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politics and politicians Title: Over 300 Sanctuary Cities Are Costing State and Local Taxpayers over $7,000,000,000 Annually President Trump this week signed an executive order declaring war on so-called sanctuary cities. Agencies within the United States Government will begin withholding federal grant funds from those cities, and additional actions to enforce federal immigration law will be taken soon. Unlike Obama, President Trump is not trying to making new laws by executive decree. In his Executive Order, the president is only reminding mayors and governors of existing federal law dating to 1996: 8 U.S. Code § 1373 – Communication between government agencies and the Immigration and Naturalization Service: Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual. How can we estimate those taxpayers costs? There is a wealth of data hidden in the annual reports on the federal State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) published by the US Department of Justice and each state department of corrections that chooses to apply for reimbursement grants under that program. Over 2,000 local county sheriffs also get federal reimbursement grants under that federal program. The taxpayer costs revealed by those annual reports are mind-boggling. States and local communities are being reimbursed at less than three cents on the dollar of the true costs for criminal alien incarceration, but politicians are hiding that fact from the nation’s taxpayers. In my home state of Colorado, the 2016 SCAAP report by the state Department of Corrections revealed that state prison system was holding 2,039 criminal aliens at a cost of $37,958 per inmate. That is a total cost of $77,396,362. The federal reimbursement grant was $2,077, 720. That is a grant of 2.7 cents for every dollar of actual cost. Those 2,039 criminal alien inmates were 14% of all state prison inmates: One in every seven felons in the state prison system is a criminal alien. What are the comparable numbers for your state? You can discover the SCAAP grant amounts for each state prison system and the local county jails applying for federal reimbursement at this website. The federal SCAAP grant program was established by Congress as an acknowledgment of federal responsibility for a failed border security and failed federal enforcement of immigration laws. But the appropriated amount for reimbursing local communities their incarceration costs through SCAAP grants has NEVER been adequate for full cost reimbursement. In 2016, the federal reimbursement program was given a paltry $189 million. Yet, the fact that local governments hide these cost figures is symptomatic of the deeper problem. Too many local officials want all the political benefits of claiming to be the protector of “our immigrant community” while hiding the costs of protecting criminal aliens. Does your local sheriff publish the incarceration costs for criminal alien inmates in your local jail. Does he ever acknowledge the number of criminal aliens released from jail annually who are NOT turned over to federal immigration authorities because of local sanctuary policies? Does anyone on your local city council ever ask those questions? Some local politicians also use a phony “states rights” argument for resisting federal enforcement of immigration law. This is a phony argument because there is a long string of Supreme Court decisions, most recently the 2012 Arizona v. United States ruling by Justice Kennedy, saying that the Constitution in Article VI gives the federal government preemptive authority over immigration law. States cannot “opt-out’ of federal immigration law, and neither can cities or counties– or universities or private religious organizations. While public attention has been focused on the non-enforcement policies of the Obama administration, the truth is, even without official sanctuary policies established by mayors of local government, too many local sheriffs and police chiefs have been hiding behind an alleged “fear of liability” in not honoring the Detainer requests made by federal law enforcement, namely the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency– known as ICE. Citizens should hold local officials accountable when they refuse to obey the law. The Trump administration is making it clear that federal sanctions will be imposed — including the withholding of federal funds — from cities which want to disobey the law. But local citizens need not remain silent in this battle. Editor’s note: This article has been updated to note the figure for the cost to Colorado is $37,958 rather than $27,958. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
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