Sheriff wants $700K for jailing illegal immigrants (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Sheriff wants $700K for jailing illegal immigrants

By ANDRIA SIMMONS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/24/08

Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway says his office is entitled to $694,839 in reimbursements from the federal government to cover the climbing cost of jailing illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes.

He has filed for reimbursement through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program to cover expenditures from July 2006 through last June. SCAAP is a federally-funded program designed to help local law enforcement agencies recoup officer salary costs associated with housing undocumented criminal aliens.

"We will aggressively seek reimbursement in any area that we are entitled to receive it," Conway said. "While we may not receive the entire amount we are seeking due to the fixed level of program funding, it is what we should receive under the program guidelines."

The federal government pays $30.30 a day per inmate, but the inmate must have at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions and must have been incarcerated at least four consecutive days.

Jail officials cannot say for certain how many of their inmates are undocumented residents, but they do track foreign-born nationals. As of this week, the number of foreign-born nationals booked into the jail since January stood at 3,802. That's an increase of 317 over the same time period last year.

Last year, the state and 23 of its counties were awarded $2.85 million under the SCAAP program. Some critics, including local officials, complain that SCAAP covers, at most, only 25 percent of the costs of housing inmates who aren't authorized to be in the country.

Gwinnett received only $30,240 after requesting $133,000 for expenses from July 2005 to June 2006— just 22.7 percent of what officials had hoped to receive. If Uncle Sam's reimbursement rate holds, Gwinnett would receive less than $160,000 of the almost $700,000 requested.

Prior to last year, Gwinnett had not applied for any reimbursement under the program since 1999.

That was the year the U.S. Department of Justice tightened regulations to include the rule that inmates must have been convicted of two misdemeanors or one felony. Lt. Col. Don Pinkard, who took over as jail commander last year, said that his predecessor, Lt. Col. Gary Lancaster, stopped applying after the new rules took effect.

Lancaster said Thursday it was taking too long to compile the information needed to meet the federal goverment's qualifications at the time, given the likelihood of a low return. At that time, the jail computer system was not set up to track foreign-born residents, which would have meant combing through jail records by hand to identify them, Lancaster said.

"We evaluated it and it just didn't seem like it was worth the investment of manpower," Lancaster said.

When Pinkard took over leadership of the jail, however, he began filing for the reimbursements again.

Immigration is a hot political issue in Gwinnett. The Gwinnett County Commission this month agreed to fund a program to screen all jail inmates for immigration violations. Supporters say the program, known as 287(g), could result in the deportation of thousands of undocumented immigrants from Gwinnett County.

As part of the new enforcement effort, deputies working under Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers will interview inmates and check federal databases for information about them. Inmates suspected of being here illegally will be held until ICE officials can pick them up. The final decision to deport will be up to federal authorities.