Arizona Daily Sun
PHOENIX -- Federal officials began training a dozen state prison employees Tuesday to help process the deportation of criminals back to their home countries.
The agreement, the first of its kind in the nation, will have state workers doing the job that should be done by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But Roberto Medina, the agency's special agent in charge for Arizona, conceded he doesn't have the staff.
That has resulted in about 500 inmates who could be deported instead stuck in state prisons -- at a cost to Arizona taxpayers of $26,815 a day.
State Corrections Director Dora Schriro said once the 31/2 weeks of training is completed she hopes to get rid of that backlog. And Schriro said it also will ensure that others who become eligible for deportation are released as soon as possible, before they become a burden on the state.
There are about 4,200 inmates in state prisons, serving time for violating state laws, who are in this country illegally.
Arizona statutes permit these people who have not been convicted of murder, rape or other specified violent crimes to be released once they have served at least half of their sentence -- but only if they are immediately deported. But that can't happen until ICE agents certify that they are, in fact, here illegally.
Posted by Richard at September 22, 2005