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Jewish World Review Sept. 1, 2009 / 1 Elul 5769 Illegal Aliens Now in Federal and State Prisons and Municipal Jails Should Be Deported To Their Countries of Origin Immediately By Ed Koch
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I have a proposal which I hope the Obama administration will
consider and implement.
Immediately, or as soon as possible, the United States should
deport all illegal aliens who are now in our federal and state prisons,
and in our municipal jails, to their countries of origin.
In 2005, the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on the number of
illegal aliens incarcerated in the United States. The report stated,
"They were arrested for a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses,
averaging about 13 offenses per illegal alien. One arrest incident may
include multiple offenses, a fact that explains why there are nearly one
and half times more offenses than arrests.
Almost all of these illegal
aliens were arrested for more than 1 offense. Slightly more than half
of the 55,322 illegal aliens had between 2 and 10 offenses. About 45
percent of all offenses were drug or immigration offenses. About 15
percent were property-related offenses such as burglary, larceny-theft,
motor vehicle theft and property damage. About 12 percent were for
violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related
crimes. The balance was for such other offenses as traffic violations,
including driving under the influence; fraud - including forgery and
counterfeiting; weapons violations; and obstruction of justice. Eighty
percent of all arrests occurred in three states - California, Texas and
Arizona. Specifically, about 58 percent of all arrests occurred in
California, 14 percent in Texas, and 8 percent in Arizona."
The GAO reported that the number of convicted criminal aliens
incarcerated in federal prison on December 27, 2003 was 46,063 and the
number incarcerated in state prisons and local jails was 262,105.
According to the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform,
"Today, criminal aliens account for about 30 percent of the inmates in
federal prisons and 15-25 percent in many local jails. Incarceration
costs to the taxpayers were estimated by the Justice Department in 2002
to be $891 million for federal prison inmates and $624 million for
inmates in state prisons [annually]." Every year, about 600,000 of
those incarcerated, not limited to illegal aliens, are released and
within three years, two-thirds become recidivists and are back in
prison.
My proposal would make many of these people the problems of
their countries of origin. Those countries would be given the authority
to put whomever was turned over to them back in prison or fine them or
place them on probation or otherwise free them. Since many of these
people are drug offenders, and Mexico and several other Latin American
countries have changed their laws and decriminalized the personal use
and possession of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, many of those
turned over to them who received harsh Rockefeller drug laws sentences
of four to 16 years may qualify in Mexico and elsewhere for instant
release.
Why should we care?
In the Netherlands, they legally sell
marijuana in coffee shops. Each country today makes its own rules,
irrespective of international treaties governing the issue. Our
approach to controlling drug use is certainly not a phenomenal success
that would allow us to lecture the rest of the world on how to control
substance abuse.
Of course, a determination would have to be made on not
releasing those who were convicted of acts of terror against the United
States, who remain a danger to us. Even there we have released to
friendly countries those we considered terrorists and seen them released
in their own country, rather than serving out their prison terms in
their country of origin.
Of course, there would need to be special U.S.
courts provided where applications could be heard from those believing
that they should not be expelled because of special circumstances and
mitigating factors such as family, particularly American-born children
and American spouses in the U.S.
There should be provision for hearings
and right of appeal to a federal circuit court. I suggest the rules of
evidence be softened so as to allow hearsay evidence to make it easier
for the individual being expelled to their own country to make their
case for the application of compassion or simply to correct facts.
If it is possible to do this by administrative action and as
quickly as possible, I would hope President Obama would take that
course. If it is not solely within his power, then the President should
ask the Congress to provide him with the powers needed.
The State of California has been ordered by a federal circuit
court to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates within two
years. If it does not, California may face the situation when it will
be forbidden by federal court order from imprisoning any new persons
until it has reduced its prison population by that number. We know that
California has just seen a prison riot which injured hundreds of inmates
- mostly by the acts of other inmates - and attributed by many
commentators to overcrowding and racism exhibited by the inmates towards
one another.
If the Congress cannot by law place the state prison
systems into this program, then allow states the option of
participating.
Perhaps there are states who will not want to participate and
would prefer keeping the illegal aliens in their state prisons and
jails, ultimately to be freed and allowed to return to society, but I
doubt it. I don't expect to see those who believe in the concept of
open borders join me in supporting this proposal. Those who believe
that illegal aliens are simply migrants with the right to come and go
across borders as they choose and those who are opposed to our building
a security fence on our borders to help control those borders and those
who believe the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano is
currently too harsh in arresting illegal aliens in their workplaces,
will oppose those proposals as well.
Nevertheless, I believe the proposal is reasonable and
practical. Why didn't people think of it a long time ago? They
probably did and the country wasn't ready for it. Today, we are.
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JWR contributor Edward I. Koch, the former mayor of New York, can be heard on Bloomberg Radio (WBBR 1130 AM) every Sunday from 9-10 am . Comment by clicking here.
© 2009, Ed Koch |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
