Federal immigration authorities are targeting 1,256 state prisoners convicted of murder, rape and other offenses for possible deportation, documents obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act show.
The strain illegal immigrants are placing on Georgia’s prisons and other taxpayer-funded resources is at the center of the debate over the state’s tough new immigration law.
Georgia doesn't track the immigration status of inmates, so the number of illegal immigrants that are in Georgia prisons is not known. State officials, however, do track those who could face deportation once they are released from prison. That number, which includes both legal and illegal immigrants, was 1,256 this month. And they include a wide range of criminals, including robbers, child molesters and drug dealers, state records show.
Federal immigration officials have issued detainers for these inmates. The detainers ask state officials to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before these prisoners are released and to hold them for up to 48 more hours. That will give ICE time to possibly take them into custody and seek to deport them.
On average, it costs $50.17 to hold each inmate per day in a Georgia prison, including state and federal taxpayer dollars, prisoner fees and other funding sources, public records show. Using that figure, it costs $22.9 million to imprison 1,256 people annually in Georgia.
Georgia lawmakers expressed concerns about such costs when they enacted House Bill 87, a tough new immigration enforcement statute partly patterned after the groundbreaking one Arizona enacted last year. The law seeks to deter illegal immigrants from coming to Georgia by punishing people who transport or harbor them and by blocking their access to jobs and public benefits. Parts of the law are now tied up in federal courts amid legal challenges brought by a coalition of civil and immigration rights groups.
Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and other supporters of HB 87 have hailed it as a victory for taxpayers who have borne the cost of illegal immigration in Georgia. Critics say the measure is divisive and unconstitutional, arguing it intrudes on the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration.
Parts of the law went into effect this year amid efforts to overhaul the state’s criminal justice system, which spends about $1 billion a year locking up criminals. Georgia’s prison beds are now full, forcing the state to house 2,786 inmates in county jails, according to the Georgia Corrections Department. Georgia’s Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform is expected to offer recommendations to the governor and lawmakers by Nov. 1.
The author of HB 87 – Republican state Rep. Matt Ramsey of Peachtree City – said the number of ICE detainers now pending for Georgia inmates reflects only part of the problem targeted by the law.
“You have more illegal aliens who are committing crimes and who are cycling in and out of our prisons that don’t have detainers and deportation orders issued on them by the federal government,” he said.
The 1,256 inmates who are the target of immigration detainers in Georgia represent 2 percent of the state’s 55,092 prisoners. In contrast, foreign-born residents make up 9 percent of Georgia’s population, Census records show.
Charles Kuck, a local immigration attorney who is fighting in federal court to block parts of HB 87, said those statistics are consistent with studies showing crimes by immigrants "are far below their percentage in the community. More importantly, it shows again that Georgians have been mislead by our politicians when they passed HB 87. It would be nice that in the future the politicians actually looked at facts rather than hyperbole before acting on anti-immigrant legislation."
In 2008, Georgia joined a federal program that grants parole to noncitizen inmates who are eligible for it, who have been convicted of non-violent offenses and who agree to voluntarily return to their home countries and not return to the United States. Georgia had a similar program in place before then. Between fiscal years 2007 and 2010, 1,157 state inmates with ICE detainers were paroled through such efforts, saving $101 million, according to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. A spokesman for that agency said some offenses carry mandatory minimum sentences that must be served by law before inmates convicted of those offenses can be considered for parole.
“All inmates including those with ICE detainers are considered [for parole] when eligible,” the spokesman said in an email Thursday.
There is no guarantee all of these inmates who could be deported will be expelled. Citing limited resources, ICE officials say they are focusing on deporting violent criminals and those who pose national security threats, or what they call the “worst of the worst.” So it is possible ICE may decide not to pursue some of these inmates after they are released from state prisons.
“It’s a world of limited resources,” said ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett. “We look at who is in the jails at the time and what is the money, the bed space, the resources that we have and where can we make the greatest impact.”
State records also show the prisoners who are the focus of ICE detainers are among more than 2,500 inmates who claim to have been born in or are citizens of other countries, including some in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
Most -– 1,319 –- were born in or are citizens of Mexico. Bautista Ramirez is one of them. An illegal immigrant, he was convicted of murdering a Doraville police officer in 2000. In a trial in 2003, Ramirez admitted shooting Officer Hugo Arango in a nightclub parking lot. Ramirez said he was acting in self defense and that Arango was acting abusively toward him.
Now 33, Ramirez is serving a life prison term, though he is eligible for parole starting in 2014. ICE has sent the state Corrections Department a detainer, seeking to be notified in advance in case Ramirez is to be released, state records show. An ICE spokeswoman said her agency would seek to deport Ramirez if he is ever released from prison, calling him a “high priority removal.”
Thomas M. West, who served as Ramirez’ criminal defense attorney, predicted Ramirez would agree to be deported in exchange for parole.
“I would think that if he had a choice between living in his home country free or being in prison here in Georgia,” West said, “he would choose being in Mexico.”
State prisoners claiming birth or citizenship in another country
Federal immigration authorities have issued detainers for 1,256 Georgia inmates, asking the state to notify them before they are released so they may possibly take them into custody and seek to deport them. These inmates are among more than 2,500 state prisoners who claim to have been born in or are citizens of other countries. Here’s where most of them claim they were born or hold citizenship:
Source: Georgia Department of Corrections.
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