Thread: TN: Immigration enforcement has high cost

Immigration enforcement has high cost

Legislation faces fiscal handicaps
By Phil West
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Posted January 12, 2011 at midnight

JACKSON — Public Safety Commissioner Stephen Simpson tossed cold water Tuesday on an immigration bill that, if passed and signed into law, would let law enforcement officers in Mississippi demand proof of citizenship from drivers stopped for traffic violations.

The legislation would require his department to hire 11 experts, at a cost of about $1.2 million a year, who would pore over suspected illegal immigrants’ documents to determine their validity, Simpson told members of the Senate Judiciary A Committee.

Local sheriffs then would have to bear the cost of housing the immigrants and pay for transporting them to the nearest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, which is in Louisiana, he said.

“Jails would fill up,â€

And what is the cost of non-enforcement? In money, lives, jobs?