.5 million expenses for 2008, and it's unclear how much exactly they'll get back.

"There has never been a year since (the program started) they've been reimbursed complete," Wilmot said.

--
Stephanie A. Wilken can be reached at swilken@yumasun.com


http://www.yumasun.com/news/local-49996 ... ident.html

This is an old dirty trick. Even though no legislation has passed to give the illegals Amnesty, the law is giving them Amnesty by cutting off funding to programs that enforce laws that the government doesn't want enforced.

Funny how the Obama goon squad comes up with funding for Nancy Pelosi's Marsh mouse, and for groups like Acorn and La Raza, but they have to cut the budget for anything that helps the American people.


Chicago politics as usual!

Related article:

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-155985.html

Previously at
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-155655-scaap.html
and
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-155672-scaap.html

and the reaction:

"President Faces Stiff Opposition...."
http://www.alipac.us/article-4209--0-0.html

This should cause the state and local government to tighten up procedures lke creating state level force of dedicated immigration police and hiring bus contractors at state level to round up criminals for ICE.

Actually I think this may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Taxpayers in states with a higher percentage of illegal aliens will now have to foot the entire bill. No more spreading the costs throughout the country. Less money taxpayers from states with low percentages of IA's will have to pay.

Hopefully the states affected the most will now get serious of cracking down and speeding up deportations of illegal aliens, instead of letting them languish in jails.

Amnesty shutdown 2009, Please take action NOW!!!


http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-897408.html#897408