Time to play hardball with feds over illegal immigrants in prison

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Time to play hardball with feds over illegal immigrants in prison

Y'know how Washington likes to tell us that immigration is a federal prerogative? Good. Let's hold them to it and demand they take all the illegal immigrants in our state prisons off our hands and into their custody.
Prison overcrowding has been a volatile issue in California for decades. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the judicial order to slash California's prison population by as many as 45,000 inmates over the next two years. At issue is that overcrowding has led to unconstitutional conditions regarding medical care. A decision is expected in early 2011.
We have 19,000 illegal immigrants in California prisons and we spend nearly a billion dollars a year to keep them there. If we could deport these undocumented inmates, we'd have nowhere near the problem we have today. We'd relieve some of the overcrowding; we'd have an extra billion dollars that we might actually redirect toward improving the prison health care facilities; and, we'd relieve the Supreme Court of a dilemma with which they need not be burdened.
The high court's concern is whether releasing 45,000 inmates will threaten public safety. But they're duty-bound to uphold the Constitution, which makes clear that you cannot house people in inhumane conditions and without fundamental medical care.
This isn't about sympathy for convicted felons. The truth is, many of their civil rights are as active in prison as ours are outside it. In providing custodial care for those under lock and key, we must meet certain standards. They are federally mandated and you cannot run afoul of the constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. Certainly, the Supreme Court will not. So fundamental is that tenet that this case shouldn't even be before the Supreme Court.
It's been an open secret in California for years that the medical care in state prisons has been deplorable, which is why a federal court judge placed the state correctional medical care system under the court's supervision, and ordered it to improve medical care in the state prisons.
Needless to say, at a time when the state's economic circumstances are dire, this irritates many California taxpayers. The federal courts are telling us we have to spend X amount of money to provide medical care while we can't find enough money to run the school system, or care for the elderly, or maintain our roads, bridges and levees.
But we have an option: the 19,000 state prison inmates who are in this country illegally. If the federal government insists that states cannot arbitrate or legislate on matters of immigration because immigration is a federal prerogative, fine – let them do it. We've got 19,000 federal prerogatives they can take off our hands. They keep telling us not to meddle in their territory, yet they're an absentee landlord. So either they take custody of these individuals, or they pay the state the freight it's costing Californians to do it for them.
According to the California Department of Finance, we've spent $970.3 million on undocumented inmates for the 2009-10 fiscal year, but the state has received only $96 million in federal assistance.
That's a bad deal on top of a bad idea that we California taxpayers should spend our money on their problem, especially when there's not enough money to go around.
If it were up to me, I'd notify the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that 30 days from now, the governor will sign an executive order to start releasing illegal immigrants in our state prisons into the custody of the federal government. I'd Con-Airlift them, once a week, to the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., until someone at the federal level finally steps up and takes responsibility for what is legally their criminal jurisdiction.
I'm one taxpaying resident who is very happy to ask the chief executive who represents me to please, use your power to turn these folks over to the feds.
I don't care what the federal government does with them. Not my jurisdiction. Since they're all convicted of a felony, they're all subject to deportation, so you don't even need to have a hearing, let alone keep them locked up in some federal facility. Deport them. Or lock them up in the federal pen.
Meanwhile, we'll assume the feds will do their duty in policing our borders to ensure that those who are deported do not return.
It's time the state of California played hardball with the federal government the way the federal government consistently and successfully plays hardball with us or any other state struggling to deal with a problem the federal government continues to ignore.


Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/14/325...#ixzz187CErDAM