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October 31, 2005

One Approach To Addressing Illegal Alien Affairs

In view of the government's apparent determination not to guard our borders against illegal aliens nor enforce very many statutes regarding their deportation, it seems one Law Enforcement official has found a way to recoup the expenses of picking up Uncle Sam's slack, and I'm behind him 100%.

Sheriff bills Immigration $71K for 'illegals' in jail HAMILTON — The federal government will soon receive the first of several hefty bills from Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones for the housing of suspected illegal aliens in the county jail.

Following through on a threat made last week, Jones on Wednesday mailed a bill totaling $71,610 to the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the cost of housing 15 “undocumented” people, some of whom have been in the jail since June.

Last week, Jones, County Commissioner Michael Fox and state Rep. Courtney Combs announced a multi-tiered initiative to eliminate illegal aliens living in the county and throughout the state.

Among the initiatives was the implementation, on Monday, of a new booking process to include the signing of declarations of citizenship by jail inmates.

Those in jail for misdemeanor offenses who falsify their information, or are found to be illegal aliens, will be reported to ICE — the enforcement arm of the Federal Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services — for possible immediate deportation.

Those who are jailed for a felony offense, will first stand trial for their crimes and then face possible deportation.

To force the issue, Jones is billing the federal government $70 a day for every illegal alien housed at the jail — $10 above the average daily cost of housing an inmate.

In sending the first bill to ICE, which represents 1,023 billable days of housing illegal aliens, Jones said he’s hoping other sheriff’s offices throughout the country start following suit.

“We want to put extreme pressure on ICE to do its job with regard to illegal aliens,” Jones said. “This isn’t just a local issue. This is a national problem.”

While Jones acknowledged that ICE is not under obligation to pay the bill, he said his next step will be to load the questionable inmates into buses and deliver them to immigration offices in Cincinnati.

“Why should Butler County taxpayers have to pay for jail costs associated with people we don’t believe should ever have been in this country, let alone this state or county?” Jones said.

“These prisoners appear to be undocumented, in that they have no Social Security numbers,” Jones said. “They are in my jail because they have committed crimes here. It’s time the federal government should at least pay for the criminals they let stay here. If they don’t want to pay for them, then they can deport them.”

A message left with Greg Palmore, of the ICE Regional Office in Detroit, was not returned Wednesday.

Since announcing the local initiative last week, Jones said he has been inundated with e-mails and telephone calls, mostly from people expressing support for the measures.

Jones has also sent letters to sheriffs in Ohio’s 87 other counties urging them to implement similar measures in their jails.

“If ICE is having so much trouble locating illegal aliens, heck, I’ll help them out — I’ll send them 20 a day from our county jail,” Jones said.

Meanwhile, Combs is drafting new state legislation that will make it a state offense for illegal aliens to cross over Ohio’s borders and Fox is working on initiatives to discourage employers from hiring illegal aliens.

Contact Mary Lolli at (513) 820-2192, or e-mail her at mlolli@coxohio.com.

Please bear in mind that I'm a limited government, states' rights kind of guy, to the max. Certain issues belong to the Fed, others are the property of the private sector.

Border/frontier security issues are the property of the federal government. They have a job to do that they are not doing. The only thing that will fix that will be an onslaught of email from the general public to the human weevils that ultimately decide what makes it into the newspapers and on to TV news programs.

My source for the article posted above is the website produced by Tom Tancredo and Bay Buchanan, from the headquarters of Team America.

These are an issue and an organization we, as Americans, need to support.

Posted by Seth at October 31, 2005 06:17 AM