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Justice Dept. Figures on Incarcerated Illegals
One of the more popular claims by illegal immigration proponents
is that those who enter the U.S. by breaking the law are invariably
"hard-working" and "law-abiding" once they get here.
That argument, however, has one major flaw. According to Justice
Department statistics and the analysis of immigration experts, the
"law-abiding" claim often isn't true.
As Investors Business Daily reported in March 2005:
"The U.S. Justice Department estimated that 270,000 illegal
immigrants served jail time nationally in 2003. Of those, 108,000
were in California. Some estimates show illegals now make up half
of California's prison population, creating a massive criminal
subculture that strains state budgets and creates a nightmare
for local police forces."
Citing an Urban Institute study, director of research for the Center
for Immigration Studies Steven Camorata noted in 2004: "Roughly
17 percent of the prison population at the federal level are illegal
aliens. That's a huge number since illegal aliens only account for
about 3 percent of the total population."
Former California Gov. Pete Wilson places the percentage of illegal
aliens in U.S. prisons even higher. In 2001, he told Fox News
Channel's Bill O'Reilly:
"We had problems related to the costs of educating children who
were acknowledged to be in the country illegally, healthcare costs. One
in five in our prison population were illegal immigrants who had been
convicted of a felony after entering the country illegally."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform also turned to
the Justice Department to get statistics on criminal aliens. They
report:
"In March 2000, Congress made public Department of Justice statistics
showing that, over the previous five years, the INS had released over
35,000 criminal aliens instead of deporting them. Over 11,000 of those
released went on to commit serious crimes, over 1,800 of which were
violent ones [including 98 homicides, 142 sexual assaults, and 44
kidnappings].
"In 2001, thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court, the INS was
forced to release into our society over 3,000 criminal aliens [who
collectively had been convicted of 125 homicides, 387 sex offenses, and
772 assault charges]."
Up to a third of the U.S. federal prison population is composed of
non-citizens, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics - but
not all non-citizen prison inmates are illegal aliens.
As to the "hard-working" claim, CIS notes: "The proportion of
immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare
program is 24.5 percent compared to 16.3 percent for native
households."
Investor's Business Daily concurs: "Once [illegals] get here, they
are 50 percent more likely to be on welfare than citizens."
