Getting Illegals To Pay the Bills
Faced with a budget crunch that forced him to lay off deputies, El Paso County CO Sheriff Terry Maketa has tapped a new source of revenue: illegal immigrants. Report from the Denver Post.
Maketa has started leasing space in his jail to house an average of 150 immigrants a night for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also sent 17 jail deputies for training in immigration procedures so they can initiate deportations without waiting for federal agents. ICE pays $62.40 a night for each detained immigrant, plus mileage for transport in sheriff’s vans. The arrangement pumped $3.6 million into El Paso County over the past year and now provides 10 percent of the jail’s budget.
But Maketa said the money is just one factor driving his broadening alliance with ICE. “I feel like we’re truly contributing to (solving) a national problem,” said Maketa, one of 67 law enforcement agency chiefs nationwide who have had deputies authorized to enforce federal immigration laws … Several Denver-area sheriffs — annoyed at delays in relying on a limited number of ICE agents to handle possible illegal immigrants in jails — say they’re considering sending deputies for federal ICE training. There’s support from taxpayers to take the next step” in immigration enforcement, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said …
On any given night, most jails in the Denver area and across Colorado hold suspected illegal immigrants. Under state law, jailors must notify ICE and, if ICE is interested and able, the agency places a hold on the inmate. If ICE agents fail to pick up the inmate within 48 hours, the inmate is released when local charges are resolved. But that raises public safety concerns and is not something the public wants, said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, who added that he, like other sheriffs, had previously been reluctant to take on an immigration role. “Everybody’s attitude was: ‘That’s the job of the federal government, and we’re not going to do it for them.’ Well, when the federal government isn’t doing their job, the sheriffs get frustrated and the citizens get frustrated,” Cooke said. “We’re going to do the right thing for the citizens of our counties.”
On a recent night in Maketa’s El Paso County jail, more than 200 immigrants from Mexico, Taiwan and elsewhere were incarcerated … [D]eputies immediately start federal deportation proceedings — and start billing ICE for the cost of housing those inmates. “When county budgets are decreasing, this is a revenue source,” detention bureau chief Paula Presley said …
Denver authorities oppose any increased collaboration with federal agents, beyond the notification all counties must make, under state law, when suspected illegal immigrants are jailed for crimes. “We don’t help out the IRS either,” said Bill Lovingier, Denver undersheriff and director of corrections. Enforcing the civil offense of being in the country illegally “is a federal responsibility. It’s a federal issue. If they want local help, they should provide us resources. We are already stretched.” The County Sheriffs of Colorado association remains “quite strongly against doing the feds’ work” on immigration, executive director Don Christensen said. “We feel we can’t get the support from the federal government that we should have. When we do find (illegal immigrants), they don’t come and get them. They fill up our jails and we have to turn them loose,” he said.
A great deal more information and background is available in the article at Denver Post.
CO El Paso County, Economic Issues, ICE, Immigration Issues / Illegal Aliens