Georgia taxpayers would have to bear more of the costs of jailing illegal immigrants under President Barack Obama’s proposal to sharply cut a federal program that partially reimburses states and counties for those expenses.
Over the past three years, Georgia’s state prison system and local jails together have received about $10 million from the federal program for incarcerating thousands of illegal immigrants, according to public records obtained under the state’s Open Records Act.
The Obama administration is proposing to cut $170 million from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program as part of the federal budget for next fiscal year, shrinking it to $70 million. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the president’s spending plan would increase funding for other important programs, including one that helps pay for new local police officers.
Still, jailers in Georgia are concerned. They said the reimbursement money doesn’t cover all their costs to hold illegal immigrants but has helped them pay for crucial items: deputy salaries, jail maintenance and rehabilitation programs for inmates. Meanwhile, a battle over the funding is brewing in Congress.
States and counties can become eligible for the money by incarcerating illegal immigrants -- who have at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions -- for at least four consecutive days.
Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren criticized Obama’s spending blueprint, saying it would “further shift the cost and consequences of illegal immigration to state and local governments.” His county received the fourth-largest amount of funding from the program in Georgia last year at $140,143, public records show.
"It is certainly not unexpected that this administration will once again walk away from the consequences of its lackluster approach to immigration enforcement and the very real costs to state and local governments both in terms of housing offenders and dealing with the aftermath of their crimes,” Warren said in a prepared statement.
Obama's supporters point out his administration has deported a record number of illegal immigrants and other noncitizens. Last fiscal year, that number was 396,906, the largest number removed in the history of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency responsible for deportations.
A Justice Department official highlighted how the president’s budget would increase spending on other programs, including the Community Oriented Policing Services hiring program, which would get a $91.1 billion boost.
“The proposed level for [fiscal year] 2013 will allow the Department of Justice to maintain adequate funding levels for some of its highest priority programs,” Justice Department spokeswoman Adora Andy said.
Funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program has dropped substantially over the past several years, from $393.8 million in 2009 to $272.2 million last year. Obama is not the first president to take aim at the program. President George W. Bush, for example, proposed eliminating it altogether when he was president.
Meanwhile, a fight is already under way in Congress to hike funding for the program. U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and John McCain, R-Arizona, have joined several other senators from border states and New York in introducing legislation that would increase the program’s funding to $950 million a year. That bill is stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Several Georgia lawmakers are also taking issue with Obama’s spending plan. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson expressed concern, though he said he also is worried about the federal deficit. He said he would consult Georgia sheriffs about the issue.
“This is not a place I would be cutting, but it may not be a place you could be adding [to] given the significance of deficit spending,” the Republican senator said.
The state’s prison system received the most funding in Georgia from the federal reimbursement program last fiscal year at $1.6 million after reporting it held more than 2,500 noncitizens in fiscal year 2010. That represents about 4 percent of the state’s prison population as of Feb. 1.
Victorino Fitz is among those inmates. An illegal immigrant from Mexico, Fitz was the ringleader in the so-called “garbage bag” murders of 1998. A Fulton County Superior Court jury found him guilty of murder and other crimes the following year. He received two life sentences plus 15 years to be served consecutively.
Prosecutors claimed Fitz ordered fellow gang members to kill three men. In March 1998, two bodies stuffed in garbage bags were found, one in a creek in Vinings and the other by the Chattahoochee River. A Polaroid picture of Fitz was tucked under one of the bodies. A third body was found near a pool at an apartment complex next to Fitz's home. Police said the deaths may have been part of a turf war to control drug trade in the Atlanta area.
Fitz’s defense attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Joseph Rosen, who teaches immigration law at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, said he is concerned the federal reimbursement program could encourage jailers to hold illegal immigrants -- who are facing deportation -- longer than necessary.
“To a degree, it is an incentive to the state,” said Rosen, a local immigration attorney and a former FBI agent. “The longer they are in state prison, the more reimbursement they get from the federal government.”
Some immigration watchdogs say that -- in order to serve justice -- illegal immigrants should remain behind bars until they have completed the sentences for the crimes they have committed in the United States.
For years, Georgia has paroled inmates facing deportation. The state has saved more than $101 million by participating in a federal program that allows states to parole inmates who have been convicted of nonviolent offenses and who agree to voluntarily return to their home countries. There is no guarantee, however, that all the inmates targeted for deportation will be expelled.
DeKalb County has historically received the most money of any Georgia county from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Last fiscal year, for example, DeKalb got $246,793.
DeKalb Sheriff Thomas Brown said he has used the money to pay for employee salaries and prevent furloughs amid a county funding gap last year, replace doors in the county jail and pay for rehabilitation programs for inmates to prevent recidivism. While Brown indicated the federal program is a significant source of funding for his jail, he said he was not too concerned about it yet since it is early in the congressional budget process.
“It was not unusual under the [George W.] Bush administration, for example, to be having the same kind of conversation,” he said. “We don’t have a red flag up -- if that is what the Obama administration is wanting to do -- because we are not far enough along yet to feel that the funds are in jeopardy totally because of that.”
Federal funding
The federal government reimburses state prison systems and local jails for holding illegal immigrants behind bars through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Last fiscal year, the government distributed $272.2 million from that program, down from $324 million the year before. Here are the top five state recipients of that money -- plus Georgia -- for fiscal year 2010:
1. California, $128,912,402
2. New York, $37,297,688
3. Texas, $26,402,509
4. Florida, $19,155,352
5. Arizona, $14,471,035
17. Georgia, $3,267,983
Estimates of illegal immigrants as of 2010
California, 2,550,000
Texas, 1,650,000
Florida, 825,000
New York, 625,000
Georgia, 425,000
Arizona, 400,000
Here is how much the state and some of its communities received through the federal program in fiscal year 2011:
*Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, $1.6 million
DeKalb County, $246,793
Gwinnett County, $190,963
Cobb County, $140,143
Clayton County, $84,008
Cherokee County, $78,122
City of Roswell, $68,514
Forsyth County, $25,057
Fulton County, $7,939
* Applied for the funding on behalf of the Georgia Department of Corrections
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, Pew Hispanic Center
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