Thread: TX-Illegal criminals:Border lawmen protest cut, imm funds

Illegal criminals: Border lawmen protest proposed cut in criminal immigrant funds
Comments 11 | Recommend 2
May 26, 2009 - 12:05 AM
Jeremy Roebuck

Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies arrested six Mexican gang members in April 2008 in connection with the murder of one of their criminal associates.

The case was notable not only for the sheer number of suspects involved but also because all had entered the country illegally shortly before the slaying.

At the time, Sheriff Lupe Treviño seized on the arrests as an example of the rising number of undocumented migrants who enter the country for primarily criminal motives. Now, more than a year later, that population is still growing while the money used to pay for their detention could be drying up.

The Rio Grande Valley's county jails could lose as much as $1 million next year in federal funding used to compensate local governments for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants under a budget proposal submitted to Congress earlier this month.

President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to eliminate the $400 million set aside for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and reallocate it to ongoing border security and immigration enforcement efforts.

But Texas border lawmakers and lawmen - whose jurisdictions spend an average of more than $288 million each year housing undocumented migrants accused or convicted of crimes - are fighting to maintain the program, which they describe as essential to keeping their jails running.

"We tend to bear a disproportionate cost of unfunded mandates because of the federal government's failure to implement true border security," said David Austin, a lobbyist working on behalf of the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition.

Launched in 1995, the SCAAP program was originally designed to share the financial burden that housing criminal illegal immigrants posed to local governments.

Because enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility, border communities are unfairly saddled with huge price tags year after year based solely on their location, the coalition said in a 2007 report estimating the financial burden illegal immigration posed to its member counties.

"The vast majority of border counties lack the capacity to absorb these costs," the document states. "They struggle to finance basic services as it is."

But almost since its inception the program has faced stiff challenges. Every year of his administration, former President George W. Bush proposed eliminating the program but was beat back by Congressional leaders who maintained the money was essential for their home communities.

The annual fight managed to whittle away at the money set aside each year. In 2008, Congress appropriated $400 million for the SCAAP program even though it was authorized to spend as much as $950 million.

Texas' border counties - which make up more than 64 percent of the United States' physical boundary with Mexico - received just under $1.5 million, or 0.3 percent of the overall funding allocated to the program.

Treviño's piece of that pie came out to $474,146 for the almost 2,000 illegal immigrants who spent more than three consecutive days in jail that year. He estimates the full costs for housing these men and women was closer to $1.4 million.

In justifying the proposed budget cut this year, the Obama administration suggested the money could "be better used to enhance federal enforcement efforts" to keep the criminal aliens out of the country in the first place.

But Treviño, like most border sheriffs, challenges that logic, arguing that the federal responsibility for illegal immigration doesn't stop at the border.

"When the dike broke during Hurricane Katrina, they didn't just seal it up and leave the floodwaters in New Orleans," he said. "What would that have accomplished?
"The federal government is still responsible for those illegal immigrants who are already here stealing from, killing and raping U.S. citizens."



http://www.themonitor.com/articles/sher ... ortly.html

Half bandages on a problem don't work. I would rather have my tax dollars going to help states deal with the local problems of illegal alien criminals (and I include anyone that came here without permission for a better life and to drop anchor babies.) Federal bailouts for all businesses "too large to fail" is nuts (thanks Paulson and GWB, and Obama). There is no reason for me to feel sorry for any of them when their mismanagement slowly screwed themselves in the Hades of greed, cheated billions out of innocents. Now those cheated, that have no jobs, are losing their homes and had the car they were going to live in repossessed will definitely go out and buy a new vehicle and get a new mortgage for a new home. I am so angry I could use the f-word, but I won't.

President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to eliminate the $400 million set aside for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and reallocate it to ongoing border security and immigration enforcement efforts.

Bait and Switch right here, folks! How do we know that money won't go to La Raza. Can we trust our President..provided that he is President?

Originally Posted by Rockfish

Can we trust our President..provided that he is President?

I'm not so narrow minded as that...I ask can we trust our government? I answer NO!

Texas has been begging for more money to combat illegal immigration and border violence. What do we get instead... we get hung out to dry.

Dixie

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